Drop-d News: Live Review, Mogwai, The Academy

Artist: Mogwai
Source: Adam Lacey and Paddy Murphy

Saturday: Adam Lacey

For those who care to search through the many folds in the belly of the post-rock beast, Mogwai are the band that really defines this Simon Reynolds-coined sub genre.

Playing a delicious blend of in-your-face instrumental metal with lush electronics, piano, some digitally-treated vocals and plenty of melody, Mogwai’s songs at once sound immediate and familiar, even to those who own not a single Mogwai long-player.

The second night of their Academy residency sees the group in fine fettle, swigging liberally from bottles of red wine and beer cups and ploughing through a set that differs from the previous night with the exclusion of some tracks such as Like Herod and Summer but with the inclusion of others such as the devastating Ithica 27 Ø 9.

The crowd is peppered with green shirts bearing the O2 logo, thanks to the earlier achievements of the Irish rugby team, and if any band is going to represent the sonic equivalent of a Grand Slam, it’s these Scottish fiends.

Saturday’s set is a pick of tunes from their impressive canon with four from their recent The Hawk is Howling: opener I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead, Scotland’s Shame, Thank You Space Expert and the sublime set closer, prior to the encore, of Bat Cat whose metal riffs threaten to tear the floor from The Academy and plunge the hordes into Hades.

Hunted By A Freak is greeted with one of the biggest cheers of the night and the band are chatty without over-indulgence, with one quip about a recent visit to Prince’s London shows nearly resulting in a crowd sing-along of Purple Rain. There is plenty of predictably reverential silence for most of the quiet bits, with the occasional roar of sheer joy proving that the sold-out crowd clearly boasts more than a handful of hardcore Mogwai fans (Moggers?)

After a 10 minute break at the end the encore begins with Kids Will Be Skeletons and then a moving rendition of Mogwai Fear Satan from their ’97 album Young Team to finish. The band are visibly comfortable with each other after such a long time together and this only serves to enhance the intricacies of their music in a live setting with all the parts coming seamlessly together to make one glorious racket.

This is a gripping show, drenched in strobe lighting and noise. Hopefully they won’t wait so long until they play a gig here again, although a 3-day residency is certainly a great way to make amends.

And a tip of the hat to the sound techs in The Academy - the sound is spot on.

Wonder how Sunday’s gig went...

Sunday: Paddy Murphy

Seeing Mogwai tonight was a bit like that thing about meeting your heroes. Walking up to the Academy in silence, mulling over what they might play, what they'll sound like, will they be wrecked after a weekend of partying in Dublin.........truly I was a fuckin bag of nerves.....

Up the stairs into the venue and the bar was silent, no messing. All you could hear was the cash registers ringing. It was eerie to say the least.

The band make their way on stage without much of a hubbub and set into a slow building set. Starting off with Autorock from Mr Beast. The band seem a bit tired as they follow that with Hunted but you can't blame them considering they're five Glasgow boys in Dublin for the first time in years. Soon following were the wonderfully named I Love You, I'm Going to Blow Up Your School and latest album opener, The Hawk is Howling, I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead (anyone see the t-shirt with Morrison's image? Genius.) Until the latter it had been looking as if we were going to be treated to a much calmer set than the previous nights. With the Morrison song it soon changed.

Xmas Steps and Scotland's Shame, named after a flag seen pointing at Rangers soccer fans, showed that Celtic fans were not in a chilled mood in any way, shape or form. The crowd were responsive for the most part. A quick look around the impressive Academy and most were nodding their heads, even the privileged on the balcony above us minnions, to the beat. There were quiet a few annoying “shushes” though through-out the night, though, which was a bit weird.

Friend of the Night get a walloping with a far angrier version than appears on Mr. Beast and it's the first song that really, properly, tested the Academy's speakers. Makes you think how the hell can the sound engineers, and indeed the speakers, still cope with the demands of a vicious assault that Mogwai have given them over the last three nights here in a row.

We're No Here leaves everyone's ear's bleeding in the best way possible and turns into full on prog-metal the likes of which Tool would have been proud of. The ten minutes between the end of the song and the time the band reappear for the encore are filled with all kinds of blips, beeps and looped drum machines. There was a silence though at the end, the crowd not quiet knowing whether it was all over or not. In fact it took one fan to united the crowd and get everyone hollering for Mogwai to get back and give us more.

They finished with an ear-shattering version of You Don't Know Jesus and the short and immensely loud Glasgow Mega-Snake.

Doubtlessly most there will have come to the gig with their ideal setlist in mind but ya know what...it doesn't matter, Mogwai are the masters of post-rock and to have seen them on their final night of the Academy's Mog-fest was a pure unadulterated privilege.