Black Midi
Fat Tony
Constellation
November 6th
Black Midi / all đź“· : Tina Mead
Fat Tony lit up and smudged the stage with a blunt, "gotta get the vibe right" as the crowd hooted with appreciation. He started strong with "Swervin'" which had an irresistible groove and a refrain that filled the space with positive vibes: "gotta dream, I ain't gonna give it up." The Texan rapper had a unique energy, moving so fast around the stage he was near manic. Jumping, gettin low, and standing up on the monitors to reach into the audience. All the while he returning to the tracks, fucking with them. Being his own DJ. He used it to great effect on "Godly." Clearing the music, so it's return hit even harder, delivering the lyric with urgency: "she let me beat it up like Rodney." Then switching to a vocal effect mic that obscured the line. He left the rhyme for a guttural yell that took him to his knees. An intense need to express, not just be cool. But he did bring the cool with "Hood Party" Which is a killer track. Although it felt a bit weird to be a white girl that knows all the words to a song that is about the black experience of gentrification, but hey, "even white people know it's a good party." He ended the set strong with DEVO's "Whip It" kicking the party up before transitioning into his song "Texas." Cartoonish sound effects laced the track and politically charged lyrics make it a must listen.
Black Midi's music was equal parts hard core and noise jazz. Over the course of the year (this is my third time seeing them in 2019) they have become more and more in tune with each other. Improvising and jamming out the songs into now much longer forms. Watching them decide where to go and how to get there was engaging. They pulled back and returned, just when you thought they had moved into a new song they brought the thread back, often harder than ever. The youngsters pressed against the stage and willfully moshed at every thrashing opportunity, surrounded by chill old timers standing on the fringes, admiring the craftsmanship. "Speedway" put the jazz on display, giving Geordie Greep’s guitar and Cameron Picton’s bass relatively simple timekeeping roles, while Morgan Simpson’s drums were complex and melodic. As Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin started to make use of the wah pedal things began to evolve and suddenly drop out. Unlike the recording, they built back up again, and again, giving us another meditation. All the while Greep was challenging us, raising his eyebrows, strutting and twirling. If and when it suited him. Their music: experimental yet practiced. I felt the tension and balance of those opposing forces. "Ducter" really brought Kwasniewski-Kelvin to a place of intense aggression, downstrumming with emphatic and violently stringent strokes. I could see the tension building in him as the music built and the audience slammed into each other. Then he collapsed under the music, shredding and eating his strings. When the music started with a gentle complex picking by Greep, a melody more common in folk music, it was a new sound for them. A refreshing turn. I’ll be interested to see if it becomes a recorded track someday. But Black Midi brought things back to the familiar intensity to end the show with "bmbmbm" and the audience quickly obliged with a full on thrash of bodies.
