My favorite memory of the Mohawk Place shimmers in my memory as if it was surrounded by a low level field of electricity, charged up and glowing, and it's the one that I'm going to hold onto for as long as I've got my marbles. The Twin Shadow show on May 1st of last year was utterly transcendent. Ok yes it's true that I've forgotten all about the two opening acts, but that's because everything else that happened that night was bonkers, as the "YOU ARE THERE!" feeling one gets at an Earth shaking indie show collided with Earth shaking news from the world outside Mohawk Street, with the Earth shaking indie show winning out.
One of my favorite parts about the Mohawk is hanging out in the street outside in between sets. It's not like being penned in like an animal outside the Town Ballroom, or standing outside the glass doors of the Tralf or next to a brick wall outside Soundlab. It's Mohawk Street, dingy and neon soaked, ideal for catching some fresh air or a smoke; and on a balmy Sunday night with 3 bands on the bill, it was a great night to do just that (and go across the street to my car to shoot a Red Bull). Personally, I never understood the talk about the Mohawk being hard to get to or "off the beaten path," because for me, that wonderful little patch of downtown, the bar and the street, and the lots and alleys feels like they're OURS. Once you get your hand stamped, it's all good. You come, you go, you come back to grab a beer before the next set, you rock, and repeat the process until the show's over. I love that particular brand of freedom, and I'm going to miss it.
By May, I'd worked myself into a lather over Twin Shadow after getting hipped to their existence by this very music blog, and with Forget in heavy rotation, I was really vibrating at high frequency by the time show time came around. But after a so-so opening act I needed to kick it out a bit outside and it was during that break I noticed that Twitter was going absolutely batshit at 9 PM on a Sunday night. Apparently, sometime between Sunday dinner at my parent's house and the Mohawk it was announced that something was up and the President was addressing the nation at 10 PM... on a Sunday night. A Presidential address.... on a Sunday night? This had to be serious shit, and all of a sudden the real world punctured the bubble. My news junkie Twitter was in full meltdown mode because at that point nobody knew anything, and my mind was racing as I watched the second act. But I didn't check Twitter during the set, I was dead set on that. I was there to rock, no matter what else was happening beyond our patch of downtown.
That said, I hauled ass outside during that break to kick it out and check the Twitter and it was then that I saw that my news junkie Twitter feeds were reporting the preposterous news that we'd finally gotten Osama bin Laden. I was stunned and more than a little gobsmacked because by 2011 we'd largely forgotten about the guy, so seeing on Twitter that a SEAL team got him was more than a little unreal, and then it dawned on me that it was the guy I voted for, the secret Muslim, who got bin Laden, and not the Cowboy and Darth Cheney (who proved to be better suited for the dark arts and starting multiple wars in the Middle East without finishing them). All was right with the world as I got ready for Twin Shadow, feeling a peculiar combination of bliss and buzzing anticipation, and if it didn't feel like a dream before, it did after Twin Shadow thoroughly melted my brain, translating the intimate atmospheres of Confess into Prince and the Revolution style rave ups that whipped the crowd into a frenzy.
We went nuts for Twin Shadow. People danced, others hipster heads bobbed, and it seemed like everybody was moving at the Mohawk as we energetically ate it all up. Everything George Lewis did that night was gold; his deliriously gorgeous guitar playing was on, his stage presence was beyond cool, and when somebody yelled out that we'd got Osama, Lewis just played it off with some offhand banter before launching into the next song. It was one of those rarest and most wonderful of shows where everything is just right, where it feels like the world outside is orbiting the show that YOU and two hundred some odd people are at, and on that particular night that was saying something. Not only was the Twin Shadow hype fulfilled, it felt like we were witnessing something we knew that we'd be talking about for years because Twin Shadow/George Lewis is the real deal. I have other memories of the Mohawk, but that's the one that shines brightest in it's perfection... the night that even though we got Osama, the universe still orbited the Mohawk.
Good post. I like how you said "its OURS". SO true...going to miss you Moawhk!
"Confess" is his most recent album. You mean "Forget".
Grat Show, great post.
My bad. Thanks for the kind words.