Mogwai was so loud, your whole body vibrated

The performers
Eyedress: Idris Acuña
Warpaint: Emily Kokal, Theresa Wayman, Jenny Lee Lindberg, Stella Mozgawa
Mogwai: Stuart Braithwaite, Dominic Aitchison, John Cummings, Barry Burns, Martin Bulloch

Put together by Random Minds Productions, YnOS, and Hostess Entertainment, part one of Febfest 2014: Hostess Club Manila happened on February 13 at the Metrotent.

It started quietly and ended quietly… the latter due to deafness.

Eyedress a.k.a. Idris Acuña opened the evening with filtered beats, synth washes and processed ethereal vocals. It was slightly disconcerting to the uninitiated: Acuña looks like a hip Japanese man, with his chiseled face and sunglasses, but he sang in a female register via effects processing.

Bad acoustics added to the vibe

The disconnect worked for the most part: according to numberlinerecords.com (his EP “Half-Japanese” is available there), his music features “ultra-chill beats and slurry drowned out vocals to craft a dark, retro-futurist take on contemporary synth pop.”

The Metrotent’s acoustics, like most local venues, tends to be reverberant and, as a result, Vicuña’s vocal work leaned even more towards the textural. He probably welcomed the washy reverberations.

What worked for his preferred vocal aesthetic didn’t seem to pan out for the much anticipated LA indie darlings Warpaint as vocalist/guitarist Emily Kokal and guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Theresa Wayman made occasional hand gestures to their monitor mixer.

Equal parts sexy and spooky

Mix problems did not necessarily take much away from their overall performance though: Stella Mozgawa’s forceful dynamic drumming and Jenny Lee Lindberg’s muscular bass (and moves that pretty much, well, evoked excited male whispers) provided an earthiness that contrasted effectively with the gossamer-tender vocals and bleak guitars.

“Disco//Very,” for example (from their excellent self-titled new album), combined eeriness and groove and the result is equal parts sexy and spooky. How can a band sound both tough and angelic?

At one point, they addressed the audience in the Gold section and commented along the lines of, “Hey guys over there… why are you so far away?” and momentarily broke the generally mystical feel of their set.

Mogwai: not loud but L-O-U-D

And then Glaswegian headliners Mogwai took the stage… at their peak volume.

Even the tent’s natural reverb may have cowered and sought shelter.

Sandwich’s Diego Castillo commented, “I saw My Bloody Valentine live… you know they’re loud right? I mean, they were really loud… but these guys are louder!”

The aural equivalent of a typhoon

Often described as “post-rock” (which they admit to as much as Pearl Jam admits they are “grunge”), Mogwai are masters of dynamics: contemplative pastoral guitars or keyboards building slowly until they hit the aural equivalent of a tuned typhoon (“New Paths To Helicon Part 1” or “I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead”—ya gotta love those titles). Like bastard children of My Bloody Valentine and Pink Floyd… but not exactly like each.

Largely instrumental, Mogwai had occasional lead vocals handled by guitarist/keyboardist Barry Burns (“Travel Is Dangerous” and filtered through a vocoder as on the first encore “Hunted by a Freak”).

Leader/guitarist Stuart Braithwaite also took vocal duties but generally looked at the audience, swayed with his guitar, and said “thank you!” unfailingly at the end of each song while retuning.

Your whole body just vibrated

There is a sweeping cinematic quality to their music on record. Live, there was a handful in the audience with eyes closed and arms raised as if bathing in some cathartic downpour… the volume was so immense your whole body just vibrated.

Stitch that with a lot of the atmospherics and melodic melancholic motifs and… it didn’t seem unusual seeing couples getting, well, touchy-feely.

The band ended their main set with “Remurdered” (which does not sound as foreboding as the title suggests) from their new album “Rave Tapes” and returned for a two song encore.

Sledgehammer force

Just as Braithwaite seemed to be bringing “Mogwai Fear Satan” (supposedly a nod to bassist Dominic Aitchison’s personal beliefs) to a fading close with a distant-sounding sustained note, they suddenly slam right back with sledgehammer force that culminated with guitar noise from John Cummings (and extended even longer by their sound engineer).

The entire show sounded like a controlled escalation of all your senses, leaving you wondering if even your rectum has developed tinnitus.

View more FebFest Day 1 photos from Niña Sandejas

Also read:

FebFest: Concert review of The National

View photos of FebFest, Day 2, with The National, Buke and Base, Youth Lagoon