THE GODS THE GODS THE GODS @ Underbelly Festival - Review
Like a Humanist megachurch. ★★
At the Underbelly Festival in Cavendish Square until 21st September.
Tickets from £13.50.
Rating: ★★
I’ll preface this review by acknoweldging I probably saw this show at it’s absolute worst, in an awkward venue with a small crowd and sober. Listening to the album on Spotify, it’s much cleaner and more confident.
THE GODS THE GODS THE GODS is a show between a gig and theatre, the album contains a narrative and the three members of the band frequently inhabit characters. It tells four stories, bouncing between them. The Greek gods (and a prophet) are gathering to discuss the future; a couple are falling in love; a woman is scattering ashes on a beach; and a man is contemplating ending his life on a bridge.
As a layperson with no musical training, the music is good. It has a consistent sound and blends pleasantly together while still maintaining some distinction between songs, and it effectively tracks the emotional points of the story. Unfortunately, it really doesn’t translate live in it’s current run. The nature of the venue means all the equiptment is out, with one of the singers having to cue up songs on their laptop. The venue’s speakers aren’t powerful enough to really capture the heavy bass when it’s relied upon, and it’s hard to hear the words of the crucial spoken word pieces from the edges of the venue (where the only seating is, for those of us who sometimes need it).
The stories aren’t bad, but they’re fairly shallow and in the case of our godly meta-narrative, make little use of their source material. They’re all your standard human stories of strong emotions, relationships and self esteem. In the live form, they’re also told in a way that feels patronising- the songs themselves contain plenty of spoken word narration, but we’re also told the stories before each song, and right at the beginning of the gig. This is what first made it feel like church- the overwhelming impression was of repetition to make us understand a moral message, rather than a well paced narrative experience.
It’s very heavy on said message (a broadly humanist “we’ve evolved past gods, love eachother and yourselves”), which I agree with but is more powerful when left just below the surface for the finding rather than so explicitly stated. It trades heavily in what I'll flippantly call Millenial Proverbs, self-esteem one liners like “you must do the thing you think you cannot do”, “if you wouldn’t say it to a friend, don’t say it to yourself”, “feelings are visitors”. This adds to the feeling of a church - the aim seems to be reinforcing an existing belief system through music and communal experience.
The venue is a huge impediment to flow- it surrounds the crowd with three stages, each containing one singer, which forces awkward shuffling between them and means sometimes performers are singing at a load of backs (that can’t be fun!). I’m sure this harms the chemistry of the band and contributes to the over-explaining audience work. It also puts every audience member in the spotlight, making dancing along more uncomfortable and leading to a fidgety, awkward crowd.
It does have it’s moments, especially an emotional section towards the end with handraising, but really this whole thing is better experienced in the cleanly recorded, sound-balanced album available online. If it’s ever on in London with better production value I will revisit, done right it could be a fab show.