3 September: Mogwai, supported by Ganger and godspeed you black emperor!.  Theater of Living Arts, Philadelphia. 
1 September: Mogwai, supported by Ganger.  Black Cat, Washington D.C. 

• Mogwai: Scotsmen with guitars.  Five guys just having a pretty good time created sonic mountains via the soft-loud-soft-loud format.  References - Flying Saucer Attack, Spacemen 3, Sonic Youth, Eno.
• Ganger: More Celtic guitar band anchored by two bass players.
• godspeed you black emperor!: Crazy name, crazy band.  Multi instrumental Montreal collective weaving eery electronic soundscapes against a Fin de Seicle backdrop.

    Mogwai swept into the US last Wednesday.  I caught the DC and Philly dates (Dominic's set list for the latter is down here).  Wednesday night was a solid, if not quite spectacular opening.  But, Friday night was awesome.  The outshone the stunning, broody godspeed you lack emperor!  I hear the tour bus had a minor wreck on the way to Philly.  Well Stuart made a wreck of his guitar. 
Ganger, touring with Mogwai, were a bit tentative on Wednesday.  Fill-in guitarist Chris performed admirably especially on "Capo".  The full set list was... 

• upye
• what happened to the king happened to me
• blau
• capo (south of caspian)
• [er, maybe one other, can't quite remember the tune.]
They opened with "blau" on Friday - more competent and well-received, but with a few technical problems.  The group manfully handled the merchie table.  Picked up a nice t-shirt with the camel Ganger logo.  Thanks for serving me Chris! 
    Friday's bonus act was godspeed, from Montreal.  This was my first experience of them though I know of their reputation.  The music can be best described as chamber rock in the style of the Kronos Quartet and the Dirty Three.  Great interplay between the guitar section, violin and cello, repeating strong lead figures with passages of soft-loud and a solid bass-percussion underpinning.  All this backed by grainy, atmospheric super 8mm footage. 

   It took nearly an hour to set up the stage for Mogwai.  Plenty of teething troubles with the mix and one or two dead channels.  But it was worth the wait.  This was an excellent set.  Though I thought the DC version of "Superheroes of BMX" was better, the rest of the show was superior.  In particular, "Helicon 2", "Helicon 1" and "Waltz for Aidan".  The latter is such a great track live.  It held most of the audience spell bound.  Afterwards, Stuart told off those yakking at the bar. 
   "Like Herod" was a stunning finale.  The soft-loud contrast was at full extreme.  More than anything else this is a song that will solidify Mogwai's US following.  One of the godspeed percussionists joined in at the end - much to Stuart's surprise.  Stuart responded by shoving a couple of drum sticks between his guitar strings.  He look close to trashing more equipment, but settled for screaming into a mike.  Great stuff!

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