How many crescendos can you take in one evening?
Quite a lot, as it turns out. When Godspeed You! Black Emperor got into the last crescendo of the night, that of "The Sad Mafioso", I had a strong feeling that I could take on the devil. Drained both physically and emotionally, I suddenly realised that I was getting locked into some endless loop together with the band and the audience (a loop as haunting and breathtaking as the one that ends the vinyl version of their debut). It was a great feeling. It was, too, all you ever wanted from a live concert.
And "The Sad Mafioso" was not even the last performance of the night. Miraculously, GY!BE did something they almost never do. They performed a song as an encore: "Moya", the side-long classic from their Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada EP. Another crescendo, then, and I distinctly remember breathing out, heavily, at the very end. My stomach was cramped and too much tension had stuffed my chest.
That the concert of Godspeed You! Black Emperor in the Warsaw club Progresja ended up being one of the three or four best in my life was hardly shocking. The Canadian band is known for the intense grandiosity of their live performances. Unsurprisingly, it was every bit as good as I had hoped it would be. Efrim Menuck and the rest (GY!BE are an eight-piece live, including no less than two drummers) built it all up, again and again, the songs smouldered and evolved, and by the end of it a young guy in front of me was contorting ecstatically on the floor.
Basically, what you get from them in concert is their studio recordings - albeit expanded and amplified. Live, you are able to inhabit them, not just listen. You see them mine noise from beauty and beauty from noise. You can see Sophie Trudeau doing endless bow-runs on her violin. You can smell the fucking chords. It is aural bliss. Visual, too, as each piece is accompanied by a huge screen with obscure, jittery projections of flowers blooming, buildings burning and an old man dancing. There is also, at the very beginning, the word "hope" as they slowly but intently get you into the right kind of mood with the eerily beautiful warm-up drone.
Last night, they did a piece each from Lift Your Skinny Fists, F♯ A♯ ∞, G_d's Pee at State's End! and Slow Riot. They also did three new songs from the upcoming album (still unannounced). And it all went for more than two exhausting hours, which is something I cannot quite explain. What is it about the Polish audience that makes Nick Cave play "The Weeping Song" for the first and only time during a tour? That makes GY!BE play for 30+ minutes longer in Warsaw than they did the previous night in Vilnius? And do an encore, too, a thing almost unheard of during their concerts? That said, there may have been a hint dropped during "The Sad Mafioso" when, totally unexpectedly, Polish audience started to sing along to an especially haunting section of the song. I guess this could not go unnoticed.
I have always believed that great art happens when everything else ceases to matter - all you are left with is a canvas, or a melody. Which is what happened last night, while Godspeed You! were playing in Warsaw. The world died, and all that mattered was this particular live performance. The world died, and it was like you were inhabiting the words that famously start F♯ A♯ ∞: "The car is on fire, and there is no driver at the wheel...". And what a sweet death that is.