Godspeed You! Black Emperor @ The Ogden Theatre

words by Issa Nasatir & Sadie Almgren // photographs by Sadie Almgren

It’s one thing to hear the apocalypse heralded in 15 minute-long epics through your headphones on a stifling streaming service. It’s another to feel it vibrate through the ground and into your core. In a time when Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s message has mattered more than it ever has in their near 30 year existence, the Montreal-based group has continued to deliver masterpieces brimming with hope for a world that so often loses itself in crippling despair. Their latest offering, NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD, channels that energy into the ongoing genocide in Gaza, creating an empowering, haunting, terrifying atmosphere that delivers a resounding wake-up slap to remind the West of our complacency and participation in ethnic cleansing.

GY!BE ascends the concept of concert, creating something that feels, for lack of a better word, stronger, than all the beating hearts in the room combined. Challenging, instrumental save for a poem read in “RAINDROPS CAST IN LEAD”, the music is affecting and heavy to hold – in a way words could never get close to touching.

SETTING

The Ogden Theatre, Denver Colorado, April 28th, 8:30 pm, half an hour late. The last song of the record, “GREY RUBBLE – GREEN SHOOTS”, swells around us as we walk in – the title being an immortal, classic image of hope. Here, it is not cheesy, it’s truth.

CROWD

of ~30+ years, rebels and anarchists past their prime, most now conformed to a framework they still yearn to dismantle. All stand still, at attention, receiving.

MUSICIANS

8; 3 guitarists, 2 bassists, 2 drummers, and a violinist. Towers of amps loomed behind them, a ginormous projection screen as the centerpiece.

VISUALS

Reels and reels and reels of Super 8 film, with four projectors complementing and complicating the music simultaneously; Layers of empty brutalist buildings and power plants in flame at its most crushing, protesters cheering as they get hosed at its brightest. Visions of abandonment, protest, fire, cities, explosion, agony, storms, industry, people, plants, life, death, and visual noise.

SOUNDS, FEELINGS

Something divine, something much bigger than us or the people on stage. Guitars whined, berated, pushed, lifted, and drowned. The violin unearthed last dying breaths. The bassists provide the low frequencies of devastation, and what comes after. A symphony of a worst outcome. Tangible hope is intertwined into the DNA of every moment, the feeling of internal organs in our bodies physically being lifted up, conflicting feelings. “PALE SPECTATOR TAKES PHOTOGRAPHS” takes us to a place that is bizarre, uncomfortable, and familiar. Then it builds into a battle cry. Triumphant leading guitar and violin lines driving forward. Snippets of scarred collective memory strung together designed to create a brighter future. The persistent march and fantastic explosion of thundering drums. Emotions laid bare- anger frustration powerlessness fear hope courage empowerment- to beckon yours. A screwdriver under guitar strings, an electric bass with a bow, and more pedals than audience members; a maximalist retaliation to an overwhelming world.