last night was a perfect storm of all things that make a mogwai show great. the crofoot is a lovely venue and i do recommend catching the band here if any of all y'all have the chance. the toronto show was very good but the band did not get into that zone that they did here in michigan. we were stationed on stuart's side of things and the band came out in good spirits to much applause.
the magic starts with white noise and for maybe a minute i fear that we are too close to stuart's setup as his guitar is crystal clear and surprising loud. the rest of the band joins in to fill out the sound and my fears are waylayed. by the time jim morrison thunders to an end it is clear we will be treated to one of those nights when the sound resonates off yr chest and provides a real body buzz.
travel is much warmer and tighter than its showing in toronto and again very loud. the band then kick-starts a really beautiful set to end the first half of the main set with stanley kubrick. as the final blips of stop coming to my house fade, we have a brief moment to savour the bliss before the band rolls breaks into the beat bank. this section of the set from a very excellent MGP through to san pedro and highlighting with werewolf was an excellent showpiece for how beautiful and upbeat of an album 'hardcore' is.
john makes his way to martin's kit and we are treated to another thunderingly loud climax at the end of auto rock. stuart then took the time to thank the crowd, including the guys who brought the band pies ('the pie guys') and you could tell he was truly glad to be playing to such an appreciative and enthusiastic crowd, devoid of any mood destroying meathead like at the toronto show.
hunted segues seamlessly into the best version of satan i've witnessed anywhere. i really must stress how crushingly loud the boys were at the crofoot last night, but it was a warm, enveloping volume of an almost crystalline clear quality. cheers to the sound guy. the crowd was absolutely silent during the build up to the explosion in satan and the burst of white guitar fury was amazing. stuart ends the song by looping his end riff and laying his guitar down as the loop chimes beautifully through his amp. much deserved applause and some chanting from the crowd ensue and i ensure some people next to me at their first ever mogwai show that they have been treated to something truly special.
the boys come back out and plans for rano pano and 2 rights are dashed due to a tech glitch so the boys huddle and agree upon a mind numbing version of herod (very glad that rob whom we've seen at the last three michigan shows finally got his wish on this one) with an extended noise outro that flows right into batcat. words escape me to describe just how loud and fantastic the encore was. stuarts guitar noodling during the herod/batcat suite was magical and i found myself grinning like a fool and utterly overwhelmed by the end of things. easily a top five show for me with unbelievable versions of satan, herod and batcat. third time that the U.S. show after a toronto show has blown the previous nights set to shambles. canadian fans take notice: deal with the border crossing bullshit (this trip was the worst ever) and grab yrself some magic. on to chicago! (hoping for sinewave to make a north american tour ending appearance!!!)
well i'm back from detroit with very little sleep. don't have a full setlist as i'm awful with song titles but the printed list for the encore is going to be wrong. i looked at it after the show and they were supposed to play rano pano/2 rights/batcat but when they came out, there was some kind of equipment problem (it looked like a laptop issue probably) so they conferred and ended up playing like herod/batcat. they ended the regular set with mogwai fear satan.
out of the 6 or 7 times i've seen them this was probably my least favorite and i really can't put my finger on why. the setlist was fine, and the crowd was decent (somewhat small but enthusiastic and relatively quiet) although this time we got an asshole yelling for glasgow megasnake after each song. there was just something about the sound that wasn't quite as massive as it usually is and i don't know what. i think maybe the bass wasn't loud enough. or maybe it was just strange acoustics as the room was very tall with an upstairs balcony that was entirely empty. anyway, sound wasn't awful by any means and they were still better than most other bands just not quite as good as in the past.
