ISIS @ Montreal Club Soda, Jun 23/10
While I was on my way to Montreal, the G20 summit started; downtown was shut down with good solid fencing, municipal, provincial and federal police patrolling the whole area, protesters everywhere, the university & exams shut down (unheard of!); also, an earthquake of 5.4 happened near Ottawa, felt in Toronto around noon; and apparently thunderstorms plagued the night. Feels like I missed an apocalypse. I got back yesterday and today there were riots going down: windows smashed, police cars set on fire. I can't help thinking while I watch news (or action movies) like that about who is going to pay for the damage. A waste, a waste. Good sensible issues are probably being drowned out in the senseless violence.
My mobile cut out while I went through Ottawa (afterwards, I figured it was because of the earthquake), and the bus was delayed, but I made it without injury and even with time for dinner to spare. A friend of a friend, J. was also going to the show (which was sold out) and he had a friend, S. coming in from Quebec City specifically to see ISIS (thereby missing out on both St. Jean celebrations in Montreal and Quebec)... the catch was, he lost the tickets. However, he totally lucked out and bought leftover tickets at the venue, that weren't even jacked up. I heard elsewhere that the scalping rate had gone up to $150. I had paid $23 for mine.
From Sinking
Not in Rivers, But in Drops
Holy Tears
Threshold of Transformation
Ghost Key
Collapse and Crush
So Did We
In Fiction
The Beginning and the End
J. and I were in line for about 40 minutes for the merchandise, which is ridiculous. Last show of any band, and to have only one guy work the stand? By the time I got to the front, they were out of any shirts that fit me, so there was nothing to do but shrug and leave. By then, the opening band, Cave In were playing. J. and I found a perfect spot on the balcony that was "reserved", but magically not actually. S. joined us while Cave In were wrapping up.
ISIS started at ~9:45, and now that I do the math, they ended around 11:15pm, which seems like a tragically short main set. No encore. Maybe it was too sad for them, I can't say. Either way, it was brutally short, and left us all three kind of unfulfilled.
But while they were playing, it was magical. The crowd was so into it, and I almost wish I was on the floor in the front, because it has been awhile since I've been able to just forget about being clean and neat and enjoy the dubious fun of a crush of human bodies against your back and worrying about if your elbow is going to take out the eye of the guy in front of you. On the other hand, having the vantage point of watching the tidal wave of bodies surging towards the stage, and break like a wave with a multitude of fingers splayed like sprays against the band is a fitting visual metaphor for ISIS' music on the whole.
A perfect setlist, a mix of old and new. Beautiful and unnerving. Aaron Turner grew a beard or something, and looked like a complete hobo-cum-artiste. The bodies of the members were each a whipcord, elastic but wound up. He said, "Merci beaucoup" in a bad accent and everyone loved it. He thanked everyone who contributed to ISIS over the twelve years since they played their first ever show in Montreal. The club cranked up the sound a little too high, which was slightly irritating, but I think the heart of ISIS is in its thundering inexorability, so maybe it wasn't inappropriate. Submersion. It feels like the echo of the music resonates with your organs and is ready to shake your heart out of its ribcage.
The last song was The Beginning and the End, unsurprisingly. I couldn't have asked for better. It's personally the beginning and the end for me, too, since Oceanic was the first album I had heard by them, and of that, it is the opener. Too fitting. It was wistful, but I was not sad. The goodbye is enough.
And that was it. There was no encore. The house lights went up and the staff started clearing up the instruments pretty shortly after. It's a mystery to me. Before any of us knew it, ISIS was no more. I am writing about a band that has been put to the grave. Afterwards, it seemed that the melancholy of the entire thing had caught up with J. Farewell, ISIS, and hope to see your members about.
I spent the rest of the evening making an anthropological study of how the Quebecois drink in the name of St. Jean Baptiste (conclusion: very well). The actual holiday was unfortunately rainy, but we had a good game of Carcasonne and then visited the old port of Montreal, which is just lovely. Could have spent more time there, easily.
My mobile cut out while I went through Ottawa (afterwards, I figured it was because of the earthquake), and the bus was delayed, but I made it without injury and even with time for dinner to spare. A friend of a friend, J. was also going to the show (which was sold out) and he had a friend, S. coming in from Quebec City specifically to see ISIS (thereby missing out on both St. Jean celebrations in Montreal and Quebec)... the catch was, he lost the tickets. However, he totally lucked out and bought leftover tickets at the venue, that weren't even jacked up. I heard elsewhere that the scalping rate had gone up to $150. I had paid $23 for mine.
From Sinking
Not in Rivers, But in Drops
Holy Tears
Threshold of Transformation
Ghost Key
Collapse and Crush
So Did We
In Fiction
The Beginning and the End
J. and I were in line for about 40 minutes for the merchandise, which is ridiculous. Last show of any band, and to have only one guy work the stand? By the time I got to the front, they were out of any shirts that fit me, so there was nothing to do but shrug and leave. By then, the opening band, Cave In were playing. J. and I found a perfect spot on the balcony that was "reserved", but magically not actually. S. joined us while Cave In were wrapping up.
ISIS started at ~9:45, and now that I do the math, they ended around 11:15pm, which seems like a tragically short main set. No encore. Maybe it was too sad for them, I can't say. Either way, it was brutally short, and left us all three kind of unfulfilled.
But while they were playing, it was magical. The crowd was so into it, and I almost wish I was on the floor in the front, because it has been awhile since I've been able to just forget about being clean and neat and enjoy the dubious fun of a crush of human bodies against your back and worrying about if your elbow is going to take out the eye of the guy in front of you. On the other hand, having the vantage point of watching the tidal wave of bodies surging towards the stage, and break like a wave with a multitude of fingers splayed like sprays against the band is a fitting visual metaphor for ISIS' music on the whole.
A perfect setlist, a mix of old and new. Beautiful and unnerving. Aaron Turner grew a beard or something, and looked like a complete hobo-cum-artiste. The bodies of the members were each a whipcord, elastic but wound up. He said, "Merci beaucoup" in a bad accent and everyone loved it. He thanked everyone who contributed to ISIS over the twelve years since they played their first ever show in Montreal. The club cranked up the sound a little too high, which was slightly irritating, but I think the heart of ISIS is in its thundering inexorability, so maybe it wasn't inappropriate. Submersion. It feels like the echo of the music resonates with your organs and is ready to shake your heart out of its ribcage.
The last song was The Beginning and the End, unsurprisingly. I couldn't have asked for better. It's personally the beginning and the end for me, too, since Oceanic was the first album I had heard by them, and of that, it is the opener. Too fitting. It was wistful, but I was not sad. The goodbye is enough.
And that was it. There was no encore. The house lights went up and the staff started clearing up the instruments pretty shortly after. It's a mystery to me. Before any of us knew it, ISIS was no more. I am writing about a band that has been put to the grave. Afterwards, it seemed that the melancholy of the entire thing had caught up with J. Farewell, ISIS, and hope to see your members about.
I spent the rest of the evening making an anthropological study of how the Quebecois drink in the name of St. Jean Baptiste (conclusion: very well). The actual holiday was unfortunately rainy, but we had a good game of Carcasonne and then visited the old port of Montreal, which is just lovely. Could have spent more time there, easily.