Ghost in Seattle

This was a sold-out show, with the line to get in stretching around the block an hour before it began. Sitting up in the balcony, it quickly became apparent that I'm just a casual fan, compared to the majority of the people in attendance. Lots of charged-up enthusiasm, and a lot of people who had dressed for the occasion. (One particularly beautiful girl looked like a Spanish maja at a funeral. Quite striking.)

Ghost opened its set with two taped pieces -- the first one being a mournful piano instrumental (which actually got the crowd clapping along in unison), and the second one being a lengthy pseudo-Gregorian choir piece. The shouting and screaming built up high during that second piece; one guy in the crowd yelled, "Welcome to church, bitches!"

Finally the band of "nameless ghouls" came out, all dressed in black Victorian waistcoats, black vests over black dress shirts and ties, black slacks and black shoes with white spats (for that touch of color). They all wore their shiny gray ghoul masks -- replicas of which were on sale at the swag booth.

The musicians started rocking, and Papa Emeritus emerged from a big cloud of vapor, in vivid purple robes, mitre and his skull-like makeup. From then on, the crowd was on its feet, cheering, screaming, singing along and generally engaged in the rock & roll "black Mass."

The band was extremely tight, locking into groove after groove and changing tempos with ease. (I guess, when a band subsumes the identities of its individual members, they focus more on their playing as an ensemble.) Papa E didn't speak to the crowd until after "Per Aspera"; he began by asking how many had seen the band's last Seattle gig. He apologized to those people, saying it had been "a little cramped and hot." (I'm not sure where that gig took place; El Corazón comes to mind.) He then brought two women on stage, dressed as nuns, and introduced them as "sisters of sin, from Seattle." He sent them into the audience to serve Communion during "Body and Blood."

After the instrumental interlude (during which the stage was dark; only the keyboard player's spats made it clear that anyone was on stage at all), Papa came back out, this time in a purple Victorian waistcoat, black shirt & tie and white vest. His mitre was gone, and his hair was combed back in a Willem Dafoe style. With the skull makeup, he looked like the latest version of The Joker, from the Batman movies.

They took a group bow after "Ritual," but didn't actually leave the stage. Papa sat on one of the monitors and started into a talk about the fact that they close every Ghost show with the same song, and how it's meant to "celebrate the female orgasm." Another group bow after "Monstrance Clock," and they were off. Very entertaining show.

SETLIST:
Square Hammer
From the Pinnacle to the Pit
Secular Haze
Stand By Him
Con Clavi Con Dio
Per Aspera ad Inferi
Body and Blood/Devil Church
Cirice
Year Zero
[instrumental interlude]
He Is
Absolution
Mummy Dust
Ghuleh/Zombie Queen
Ritual
[spoken interlude]
Monstrance Clock

Opening act was a young woman named Marissa Nadler. Just her on guitar and a keyboard player. Although I arrived in time for her set, I missed it entirely -- got a phone call that I had no choice but to take, requiring me to step out into the corridor.

That's a pretty good setlist. I've yet to see Ghost play - the timing is always lousy, and reports from people I know range from "Amazing!" to "Awful!" (Which also sums up opinions on the band in general.) Their last album and current single "Square Hammer" are so good (at least to me) that I've been dying to see them, but they've steadfastly avoided Austin on this tour, except for a show near the beginning of the album cycle. Someday.

I've been knocking around the idea of a TP entry on them. Would that be appropriate?

Toland - go for it. I'd read it.

Delvin - glad you enjoyed the show. As I wrote last year, Ghost really puts on a enjoyable show. Did you get the keytar solo?

> Did you get the keytar solo?

Why yes, the keyboard ghoul played a keytar solo.

Am I the only one who thinks people are referring to the 90s-00s Japanese psych band when they're talking about Ghost?

[www.discogs.com]

You're not the only one. Japanese Ghost join the original Knack and Nirvana on the list of obscure bands who got to see their names ride off into the sunset with more popular bands.

I saw on Pledge Music that there's a new band called Liliput. Time will tell if they manage to eclipse the beloved Swiss post-punkettes. I doubt it, since new bands that carve out any sort of notoriety these days are few and far between. Then again, I think their photo showed them to have rustic long hair and beards, and the kids just love that stuff these days. (I refer to the new Liliput, of course, not the old.)

Back in the 80s, there was a stupid local bar band in these parts who for years insisted on going by the name XTC. Finally, someone must've managed to get them to a record store and show them that there was world beyond Creedence and Grand Funk covers, and they grudgingly changed their name to Xtasy.

Quote

...and they grudgingly changed their name to Xtasy.

I can't be the only one who laughed out loud after reading this?

The Japanese Ghost was a great band - I got to see them in a small club on one of their rare U.S tours (or at least rare that they'd come to Texas) and it was phenomenal. Alas, they very quietly broke up a few years ago. I didn't even know (they sometimes took a few years between records) until the Swedish Ghost came along and I wondered how they were getting away with using the name.

Ghost leader Masaki Batoh now leads a band called the Silence, which tones down the Japanese folk influences, but otherwise sounds like the original Ghost. Genius guitarist Michio Kurihari seems to have gone into hibernation - he's not moonlighting with Boris anymore, his other band The Stars has been quite for quite a while, and nothing's been announced since Ghost split. I Google him from time to time to see if he's doing anything.

Technically, the Swedish Ghost is Ghost B.C. here in America, though they don't have to put that on the album covers.

I've heard the 60s Nirvana. There was another Knack?

Yeah, and my brother and his teen pals back in the day came up with a name they were real proud of: The Zombies. I had to, er, tell 'em no.

The original Knack were some groovy a-go-go '60s Brits. As were the Go-Gos, who did the xmas classic "I Wanna Spend Christmas With A Dalek." Not to be confused with the '60s LA surf boy band the Go-Gos.

Pisses me off about Liliput, how dare they!

A few years back, my drummer friend had put together a band he thought had real potential. (Let's leave it at that.) He told me they were thinking of calling themselves The Fall.

Am now listening to on-line radio playing The Feelies...from 1969.

The new Liliput:

[www.pledgemusic.com]

Back in the 80s or 90s, the Christian husband & wife duo of Greg & Rebecca Sparks decided to go simply by their last name. That lasted one album, then I assume someone clued them in that perhaps they might not want to go by the name of Sparks.

I can understand how up to the 80s it might have been harder to be aware of earlier bands with your prospective new band name (hence all the various Dogs, Mutants, Usual Suspects, etc. roaming the earth). But with the internet there's no longer any excuse for cribbing the name of an earlier act (even if folks aren't aware of Discogs or Allmusic, one would think that five minutes on Google would tell them whether their clever band name has already been used).