ShareMogwai performing at Rock City Nottingham on Tuesday 14th February 2023.
Images and Review by Kevin Cooper
The crowd at Rock City were treated to a smorgasbord of instrumental rock epics from Scottish post rock band Mogwai on Tuesday night, who played tracks from across their career.
The four piece band plus touring member let their music do the talking as they took to the stage in atmospheric darkness and delivered a show that was filled with amazing soundscapes that immediately captured the crowd’s imagination.
Opening with To The Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate The Earth from their tenth and latest studio album, As The Love Continues, the band followed up with an eclectic mix of delicate melodies and thundering noise which could be deafening at times but utterly charming.
I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead was a real highlight with its slower piano led pace that built to an immense climax and was a superb example of the sheer scale of the music this group creates. Their two hour set contained a good range of their back catalogue including Killing All The Flies, How To Be A Werewolf and Don’t Believe The Fife before they delighted the crowd with Ratts Of The Capital.
The superb synth enhanced Remurdered was a real stand out number, as was the punchy soaring head banger, Summer, which was definitely a live favourite. For the encore there was their most recent single, Ritchie Sacramento, which in a near speechless set actually had some vocals from Simon Braithwaite to the delight of the crowd.
Their twenty minute long 2001 single, My Father, My King, brought the evening to an end with a flourish of power and passion that had captured the crowd’s emotions.
Undoubtedly, Mogwai are a band who trade in dynamics and atmosphere and play some of the most enchanting and instrumental epics ever recorded. Their goal is not for the audience to merely hear their music; they want them to feel it. And the Rock City crowd did not disappoint.