GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR

Manchester O2 Ritz - 1st October 2024

There's something about knowing that GY!BE have opened with Hope Drone for the better part of a decade – a track that has never had an official release and one that ultimately changes in subtle ways each time – that feels pretty apt.

When I first saw them two years ago the world was still coming out of a virus changing our whole lives forever requiring a choice: either adapt or watch as life slowly returned back to what it deemed to be normality but with an undercurrent of fear.

This time as the Hope Drone hits – we see a world gripped in fear once more: fear of a modern dictator being allowed to be in charge as the so called Leader of The Free World again, the slow rise of fascism mark II in Europe and an escalation of a conflict going back seven decades as it expands across the whole of the Middle East.

Tonight as GY!BE invite Manchester to their world we get to escape it but the undercurrent is always there – nevermore so than when we hear for the first time live tracks from 'No Title As Of February 2024 28,340 Dead' the album due out three days after this magical night, an album that is clearly their response to the recent escalation in the Middle East.

By the time the music hits an excellent crescendo we get given a bonus – the first playing on this UK run of Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada in full and there is a even brighter glimmer of hope that things just might be OK as long as music like this exists.

GY!BE might also be the only band I see a crowd wait until the loop of feedback slowly fades away over the course of ten minutes and we take in the two hours and remember why they sold out every date on this run – because they makes us feel... hope.

(The tracks from No Title… 28,430 Dead will be added on Friday)