Swans Live: A Field Report

It was at the union transfer where I saw Michael Gira, the mastermind behind Swans, take off his pants and shit all over a crowd of angsty 20-something year olds. Before I get into the details on the smell and shape of his asshole, I will tell you of my unfortunate circumstance of anticipating seeing the band.

Eagerness, desperation, another noun, was my reaction seeing on my blue-light rectangle that swans was going to be playing at the Union transfer on April 13th 2024. Swans!? Playing live!? They formed in 1982 and it is the current year of 2024… that’s 42 years! I have to see them before they croak!

I was very interested in seeing a band of that age, a band that has influenced artists like Nirvana, Melvins, and Tool without being well known themselves. A part of the No-wave movement, a revolt of the marketing of “new wave”, pure “artistic expression”. Swans are known for their intensity and have channeled that energy differently as they have aged. From noise rock, post-punk, industrial, post-rock, and whatever the hell else in between.An artist past their prime knowing death is closer and closer. A burned out niche star. Aging is something that I am struggling with. As someone who just hit the upper mid twenties, my life is practically over. In terms of genuine moments I have left that are not the monotonous day to day bullshit, I only have maybe 2 years left before I collect social security for 2 months then die. I wonder if I will have any kids?

Tangent aside. With a concoction of equal parts excitement and curiosity swirling in my brain, With my rectangle in hand I call, text, email, and fax everyone I know seeking someone to supplement my lack of courage to attend alone.. And as the light at the end of the tunnel extends further away, as the fantasies of a 20-something-year old of seeing the band Swans fronted by the guy who dated Madonna once fades away like a groggy awakening from a pleasant dream, I get a response: “Yeah I guess”

So off we are to the promised land, armed with 4 shots, a dab pen, and a zyn-clone. Let the records show that I did not take a hit from the dab pen. I am too cool for w33d.

We arrived. Parking attendant demands a fee, makes joke. Fake laughter abound. We park. All is right in the world. We both take two shots. All is even more right in the world. Let the records show that if weed is legal federally that a hit from the dab was taken. We exit.

Ah Philadelphia… I can smell the brotherly love as I glance to and fro to find the optimal route of avoiding homeless crackheads. We frolic gingerly to the back of the line. The tootie wootie fresh and fruity cake vodka (“my god if these people knew I drank this they would spit me up and chew me out. These people are dogs… animals…. They listen to Swans!”) and Jim Beam apple have worked wonders by making me hate people less. What made for a nice bonus was getting complimented on my shirt (more than once!) while being buzzed on social lubricant. (“Maybe Philadelphia is the place for me… they get me here…” )

As the line progressed we spotted this absolute beauty.

Bike by entrance

Was this an Omen, a sign from God as to what to come? Yes. I have spoken with many Eastern Orthodox priests and they all agreed.

Like a cockroach scurrying from the light, thus so did I scurry to the top most floor to get the best seat in the house! From this Aristocratic viewpoint I spotted a curious thing from a plebeian.

A father of a depressed vinyl collector looking bored

Aristocratic viewpoint for prime-swans-ocular-consumption

From my vantage point I noticed that everyone here is much younger than I anticipated. For a band that formed in 1982 I am seeing a lack of representation amongst the geezers and an over representation among the youngsters…..and why is everyone wearing black? My male friend who is wearing tight white floral women's pants looks over to me and hands me a nicotine pouch from his off-brand-zyn. I accept his gift. Neurotics follow. Anxious, tweaking.“It’s okay” I think to myself “ you are supposed to feel like shit at a Swan’s concert.”

As my nicotine poisoning kicks in, the lights fade out and a German appears from the shadows threatening the audience with his lap steel guitar. Smiling and looking giddy while playing dark-brooding-menacing WOOOOOOOOOOOO-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sounds, Kristof Hahn played the role of the opener perfectly for he established the tone and got the audience enthralled. What I enjoyed most about his performance was not the music itself, but how humble and adorable this man was. Once a song finished and the crowd cheered he shyly gave thanks in an adorable German accent and waved his hand to the audience. A perfect opening set. 4 songs that hit the goldilocks zone of not being too long or too short, that established mood, and got the masses yearning for the main event. Little did us poor fools know what was to come next……

The lights dim red, and on cue, Michael Gira waddles to the front of the stage with his mates and rests his weary buns on a nice comfy chair. He slowly reaches for his guitar, I quickly reach for my earplugs, and before I can reflect on how old I feel wearing earplugs to a concert an electronic banshee screams and nearly penetrates my brain.

It is at this moment I need to establish one universal idea that all Swan’s concert attendees all agree on… bring hearing protection. If you were to browse the internet for information on what to expect from their concert, they all repeat the same mantra, “Hearing protection. Hearing protection hearing protection hearing protection, Michael Gira is a shaman, hearing protection hearing protection”. My most sincere thanks goes out to everyone who lost their hearing to save mine. Those ear plugs saved my life.

Droning, menacing, and too fucking loud, the sonic assault .. It builds … slowly… very slowly.. much like the nervous anticipation of the creeping crawl of the roller coaster as it gradually reaches the peak and pauses so you have that moment of fear before the drop, thus so was the audio emitting the same feeling!.

Like the meerkat sprouting up from its hole, Gira shot up from his chair and started “conducting” the band

Michael Gira attempted to conduct his band by waving his hands around, swirling the sound like it is an un-molded blob of clay, or for you Italians out there, the dough for a pizza pie. Formless, but progressively, and hopefully, develop into a nice idea of a shape or dare I say, an actual shape of some kind because at this point, what we have been experiencing has is just noise.

To the disillusioned it looks like Gira is entering a trance by gyrating his entire body to communicate esoteric instructions to his bandmates. His eyes close, his mouth contorts with no sound coming out, legs and hips move. And his band is watching, looking at him for what is next. At this point, it feels that he does not even notice the crowd. He is not performing for us at this point, if at all. He is just trying to create and we just happen to be here. Oh what I fool am I to think such a thought!

Surely Michael is not ‘Acting’ right?

The music has been droning for a little too long at this point and nothing is happening so my priority shifts to my back which I noticed is starting to hurt. Before I can completely dissociate, Gira, With his entire being, moves his body from left to right like a wave and the band resonates with his frequency mimicking his movements with sound with intense fury. It feels like I am in an angry ocean tossing me from one cliff-side to another. fA very loud and angry ocean.

My friend and I look at each other at a “Hell yeah brother” moment.

Just as a shape was beginning to form from Gira’s blob of clay, it resets itself back to just noise, back to just ear piercing non-melodic noise. (If I am going to lose my hearing at least make it sound good you fucker!) It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that whatever that brief moment was, was the only interesting thing the band created on that stage for the entirety of the set. At least in terms of audio. Boy oh boy did Michael Gira put on a show.

The frontman rests his weary soul back onto his chair and resumes playing, as my friend noticed, the same 2 chords over and over again. To my horror he opens his mouth in an attempt at singing only to moan and groan, which would be fine, if you know, the one moaning and groaning was not a 70 year old man.

Periodically Gira stops singing and yells at the sound engineers from the venue. Sometimes he yells by just flailing his arms at them and hoping, much like his band, that they would understand whatever the fuck he wants. Something that frightened me was of him throwing his thumb up in the air shaking it vigorously up and down. Was this lunatic really telling the sound crew to turn the volume up!? Thankfully the sound crew is not a team of masochists nor are they suicidal. With dealing with individuals like Gira, you just nod your head and pretend, which is not much different than what he is doing.

The “singer”, running out of people to flail at, focuses on the drummer and bobs his head around, taps his feet aggressively, extends one of his arms, and moves his hand as if it is some arcane gesture that the drummer would instantly understand. The percussionist, bless his soul, tried his best. Gira gives up and pretends like nothing happens. The drummer and guitarist then look at each other and communicated telepathically “This fucking guy”. Fault can not lie within the self, it must be pushed onto others!

This visual comedy is all taking place under ear-splitting feedback. It is so loud that my ear-plugs feel ineffective. I take them off to gauge and frantically like a rabbit being chased by a cat, I jam those things back in.

My back starts hurting again. I look over to my left and my friend is on his phone. I start thinking about the traffic situation upon show end. Should I even buy any merch? I have to pee.

Again, just before I drifted away, Gira’s 1 out of 2 lines I actually understood, dramatically screamed “Steal the child from within you” and grasped towards the crowd. Cutting through the banshee’s cries was the sound of an unfortunate soul collapsing onto the floor. They got back up, confused, not knowing where they were. Then they had the unfortunate realization that they are at a Swan’s concert and faint yet again with a hard thud, this time refusing to be awakened. Sometimes the body and mind shut down when being exposed to lovecraftian unfathomable-horrors-beyond-comprehension and/or paying to see mediocrity that is also trying to hurt you. As this poor woman gets escorted away, my attention diverts back to Michael who proceeds to spit on his hand, slap his face, and laugh hysterically. Immediately, another thud, much louder. A large man has collapsed causing the black sea to part way. The medical crew forced his eyes open. A flashlight revealed that he is unresponsive. They escort him away. The black sea returns, stealing his spot. The laughter continues.

I look to my left. My comrade in arms has disappeared. Seeking solace elsewhere, if he can escape the noise. Poor Bastard. I would feel guilty for having him be a part of the experience but he said he was glad to watch a part of me die that day so I guess we are even.

I scan the concert floor. Another part of the sea has parted near the stage. Someone got too close to Gira’s wrinkly asshole and vomited. Sight/Smell combo. Killer. A staffer miserably throws the towel on the floor and gives up. I notice how quiet and still the sea is minus one guy, obviously on an upper, has an algorithm running in his brain desperately seeking the noise that is proper to headbang to, and when he does, he looks like he is trying to disconnect head from spine through sheer force. Surreal watching this kid parse information, from confusion to repressed headbanging, back to confusion again and again. Even on an upper, one has to try to enjoy it. How Terrible!

The sea is too still for a concert. No jiving , no one is getting jiggy with it. Stillness, nothingness. A miasma of confusion, ‘is this it?”. Or it is a survival response of freezing in place in the hopes that Michael will not reach for the crowd again — or say something legible, which seems to curse the concertgoers.

As my gaze scanned the great black for signs of life I began to fear for my own. What if I am next? What if I faint? What If I die at a Swan’s concert? These people would probably praise my death on music forums. “He had the peak Swans experience”. More and more would come to see this band as a suicide attempt. I’d die a martyr for depressed/snobby vinyl collectors. As I drift into my own waters of paranoia, I hear the voice of some anti-siren that brings me back to reality.

“Turn the AC up I’m losing my voice”

I laughed.

Is this really the best no-wave had to offer?

I search for signs of life anywhere in one last desperate attempt for meaning. To my horror I spy someone down below, deep in the heart of the pit. Even in the darkest most isolated crevices of tartarus, everyone felt what that one man did.

He yawned.

Which caused me to yawn.

Even Michael felt it, for in one last pathetic attempt at maintaining crowd interest, shot up from his chair like a man on viagra, launched his arms in the air, and waved his hands and fingers around. The old spirit fingers trick. A classic. A small gathering of sea people repeat the signal in a desperate attempt at manifesting the meaning they were self deluded into believing. Here I thought Gira was terrible, but those people are the real monsters.

A brilliant idea pops into my brain.

“I can leave”

Like a man quitting his job I galloped out of there with a smile on my face. I escaped the matrix. They are all still trapped in that damn 10:1 male to female ratio noisy sweatbox and I get to dodge traffic and go to bed early.

I get in the car to find my friend waiting for me. We nod silently in agreement. As I drive the night road home my smile slowly fades away into a grimace, and my friend’s grin widens.

There is one good thing to come out of this experience. If Michael Gira can date Madonna then I can fuck the world.