Saw the Swans last night at Concorde 2. Remember when I first heard them, on the 'White Light from the Mouth of Infinity' album over the summer of 1991. I had bought the album on cassette from Our Price while on a lunch break from my Saturday job at W.H.Smiths. The Our Price in Uxbridge was often an unexpected haven for obscure albums that should never have been there. At least in the late 1980s / early 1990s. I would regularly find artists such as Samhain, Diamanda Galas, Cowboy Killers, Broken Bones, Playground, Die Kreuzen there... Ah, back in the days of cassette tapes and vinyl...
Anyhow.
The various members of the Swans all looked hard as nails. Must all be in their forties and fifties now. Main man Michael Gira like some crazed southern American gentleman from the last century who had spent too long in the desert. Found God through Peyote and snake-venom... Immaculately dressed, deep-drawl of a voice; 'turn the lights up on the audience, I want to see their faces...'. The keyboard and bass player both looked extras from some brutal Southern-Gothic fever dream. Mexican / American border hell-lands via some lawless prison, soaked in the occult and drug deals gone bad, mission towns, murder, isolation, and moons too large in too-long night skies.
It was an intense performance.
