Caspian Record Release Show, 29 August 2009

its rare to go to a show and be enthralled so completely that it ends before you are ready to leave. i mean, lets face it, you go to watch bands play, and you are typically there to see one or maybe two of them play, and even then its 40 minutes of cool and then you start counting the seconds till you can leave.

last night was one of those very rare occasions.

the place, tt the bears, in my old neighborhood in central square (cambridge.) literally lived around the corner from the place. so it was weird being back and walking around the neighborhood. the show started promptly at 9:30p with arms and sleepers.

they are a three-piece post-rock/down-tempo electronic group who’s record “black paris” is simply unabashedly beautiful and weird. the “stage” (i put stage in quotes because if you’ve ever been to tt’s, you know it isn’t really a stage) was filled with keyboards, laptops, drum machines, a real kit, a few guitars and bunch of random amps here and there and an odd collection of toy instruments as well, while the back was draped with a huge white canvas. their set started and a projected film of an old jetliner comes taxing up to a jetway as the song starts. they play very lonely mournful and ridiculously melodic interweaving melodies with… what’s this? loud fast angry drums come in and the sound just erupts… the crowd doesn’t know what to think. the images in the background keep changing but all basically old films of single jetliners flying mixed with odd digital noise and strange animations. it goes on like this for 45 minutes (not that i was keeping track, frankly i was lost in their presentation.)

more and more people kept showing up, i was surprised just how full the place had gotten, even for the opening act, and everyone was just into it. they got it. i was surprised.

next, actors and actresses lugged their gear on stage. i’m relatively new to this band. i got their record this past spring, and whenever i hear them, i immediately think of park street, only because for some reason my iphone decides to play one of their songs, without fail, whilst i wait for the train there. they are more like a classic shoe-gaze band that wanders into the dreamy weird place of post-rock. another three-piece, bassist (who plays a ric, that was nice to see) a guitarist and a drummer. the only band tonight that has a vocalist (the bassist) which was nice, they play a very meandering airy very emotionally driven rock without any of the pretensions of many shoe-gaze bands. they continued a non-stop video narration throughout their set, filled with badly distorted home movies, atomic bomb explosions (hey, it’s a post rock show, it wouldn’t be complete without that) and buildings falling apart. yeah, it was right up my alley.

there were only a few of us who knew their songs, which when they played “dig to china” all four of us where like “yaaayy!!”

yet still more and more people were packing themselves into tt’s. i’ve never seen it this packed. you couldn’t move. the reason? caspian was coming up.

caspian is really like no other band. first their line up just doesn’t make sense. four guitarists, a bassist and a drummer! good grief! second and more startling, their music is a strange cocktail of dreamy and ambient with mean and aggression with delicate and beautiful and pretty thrown in. the second they started playing everyone’s attention and focus was absconded by the band. they had us by the scruff of the neck, but then you think, no, they don’t, they have us by holding our hand, carefully. their set comprised of playing older songs off of “the four trees” and “you are the conductor” which was just so splendid to hear live. i’d been listening to these songs for a few years under the ear buds it was truly amazing to hear them live, it added a whole new dimension and perspective to these songs.

their set ended too soon, even after playing four encores, which the very last put this show into a whole different realm. the last song ends with a long drone section, but instead they played it with a very tribal-like drum pattern while the guitars droned and the bass line continued. then the other bands started coming up on stage, and the roadies started setting up more drums… as this is going on… then everyone got drum sticks and started playing along… and before you know it, this huge cacophony of drums, all played in unison, fills the place and everyone in the crowd is just spellbound. after five minutes, when it was over, the audience, me included, didn’t quite know what to do. it took 30 seconds or so to realize it was ok to leave.

i left, took the ear plugs out and went home knowing immediately, that this show was one of those very rare events. sort of like the first time i saw fugazi (which is damn near a religious experience)

i just have to say, post rock isn’t for everyone. there were people there who didn’t get it. oh they were kind and respectful, but questions of “where’s the singer?” and “no vocals?” were quietly asked.

no, in post rock there are no vocals. no singing (well actors and actresses has a vocalist, but even then, vocals are just part of the landscape.)

in post rock, the tradition is to break tradition. to have a vocalist means someone stands out front. no, that won’t do. to have a vocalist means to distract from what else is going on. in post rock there is no “stage show” there isn’t any theatrics, you don’t go to see a “dynamic stage presence.” that is for posers. post rock is using the instruments of rock ‘n roll but use them the way no one would have thought. the music is filled with annoying fret board masturbatory shredding, there aren’t excessive drum solos (well, no solos of any form.) no, instead the music is beautiful and dreamy, ambient, loud, and everything serves the melody, which is dark and sad and mournful and full of joy and hope. post rock is not for the attention whores this goes for the musicians or fans. its just not what this music is about. again, breaking tradition is the only tradition.

as caspian left the stage, they all hugged each other, and the “leader” looked out at the crowd (finally) and shyly waved and thanked everyone.