When the World is Sick Can't No One Be Well

The haunting ending to God Bless Our Dead Marines. Apologies for horrible video quality.

Tonight Jason, Jason's Lady Friend, Skyler, Shawn and I went to see A Silver Mount Zion. Or rather, The Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band. The show was basically the culmination of four years of blue balls resulting from a 2002 Godspeed You! Black Emperor tour that was supposed to reach the west coast but never got farther than Texas. The four of us (minus JLF) checked weekly to see if new dates were added for nearly a year. They never were.

So A Silver Mount Zion, helmed by GYBE's Efrim Menuck, acted as a proxy, giving us a glimpse into what we missed back in our senior year of high school. Besides that, they gave a stellar show in their own right. Perhaps it's a simple case of lowered expectations but their showmanship was much greater than I had expected and Efrim had a casual repoire with the audience.

I even managed to find free parking (!) in the heart of Hollywood. Had it not been for the disastrous first half of the night, all our GYBE fantasies would have come true. But alas, after arriving about half an hour after the doors opened we proceeded to stand and sit around for another solid hour waiting for the first act to go on. Then, the first act was wretched, all insipid crooning over choppy, abstract nonsense noise. The worst excesses of post-rock distilled down to one 45-minute set.

Normally I consider myself openminded about music, but as Shawn said, "When even Matt wants to leave you know it's bad." We couldn't get out of there quick enough. On the bright side, it gave us a chance to enjoy the pleasantly laid-back venue, The Vanguard. The spacious outdoor bar and patio gave us respite from the noise.