As the Corner fills with Swans fans, Christoph Hahn sits on a stool and smiles benignly at the audience, plucks a gentle pastoral on his guitar. He is a skilled player but coughs a lot. Surprisingly, he suppresses it long enough to wrap his deep resonant voice around a cover of Astronomy by the almost forgotten Thin White Rope. Soulfully singing an original in German, he wonders if anyone understands the lyrics, which are about remembering the past whilst sitting on a train and travelling to a friend’s funeral. Painful memories come to Hahn’s mind as he starts to look genuinely despairing and tearful. Hahn’s set is almost entirely comprised of woefully sad heartbreaking songs of desolation and isolation that seem to strike strong emotional chords with many in the crowd. Ambitiously choosing to cover Van Der Graaf Generator’s Still Life at the end of his set, Hahn pays homage to Peter Hammill declaring him to be a great songwriter. While Hahn’s playing is brilliant, he fails to hit some of the high notes giving his cover of this song a somewhat wonky feel.
Deranged carnival music is pumped out of the P.A. as punters jostle for a good position in front of the stage, which looks a little over crowded with stacks of amps occupying most of the available space. Eventually, the Swans (led by Michael Gira) squeeze their way onto the stage and start layering jangling noises to create an abstract wash of electronic sound over which Gira intones To Be Kind in a way that simultaneously sounds hymnal and dirge like. It isn’t long before we are collectively battered senseless by the loudest noise that Swans can manage to make. It feels violent, punishing and brutally visceral. Everything in the room is vibrating out of control, every atom of your body feels the electricity and you would be forgiven for thinking that an earthquake was rocking Richmond.
Kudos to the man who screamed ‘Can you turn it up’ afterward while most in the front were whipped into whimpering submission. The Swans’ aggressive, angry and testosterone-fuelled rock may lead some to think that the gates of Hell have opened but if you allow yourself to disappear into the music there is a strange hypnotising calm at the very centre of this storm. The Swans ascend the chaos, they manage to make music out of drones and noise and at times Gira reaches for the stars in search of transcendence. They construct a strange meditative space out of industrial strength rock that at once stuns and entrances the crowd. They play just a handful of songs, mainly unreleased material and those featured on apocalyptic The Seer for just over two hours. Coward remains a highlight from back catalogue recorded in the ‘80s.
Amusingly Gira, looking rather manic, wants the guy at the mixing desk to turn up the volume for Nathalie. He obliges and they proceed to blow a bass amp. An epic version of The Seer is merged with Oxygen to create an exhausting conclusion to the evening. As gargantuan waves of crescendos crash on our heads, those still standing emerge strangely cleansed. No encore necessary, just smiles all round.
BY THE SIDEMAN
LOVED: The loudness and the fact that Gira signed my Swans vinyl later.
HATED: That I forgot to bring my good earplugs.
DRANK: Water.
