Godspeed You! Black Emperor live: 43,257 dead at the time of writing
I work hard in my life. I’m from Yorkshire, and my grandfather instilled in me the somewhat predictable tenacity required of a young man from a working-class family. You get nothing for free in this life; you earn what comes to you. Rightly or wrongly, I’ve carried this mentality with me, and perhaps that’s why I am writing this story for you today.
Far Out Magazine is 100 per cent independent. It is built from the ground up and for the people who need it most, stacked up and earned with long hours, brutal effort, and the desire of those who care about it most. As the founder and editor-in-chief, I’ve tried to steer things in a way that feels right. I’ve wanted to build this publication on solid morals, total freedom, and bloody hard graft…but of course, all that comes at a cost.
As many people will know, we have tried to make this website a platform for creatives of all ages. A mixture of young and old who can offer an insight into changing societies, subcultures and trends of artistic expression. Just yesterday, I entered a debate with our new music team, many of them a decade (and then some) younger than me. “Age doesn’t dictate personal preferences when it comes to music,” I insisted when we argued about the merits of The Dare and their supposed similarities to LCD Soundsystem. They shrugged me off with a smirk and aimed barbed headlines for me to read the temperature of the room. It’s all great stuff and proof that the power of music is wonderfully strong, regardless of your background.
However, while I like to play devil’s advocate with my colleagues, reality gave me a gut punch as it so regularly does. I’m well into my 30s and realistic about life in this business. Our rival publications drop dead regularly, but I refuse to believe Far Out will ever fall that way. I work long, long hours. I try to inspire our younger writers. I debate long into the night about how to reinvent modern media. We all argue about focus topics. We talk about algorithms. We relentlessly try to find new ways to make this website free for you to read without begging for donations while constantly pushing forward, wracked with stress that feels like the most important thing in the world.
For as many Friday nights as I can remember, I’ve been sat at this desk. It’s an old, wooden Royal Mail cast-off with a green top and deep, dark-engrained mahogany legs. I don’t know if I should be embarrassed, proud, ashamed or astounded by the amount of hours I’ve spent at this thing. I have had it for over ten years; it’s battered. I’m sitting here now writing this review on the same desk, thousands of times I’ve done before. But time isn’t relevant, and age isn’t important…until my wife, exhausted from our recent wedding and house move, came to me at 7pm and said: “What time is the gig tonight…shall we sack it off?” It was at that moment, with my emails open and my head fit to explode with pressure, that I considered her suggestion with genuine desire. Fuck, perhaps age is relevant, and maybe I’m feeling it.
But none of that matters, does it? None of my stress, my anxiety, and my deadlines matter when atrocities are unfolding around the world. It’s so very easy to become wrapped up in your issues, feelings and concerns. Perhaps it’s moments when a band like Godspeed You! Black Emperor asks you to pay attention that you snap out of it.
I’ve seen the news reports—bodies buried under rubble, homes reduced to ash. Here I am now, in a dark venue, waiting for a band to perform, when there are children who won’t wake up tomorrow because of airstrikes. Godspeed’s latest album is an open wound—a scream directed at the monstrosities happening in Palestine—and the fact that I’m stressed about anything feels embarrassingly irrelevant.
The venue is dark, packed, and buzzing with a kind of tension that isn’t just about the music. Greece, a country that knows and understands the feelings of trauma, is thick with anxiety. Godspeed doesn’t waste time with introductions. They don’t talk. They don’t need to. Their presence is enough—tall silhouettes against a backdrop of noise, and suddenly, the world outside fades into the background as the double bass and violin welcome the band under the shadows.
Where do I look now? I’m standing next to a member of the band who frantically attempts to feed new reels of film into the analogue projector system that dominates the band’s backdrop, the flickering sound almost contributing to the overwhelming performance. The band, many of them sat down and silent, allow their instruments to do the talking before the crowd burst out into chants of:
“Λε-λε-λευτεριά λευτεριά στην Παλαιστίνη”
Of course I shouldn’t be looking at the projectionist, the visuals or the band. Godspeed are asking you to look much further than that.
On October 7th, a group of Hamas-led gunmen from the Gaza Strip launched an attack in southern Israel, deliberately killing civilians and taking hostages. Since then, 378 days ago, Israeli forces have dropped over 70,000 tons of bombs over Gaza in retaliation. It’s an amount of bombing, according to data, that has surpassed that of World War II bombs dropped in Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined.
The Gaza Strip is a crumpled mess of rubble. Women, children and men are underneath. Family chains for as long as you can remember have been wiped out day after day. Francesca Albanese, speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, recently presented a report entitled ‘Anatomy of a Genocide’ as the world—me included—watched on.
“Following nearly six months of unrelenting Israeli assault on occupied Gaza, it is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of, and to present my findings,” she said.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide…has been met.”
The guitars of Efrim Menuck and Mike Moya ring around me in Athens. Their visuals interflitting between total darkness, destroyed buildings, terrifying flames and, on occasion, the word “hope”.
Godspeed played eight songs in Athens last night, but that’s not the point, is it? My ears are ringing, my soul is open, and the hope drone rings on, even if it is hidden under grey rubble for the time being.
