On a windy Portland night, Michael Gira and his reunited Swans played eight songs at Portland’s Roseland Theater. Those eight songs took about two hours to perform as Gira and his band stretched the boundaries of rock music.
But who would see a Swans show now, 15 years after the band’s demise? Despite good buzz on comeback record My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky, the band has been defunct since 1997 as Gira grew tired of the group’s reputation of noise-making. Shit, even rumors exist that the band was so loud that audience members would sometimes vomit, but they have never been corroborated as true.
Much like you’d expect, most of the audience wore black that evening. Though most of the people around me were dudes, an occasional woman in black leather and spiked hair would push by towards the front. But this collection of handle-bar mustache wearers and scarecrows in Bauhaus T-shirts, black hair dye not totally dry, equally pressed close to the stage, a stage where all the amps were pushed almost up to the precipice, foisting the soon-to-arrive band nearly amongst us.
Then a drone, a low and guttural clarion, the sound of a minotaur or an encroaching phalanx, filled the room. Then it kept going as the lights went down on the empty stage. And going. For 15 minutes the drone nudged and intimidated us as the members of the band took the stage one by one. First came drummer Phil Puleo and then percussionist Thor Harris, who, behind his mess of hair, banged on an array of chimes set up next to an auxiliary drum set and gong.
Finally, the rest of band filed out 25 minutes after the drone began, including Gira all in black. He picked up his black Gibson and manically strummed it, rocking back and forth in place as if summoning or banishing a demon. The music grew louder and louder, reaching a fanatic crescendo. Gira strummed his sustained chord, his face red, veins standing out in his forehead. The drums clambered as Harris stepped away from the chimes and hammered on Puleo’s cymbals. Gira fells to his knees, still strumming and gasping at the air. And then, 30 minutes after the show began, the Swans kicked into new song “No Words/No Thoughts.”
And so went the rest of the night as the band played a collection of songs new (“Jim”) and old, jamming out and pushing each until it imploded outwards. Gira’s microphone was a little low, so it was hard to hear his vocals. However, during “Sex, God, Sex,” the band stopped playing and Gira bellowed towards the heavens, “Come on in! Come on in! Praise God! Praise the Lord! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus Christ! Come down!”
That was just one of the many hair-raising moments of the night. I honestly never saw a bass string break either. As the band closed out the night with “Eden Prison,” I wondered if it would be another 15 years before the Swans returned. Based on the adoring ovation they received, I wouldn’t be the only one going back into the fray of noise with them.
by David Harris
