I attended last night’s Swans concert at Respectable Street with a couple of expectations, one of which turned out not to be true: The band did not shut off the A/C before its set, which probably made many of us in the audience quite happy. The other expectation, however, was truer than I could foresee (or forehear): This band is loud. Like, 100 decibels loud. The most telling tweet of the night came from a girl in front of me, texting with one hand while plugging her ear with another: “Holy shit. No earplugs = insane. #swans.” And that was only in the overture, when just a couple of band members had
taken the stage.
Swans play a punishing sort of loudness that, indeed, is most safely enjoyed with the proper protection. Earplugs were a necessity last night, even if they tended to overemphasize the bass; you got a richer sound without them, at the risk of your otic health.
At around 11 p.m., the band slowly took the stage, one by one, building toward a full-band crescendo on “No Words/No Thoughts,” the first track on its 2010 comeback album, “My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky.” The haunting live version clocked in at around 20 minutes, more than twice as long as the album cut. Like the otherwise dissimilar jam-band noodlings of the Grateful Dead, Swans’ studio recordings sound like mere foundation for the sonic architecture that sprouts up when they perform, as they discover all sorts of hidden aural rooms.
The band’s further experimentation on already experimental music reminded me that, for one of the loudest and heaviest acts on the planet, Swans are also one of the most technical and precise, bringing with them an intellectual understanding of color, texture and dynamics. Despite the brutal shards of guitar, gunshot-like snare blasts (from two drum kits!) and tortured vocal wailings, one is tempted to compare Swans to neoclassical music, particularly when it comes to Philip Glass-like repetition of a theme: Swans can play the same notes ad nauseum for minutes on end and make them sound utterly compelling. Frontman Michael Gira even acts like a conductor part of the time, his bandmates’ music swelling from his fingertips.
Then again, Gira may just be outstretching his arms to simulate Christ on the cross, the Bible being a source of influence in much of Swans’ lyrical oeuvre. Other reviews of Swans shows have compared the experience of seeing them to a sort of religious or spiritual epiphany. As a devout nonbeliever, it takes more than a mesmerizing concert to convert me, but I get where they’re coming from. For the players themselves, a religious connotation was unavoidable. Half the time, the band members appeared to be davening as they performed their parts, rapturously swaying with orthodox intensity. Gira appeared possessed part of the time; the music was controlling him, not the other way around. Later, whether jumping with abandon, jerking about the stage or flailing his arms uncontrollably, Gira looked like he was exorcising demons through the conduit of song.
If I have one complaint about last night, it was the lack of breadth in the set list. There were only about six songs total; three of them were from the new album, and a couple were unreleased/live-only tracks. I noticed just one cut – the brutal “I Crawled,” from an early compilation – taken from some 28 years of music-making leading up to 2010. Fans shouted their requests for long shots like “Holy Money” and “Cop,” which would have been terrific to hear.
Still, this was a phenomenal, breathtaking, transfixing and transportive show; the hours went by like minutes (my friend Paul, who snapped the photo above, compared the experience to an opiate). Since I never got to see Swans in their last Florida appearance in 1997, this was likely a once-in-a-lifetime event. I thank my cochlea for handling the pressure.
