Black Midi
Foregoing an opener, apparently because they couldn't organize it after rescheduling from the start of the month, it was just
bm bm bm (they did not play the song
bmbmbm) from 9pm although they promised the QMU crowd an extended set. Primarily composed of freshers (well, students, at least) it was packed and hot in the venue before the quartet came out on stage to a bit of a prerecorded skit, wearing terrible, dated, old man clothing and sunglasses, while most of them were sporting unfashionable mustaches too. The meaning behind all of this, including a staged fight and card came later on, was lost as the words were mostly lost in the fracas, much like their music itself, in part due to muddy sound. To an unfamiliar ear,
black midi could sound like chaos but fortunately there were hundreds of familiar ears all lapping it up as they let loose in the pit. To me the drumming, and the drummer, are the focal point of the live set and, as they had done at
End of the Road '19, he was stationed at the end of the line of musicians, facing the rest of the band, rather than the standard tucking of the drummer at the back facing the crowd. He immediately took off his shirt and began bashing away. The bass and electric guitar alternated between the two vocalists - the one with the signature and seemingly faked baritone can still actually sing with it. On one song the other singer played a bashed up, amplified acoustic with the hole mostly duct taped over. They leaned on this year's
Cavalcade release but did dip back into
Schlagenheim [2019] as well. It was not all bangers which was probably for the best considering how rowdy the crowd was getting but no matter what they were playing they were doing it very well. Not note perfect, they did build around each other and hit their complex math rock time signatures along the way. To this layperson music lover, it was all quite impressive. The trifecta that they closed with was a build, build, build that absolutely nailed all the greatness about a live performance from a band like black midi, culminating with
John L. The seated keyboardist and drummer even broke character to exchange a smile during one of the more frantic sequences that had him playing most of the keys with his entire forearm. An encore was not to be, as they left the way they had entered - with a flying kick from the drummer, and a "Go to bed" instruction from the singer. Excellent show.
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