Black Midi in Philadelphia
Black Midi in Helsinki. Credit Ninara from Helsinki, Finland.
It’s colder than the ninth circle of hell and just about as miserable. Cruel, icy wind blows through the highrises of center city Philly as you hustle from 30th Street Station to the sneaky hidden treasure that is First Unitarian Church’s basement. It’s the site of many a fond memory for you, including (but not limited to) endearingly sweaty Jeff Rosenstock shows, your first stage dive as a bright-eyed 18 year old, running mascara and screaming lyrics and stomach full of buffalo ranch pizza from Mix Bar and Grill down the street.
I used to question why it was decided that a church basement was a good location for a music venue. I get it now. Because every once in a while, something divine happens in First Unitarian Church’s basement. The arrival of Black Midi is one such instance.
The drummer starts first, like the beat of a heart right before it runs out of blood, faster and faster and faster until it is indistinguishable from the rest of the noise in the atmosphere. A pulsing bassline so damn ominous as to make your teeth grind in anticipation of whatever horror is about to come.
Geordie Greep, lead singer and guitarist, comes up to the mic and says he needs you, looking like a lost lamb in the grime of the basement. Guitar distortion abounds, like ripples echoing out from a lead weight dropped in a lake. The tension is palpable as the audience holds their breath, waiting for the first recognizable note to a song.
The guitars swallow us like a sonic youth noise suspension, further and further into the gullet of the noise rock beast.
One note cuts the room like a stiletto heel, a slight distraction from the bassline, which shifts into a tiger in the trees, weaving in between the two guitars, slaloming like a snake.
And then we hear the words:
“Please stop all of this strange fantasy”
The first words we know, have sung a million times as we obsess and listen to “953” over and over again in attempts to find a note we will not notice until this listen.
They’re improvising constantly, just letting the natural noises of electricity and wire flow through the room, every once in a while pulling over to a song that they know, a song they have rehearsed, before letting the note ring out into noisy oblivion for the next five minutes. Truck stops of familiarity before venturing back into unknown sonic highway. They tenderly feel out the direction of their transitions until they find the next song they want to play.
The drummer, Morgan Simpson, is killing it, shirt off, covered in sweat, imbued with divine timekeeping power, sometimes leaping up like a mad genius to hit the cymbal with the fury of Thor’s hammer and tempo switching like a drag racer shifting gears, effortless and cool. The other guitarist, Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin, crouches like he’s in pain sometimes, like his guitar is connected to his body and its screeches are his own. A three-note pattern like descending a staircase on repeat, and an erratic sprinkling of drumming reminiscent of a jazz club in Harlem at the height of its glory.
A guy in the front crouches as if to kiss the stage, prostrate like a pilgrim having found his holy place.
Morgan’s steady drumming makes me feel like I’m building up to a jog, then a run , then a sprint for my fucking life, more and more urgent until it dissolves into a bubbling cathartic storm of percussion, and then nothing. Dissonant guitar sings quietly, like they’re mumbling, trying to solve a puzzle by finding the right note to proceed with before they can continue. The beat reawakens—except it’s impossible to keep time along with him because he’s changing the tempo...constantly.
Distortion makes the walls swell and warp, the bass booming and passing through you like radio waves.
Geordie grins as he sees recognition bloom in our eyes with the next song—“Reggae”—when he leans into the mic to whisper words like a prayer; you could hear a pin drop. We all hold our breath to listen to this kid preach the gospel of noise.
The increasingly louder guitar sounds like a bomber plane flying closer, closer, closer...We have entered “Near DT, MI” territory. It’s like a Godspeed You! Black Emperor spoken word, like an anthem to the dead. Matt thrashes around like he’s having a seizure as the song ends in blissful cacophony.
The show’s nearing its end now and everyone is holding their breath to hear “bmbmbm,” its snarky nonsense the perfect finish to the night. Geordie starts with the lyrics we all know and love—“She moves with a purpose.” What purpose Geordie??? Will we ever know??—but quickly dissolves into a delirious stream-of-consciousness babble, at one point even commenting, “Oh my god it’s sososo hot in here”, like a demoniac feverishly moving his mouth.
At the end of the day, there are two shirts off, Matt is just crawling around the floor, barely even playing guitar anymore. Just praying to the guitar pedal.