{"id":943,"date":"2017-03-27T20:27:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T20:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=943"},"modified":"2026-06-27T20:29:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T20:29:41","slug":"mogwai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=943","title":{"rendered":"Mogwai"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 2006, 40 Watt, Athens, Ga.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just before Mogwai walked on stage, a guy wearing black glasses and a T-shirt with the word STAFF across the front took the mic, and in a comedic bit geared toward the post-rock crowd, described the rules of the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that a girl? No girls, no girls, just guys staring at pedals,\u201d he said as laughter erupted in the room. \u201cRule No. 2, no skanking. Please keep in mind this is not a ska show, there will be no room to dance like a monkey at a god damn Mighty Mighty Bosstone show.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a warning of no cursing with a list of preferable words that could be used instead (shoot, dang, crack, dookie, po po), Mogwai took to their instruments to the roar of the sold out crowd. For the next hour and 45 minutes, the Scottish band spoke louder with its instruments than many bands with lead singers could not.<\/p>\n

I was late to the post-rock party, it took me moving to Athens to really understand and appreciate the genre. Years back I interviewed the guys from A. Armada, a now deceased Athens band which I adored, and I asked them why play music with no words. Bryant Williamson, who was the band\u2019s bassist and is also lead guitarist for Cinemechanica said this: \u201cMusically you can experiment and go in so many different places without keeping vocals in mind. In order to make vocals work you have to stray more into pop structure. If you take it out of the equation, it\u2019s easier to experiment with dynamics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mogwai are experts in this, as it showed time and time again on this night. It opened with \u201cHelicon 1,\u201d a song which starts with a quiet, delayed guitar as the bass slowly drifts into place. The guitars add a more prominent sound as the drums join in \u2014 all with a deliberate rise. An abrupt pause erupts into an explosion of instruments, which is the sweet spot of any good post-rock band.<\/p>\n

Touring on its fifth album Mr. Beast<\/em>, Mogwai played selections from that album (\u201cFriend of the Night,\u201d \u201cTravel is Dangerous\u201d and \u201cAcid Food\u201d), but dug from their first album Mogwai Young Team<\/em> (\u201cTracy,\u201d \u201cMogwai Fear Satan\u201d) as well. It made sense \u2014 Mr. Beast<\/em> harkens back to Mogwai Young Team<\/em>, but with a more mature hand. Mogwai was 11 years in when I saw them in 2006, and now, in its 20th year as a band, continues to be vibrant and meaningful.<\/p>\n

The show ended with \u201cWe\u2019re no Here,\u201d the dynamic final song on Mr. Beast<\/em>. It\u2019s another song that takes a minute or so to get going before it pounds the listener for minutes on minutes of guitars and cymbals. It\u2019s a song hard to follow because it takes so much energy to perform, leaving the band, and crowd, spent.<\/p>\n

There was no dancing, and there were lots of pedals. And it was glorious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 2006, 40 Watt, Athens, Ga. Just before Mogwai walked on stage, a guy wearing black glasses and a T-shirt with the word STAFF across the front took the mic, and in a comedic bit geared toward the post-rock crowd, described the rules of the show. \u201cIs that a girl? No girls, no girls, just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[45,160],"class_list":["post-943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-40-watt","tag-mogwai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":945,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions\/945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}