it's a week later and i realize i never talked about the concert i saw last friday in the uva chapel: six organs of admittance and grand banks. the question is, how do i talk about it? i had never heard of grand banks before, and i was vaguely acquainted with six organs of admittance through my pandora radio stream.
first, the venue.
the uva chapel might be one of the most beautiful western churches i've ever set foot in. it was humble yet elegant. the colorful glass, combined with the dark wood and the lofty vaulted ceilings, created a space of possibility. i felt like i was in a grand hobbit house, or an enchanted woodland castle.
it certainly was a great vessel for sound.
and there was just enough weird. like the huge organ pipes that filled a corner. rich wood trimmings and latticework spidering across the interior. windows of clever geometry.
the deeply colored stained glass depicted some scenes that, to my relief, transcended one particular dogma. most of the crosses were embedded in mandalas. no thorns or blood or dead man.
and all around me were people who came out to see this mysterious music; i wanted to meet everyone there for that reason alone.
grand banks bordered on sound assault. it was really loud at times, but when i shut my eyes, there were at least one thousand things going on. just two guys, creating this huge tide of music. and tide it was, ebbing and flowing and crashing to shore. i was impressed. one of the guys was playing a keyboard. and a horn. and a few toys, i believe. and the other, he was doing something crazy with a bow. i thought he had some sort of homemade musical contraption set up, but dan thought it was a cello lying flat on a table. what ever it was, he was making a massive trance inducing wave of sound. it reminded me very much of pauline oliveros and her deep listening institute. i was left slightly drop jawed when they'd finished their set.
after a bathroom run across the road and down the way, we returned to the chapel just in time for ben chasny's entrance. ben chasny is six organs of admittance. anything might happen.
he was seeming a little like he'd just crawled out of the warm bed of a vw bus. he mumbled between songs. he stumbled over some chords. but his vocals and guitar work were quiet and brooding and mesmerizing. he took me to places i wanted to go. i was caught in the wind of an intricate, dreamy, rolling, echo. at one point i heard him ask what everyone was doing after the show. no one answered. i wanted to know too.
just when i was beginning to despair a little that we weren't going to get the full on band experience, a girl in a hoody named elisa ambrogio joined him on stage. her clear voice was a great balance to his moody whisper. at first i thought her guitar was a prop, or that she wasn't properly amped, because not much was coming out of it. but at some point she tore into it with her whole body, playing loud, fast and with wild amounts of feedback. pure girl guitar power.
names of songs? sorry. like i said, it was all new to me. but a welcome reminder that rock and roll is not dead, and that the troubadors are returning.
i didn't want it to end.
who's next, and when?
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