This spring — on 3 March — the instrumental rock collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor from Montréal, Canada, returns to Riga with a concert at the cultural venue Hanzas perons.
Seventeen years ago, at the beginning of 2008, Godspeed You! Black Emperor announced that the band was ceasing to exist. The comment from the group’s always-principled leader and one of the most important figures in rock music of this century, Efrim Menuck, was blunt yet deeply emotional:
“Our last American tour took place under the shadow of the current Iraq war. For what Godspeed is, it had become nearly impossible to find a way to keep communicating with audiences about what was happening. We could talk to people after shows or make statements from the stage, but that would become a one-way message. I had an existential collapse realizing that this simply wasn’t possible anymore. People don’t need a rock band to talk about and show them what is happening in the world.
Maybe they need some clumsy but comforting words instead, and a softer way of portraying things.”
Time passed. The world did not become a better place — and Menuck’s own words could have served as the reason for the band to return years later. Instead, they simply started playing together again, performing concerts and recording new music, accompanied by a short note asking people “not to write to them — they will find us themselves” (a message to fans and concert organizers who had never stopped hoping for and believing in the group’s return). In respect for the band’s reserve and principled stance — expressed in everything from their one single blurred black-and-white publicity photo to their withdrawal from virtually all major music-streaming platforms whose corporate behaviour the musicians firmly oppose — we can only quote the text printed on the cover of GY!BE’s most recent studio record NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 — 28,340 DEAD, released this August in anticipation of the Riga concert
