Explosions In The Sky @O2 Academy Brixton, London

January 27th, 2012

I asked my South African friend Jordan, if he liked Explosions In The Sky. He told me this:

i find their music predictable, but incredibly transportive. visual.

you see stories when you listen.

you can feel their music with your body, live: it's huge, swallowing.

That's exactly how most of the people would describe the band, which completely owns the art of composing instrumentals that take its listeners inside a story. A story, which one builds in their mind and feels it being told forward with the help of the 'mini-symphony resulting into a catharsis'.

Some consider the music to be sad, having for example war pictures in their minds. No doubt that it does have the melancholic side in it, but it also transmits happiness. Thus I call it my 'happy melancholia'.

As the stories I build in my mind are joyful.

The first time I saw the band play was in The Netherlands last May (Explosions In Paradise). I remember being all depressed, because of leaving Ireland, the place which I very much enjoyed and then hoping that 'explosions in the sky in amsterdam would cheer me up'. I'm lucky that no one came to arrest me due to that Facebook status update.

Another lesson learned from that gig was not to drink beer. Otherwise, I would have ended up having a miserable time building stories, with a picture of a toilet.

The show couldn't have started better by playing one of my favorites 'Postcard from 1952'. And I love how they introduce themselves.

It's amazing to see how the audience at their gigs sway peacefully, eyes closed, so deep into the music. Then suddenly start to bang their heads, when the climax strikes. They are simply one of those bands, which everyone needs to see live.

I was so happy that this time they played 'The Birth and Death of The Day', the piece, which made me fall in love with them at the first place. What I was missing in Amsterdam, I got in London. I guess the 1½ hour of non-stop superb musical talent celebration, filled with several emotional purifications, was an enough dose to fill up my 'feel-good factor tank' for a long period.

Until next time;

 

Or like my Spanish friend Sara, who will 'super take care'.