My girl and I enter to a quaint Devendra Banhart squeaking out Spanish licks and gently plucking strings for a shoulder-to-shoulder, swaying crowd half-repeating the song. He stops, casually speaks his mind to the crowd following meaning to the song just sung, which I hate, but whatever, and provides basis for the next that has seamlessly started playing. With charm and politeness, he croons through seven or eight more songs. Just he and his guitar. I typically have no patience for this kinda stuff, but he convinced me through heckling humor or nostalgia. Maybe it was nostalgia. And he’s funny, and he cuts, and he thanks Swans deeply, and we wait for 45 minutes, as it takes him five to exit the stage and 40 for Swans to dawn it.
Once the Swans flood onto the stage, their introduction is exactly the wall of sound you expect, and my girl is standing 3 feet back with a smile. And as it builds through drums, slide guitar, staggering bass, harsh guitar notes, random persecution, bow-noise, and cries/chants, I realize the whole stage is openly microphone’d. I found this out during the hushed moments as Michael Gira softly (yet through the speakers clearly) directs and perfects the sound emulsion. And this is how the entire two-and-a-half hours proceed: an entirely pleasure-driven live set centering his idea of what Brooklyn sounded like via Swans. Oh, shit that’s terribly bland. I’m saying the carefully crafted egotistical measure that Gira brings to noise and sounds and Swans, including the irresistibly flagrant takeover of marketability in the Brooklyn area (see: Girls), provided a crushing experience both for the drabness of passerbyers in the area, and those forced to this location by Swans fan-dom. The blend was a beautiful awakening for the all-encompassing, endearingly prophetic in might and will and visual thought.
