bl!
bright light ! gigs

mogwai @ theatre of living arts, philadelphia, pa, usa 03/09/1999


set list


thanks pete

  • superheroes of bmx
  • small children in the background
  • helicon 2
  • xmas steps
  • waltz for aidan
  • helicon 1
  • kappa
  • like herod

    with godspeed you black emperor! and ganger


    misc. info

    seems the band's tour-bus got a bit banged up in new york, so they ran late for this philadelphia gig at the theater of the living arts. the show was supposed to start at 20:00 but it was delayed until about 23:00.

    they were featured in the philadelphia enquirer's weekend edition, and given rave reviews.

    thanks ted maclean.


    reviews/comments

    from pete:

    it took nearly an hour to set up the stage for mogwai. plenty of teething troubles with the mix and one or two dead channels. but it was worth the wait. this was an excellent set. though i thought the dc version of "superheroes of bmx" was better, the rest of the show was superior. in particular, "helicon 2", "helicon 1" and "waltz for aidan". the latter is such a great track live. it held most of the audience spellbound. afterwards, stuart told off those yakking at the bar.

    "like herod" was a stunning finale. the soft-loud contrast was at full extreme. more than anything else this is a song that will solidify mogwai's us following. one of the godspeed percussionists joined in at the end - much to stuart's surprise. stuart responded by shoving a couple of drum sticks between his guitar strings. he looked close to trashing more equipment, but settled for screaming into a mike. great stuff!

    pity i can't catch the nyc show, but i'm looking forward to more reports of their shows around the us.

    from ted maclean:

    show finally got off around 11:00... after almost 45 minutes of lame sound checks by the theater of the living arts' sound crew. pretty sloppy house, tla but, hey, it's been a crash pad for way too many decades. and the house mixer looked every bit its age. checked in with the guys briefly before the show... all looked pretty tired from their tour bus ordeal in the big apple but, once on stage, they came alive and the crowd fell to a hush. audiance reaction was incredible... almost hypnotic. interestingly, don't think i saw 'stanley kubrick' on this set list.

    john seemed more into the set than the others. amazing guy, john. the more shows i see, the more he sticks out. incredible detail musician, handling all of his own setup...tweaking every stomp box just so while roadies run around setting up stuart's stuff. but john's always in the background...giving it up to stuart and the other mates during a piece. his figurings are simple, clean, and dead-on; the moods he sets with manual volume control (no volume footpedal on these..) are truly fine. he's the perfect complement to stuart, and never seems to ask - or really need - a lot of fan fare. but i did notice, and was quite impressed. great guy. great show. great audience. great band.

    before i had to leave half-way through the show, i heard one of the tla house audio guys backstage ask the other, "they're from where? glasgow? scotland? how come we've never had them here before?" "nice sound." exactly.

    philadelphia truly showed its best colours with this group in town. and they definitely loved mogwai.

    from http://user.pa.net/~fehrs/melissa/concerts_mogwaigodspeed.txt:

    after a loud, lengthy soundcheck, mogwai came on at midnight (you know it's going to be loud when the audience is clapping hands over ears during the soundcheck!). first of all, just let me explain that there were no fewer than ten amps on stage, not counting the playback ones facing the band. i've never seen mogwai live before, but this performance was incredible. i've never heard a band use dynamics as expertly as they did. barely audible flute and soft guitar twinkling one second, then a loud, scratchy barrage of noise the next. brilliant. at several point, stuart braithwaite enlisted the help of an action figure in his pocket (han solo?) to play his guitar, and by the last song (like herod), he was writhing on the floor grabbing anything around him to help in the noise: drumsticks wedged in the strings, mic getting feedback from the amp, mic rubbed on the strings and sticks, screaming into mic, han solo on strings. written down, it looks like it'd sound like a mess, and it did -- but it fit perfectly. (but i was still desperately glad i'd invested in ear plugs, since it was loud even with them!)

    i wrangled a setlist for my friend (this one was written on the back of a reggae fest advertisement!):

    after the show, two friends and i went around to the back alley to meet mogwai and get cds signed and whatnot. martin came out first and we chatted with him for a bit, and i presented him with an evil stuffed rabbit i had been saving (it shakes and has glowing red cheeks and spouts off unitentelligable noise, it's really frightning), and he loved it and showed it around to everyone inside. so if a bunny shows up in their next liner notes, you know where it came from. =) we missed john and dominic, though, as they scooted out the door and down the alley before we could catch them. then stuart and barry came out and i complimented barry on his mad flute skills, to which he was all embarrassed and couldn't believe i would like it since he'd only been playing for two years... we talked a bit more about brighton and whose idea it was to book godspeed (stuart's), then stuart said they had to go get some cheesesteaks, and sure enough, a few minutes later as we were walking to our car, they were ordering inside at jim's on south street. =) no wonder john had made a beeline in that direction -- he's not called capt meat for nothing!

    nb: if anyone's going to the mogwai show in hopes of getting a blur: are shite shirt, prepare to look downtrodden -- they completely sold out of them during the dc show this week...

    melissa, who got a very cute mogwai (diabetic) shirt instead...