Despite technical issues and 1 set tragically cut short, Michael Gira's
The Angels of Light shined in Austin and Oklahoma City. Virgil Shaw
opened with a rocked out set of pleasant folk/blue grass/country-ish
tunes. Gira, looking smart as usual in his fedora, gray dress jacket
and slacks and cowboy boots, sang and played a black Guild acoustic
electric guitar. Surrounding him were solid multi-instrumentalists Thor
Harris, Larry Mullins and Dana Schechter on drums, percussion, vibes,
piano, hammer dulcimer, autoharp, bass guitar, keyboard, melodica,
organ and backing vocals. The sets are about an hour and a half worth
of new songs and ones from "How I Loved You", Gira's "Solo/Acoustic" CD
and a couple of SWANS reworkings: Evangeline, What Will Come (new),
Nations (new), My Suicide, All Souls' Rising, New York Girls, The Rose
of Los Angeles (new), What You Were, On The Mountain, Goddamn the Sun,
Failure and Two Women. The new songs are fantatic, especially the
memorable mounting groove of "Nations" and the violent orgasm of "All
Souls' Rising". Gira did not disappoint, especially in OKC when he
became the possessed man I've become accustomed to witnessing: eyes
closed, head bobbing around and mouth moving as though he's chewing an
imaginary cud, yelling off mike, reeling in his stool and strumming
hand slamming the guitar to the point of drawing blood. The tour swings
back through the Midwest and ends in NYC on the 20th. See
younggodrecords.com for dates and more info.