Mogwai just released a new album, The Bad Fire, and kicked off this tour. I’m still a relatively recent fan, but I loved As the Love Continues (2021) and regretted that I missed their Berlin appearance in 2022. I didn’t want to make that mistake again, so despite still recovering from surgery, I bought a ticket. It helps that the venue is excellent and has relatively comfortable seating.
Kathryn Joseph, a Scottish singer-songwriter on Mogwai’s label, opened the night – a full quarter-hour ahead of the scheduled show start! She initially claimed her songs were all about “cunts” but later admitted her latest album was about people in her life dealing with emotional trauma. It wasn’t particularly easy to separate the songs into sex-positive and emotionally-heavy categories; they all seemed to occupy a similar space. That was the critical shortcoming of her set: it entirely lacked the dynamics that the headliner of the show is famous for. Her electric piano never changed tone, and while her vocals were strong, the vibe was fairly constant. On a few songs, she played an electronic drumbeat pedal, and I was hoping for the song to take off like Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place”, but that never quite happened.
Mogwai made quite a different impression: with five members (including touring guitarist/keyboardist Alex Mackay), a rack of lights behind the band, and a colorful lighting array intermingled across the stage, the visual experience was on point. While Stuart Braithwaite said little more than “Danke schön, thank you very much!” after each song (and no one else said a word), the music was, as expected, huge. I was disappointed that it wasn’t quite as physically intense as I’d been led to expect, but perhaps that had something to do with being in a back row of the second balcony, not exactly a prime seat. The mix was occasionally a bit muddy from my spot, but still good. I suspect it was a different experience on the floor, and for once I was a bit sad not to be there.
The band switched between songs from the new album and tracks scattered from throughout their career, including “Cody” from their second album (Come On Die Young, 1999), Spotify favorite “Kids Will Be Skeletons”, and one of my absolute favorites, “Friend of the Night”. They have too many albums to play something from all of them, but I was impressed by the diversity of their picks. They’re one of not many bands that still vary their setlists dramatically from night to night, which I find admirable. Nonetheless, I was sad that they skipped “God Gets You Back” from the new album, as it’s the best song from the album and the band played it every preceding night on the tour.
The Bad Fire is a bit darker than their last few albums, but that wasn’t especially obvious on stage, as the variation in moods from one song to the next flowed naturally. Their trademark dynamics were on full display, both across the set and within most of the songs. There were a few cases were it seemed that the transitions were a bit off, and I wondered if something was flubbed or if it was just hard to reproduce some auditory effects on stage. Beyond that, though, the performances were solid.
I was hoping for more when the main set ended after a mere 70 minutes, and was worried for a moment when they came back and said they had just one more song. It turned out to be “My Father, My King”, a 20-minute opus. It’s a bit hard to keep focus on one song for that long, and while it dragged in a few parts, it was still a powerful way to close out the night.
Kathryn Joseph, a Scottish singer-songwriter on Mogwai’s label, opened the night – a full quarter-hour ahead of the scheduled show start! She initially claimed her songs were all about “cunts” but later admitted her latest album was about people in her life dealing with emotional trauma. It wasn’t particularly easy to separate the songs into sex-positive and emotionally-heavy categories; they all seemed to occupy a similar space. That was the critical shortcoming of her set: it entirely lacked the dynamics that the headliner of the show is famous for. Her electric piano never changed tone, and while her vocals were strong, the vibe was fairly constant. On a few songs, she played an electronic drumbeat pedal, and I was hoping for the song to take off like Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place”, but that never quite happened.
Mogwai made quite a different impression: with five members (including touring guitarist/keyboardist Alex Mackay), a rack of lights behind the band, and a colorful lighting array intermingled across the stage, the visual experience was on point. While Stuart Braithwaite said little more than “Danke schön, thank you very much!” after each song (and no one else said a word), the music was, as expected, huge. I was disappointed that it wasn’t quite as physically intense as I’d been led to expect, but perhaps that had something to do with being in a back row of the second balcony, not exactly a prime seat. The mix was occasionally a bit muddy from my spot, but still good. I suspect it was a different experience on the floor, and for once I was a bit sad not to be there.
The band switched between songs from the new album and tracks scattered from throughout their career, including “Cody” from their second album (Come On Die Young, 1999), Spotify favorite “Kids Will Be Skeletons”, and one of my absolute favorites, “Friend of the Night”. They have too many albums to play something from all of them, but I was impressed by the diversity of their picks. They’re one of not many bands that still vary their setlists dramatically from night to night, which I find admirable. Nonetheless, I was sad that they skipped “God Gets You Back” from the new album, as it’s the best song from the album and the band played it every preceding night on the tour.
The Bad Fire is a bit darker than their last few albums, but that wasn’t especially obvious on stage, as the variation in moods from one song to the next flowed naturally. Their trademark dynamics were on full display, both across the set and within most of the songs. There were a few cases were it seemed that the transitions were a bit off, and I wondered if something was flubbed or if it was just hard to reproduce some auditory effects on stage. Beyond that, though, the performances were solid.
I was hoping for more when the main set ended after a mere 70 minutes, and was worried for a moment when they came back and said they had just one more song. It turned out to be “My Father, My King”, a 20-minute opus. It’s a bit hard to keep focus on one song for that long, and while it dragged in a few parts, it was still a powerful way to close out the night.
[Mogwai.]
Setlist:
01. Hi Chaos
02. Kids Will Be Skeletons
03. If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others
04. Friend of the Night
05. Cody
06. What Kind of Mix Is This?
07. Ritchie Sacramento
08. 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong
09. Fanzine Made of Flesh
10. Hammer Room
11. Lion Rumpus
12. We’re No Here
Encore:
13. My Father, My King
Scores:
Kathryn Joseph: C
Mogwai: B
