I’m fighting every instinct right now that tells me to recount instrumental post-rock band This Will Destroy You’s performance at Lee’s Palace as an extension of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth. It was an emotive, powerful set that seemed to be sculpted as if following an overarching narrative. The signs were there, what started blissful and full of wonderment was led onwards with a call to adventure. The atmosphere shifted to unfamiliar territory, veered grim and foreboding, before climbing out of the darkness and back to the light, having changed us. Whoops, some instincts are too hard to fight. Dismiss it as pretentious wank if you will, but being there, the allure of attaching meaning to what you’d witnessed was irresistible.
With such a cinematic tone, the experience was crafted by how you interpreted what you were hearing and, by extension, feeling. It was unreal witnessing so much of the room embracing the majority of the performance with their eyes closed. The band and crowd alike tuned in, eyelids pressed shut, and gave themselves to the ebb and flow. Like any good art it felt allegorical and personal, heightened by the superb musicianship on display.
The band so obviously being sound geeks, special touches rose to the fore. Drummer Alex Bhore alternated between basic drum sticks and percussion mallets, then affixed duct tape to the cymbal for the sake of a song. Chris King’s effects setup looked like a clichéd 80s hacker space: masses of wires and pedals attached to a miniature sound board. Watching him rapidly picking one handed while tweaking the sound board to create ambient textures with the other was stunning. Guitarist Jeremy Galindo never moved from his seat, but the passion with which he played was chilling to say the least.
There was a notable sincerity and humility to the band’s stage presence. Song breaks were marked by a brief silence before moving on to the next, as if giving respect to what had just transpired. There was no banter, no flashy showmanship, just a consistent demonstration of artistic ability. Before their last song, Jeremy addressed the crowd for the first time. “Thanks to everyone who skipped the Slowdive show to come see us. I was considering cancelling the gig to go see it.” He paused. “Not joking.” The band dove into their final song, a surging onslaught that rose like a jökulhlaup before levelling out completely. Leaving the stage to rapturous applause, they encouraged fans to come and chat at the merch table. If not monomythic, they undoubtedly took us on a journey of some kind.
