Goodbye Thursday, Hello Ghost

Hello, and welcome back, students of Plymouth State. Over this winter break, I was lucky enough to have a little extra time and a small amount of disposable income to venture out into this great, wide world of ours to take in a little live music; something I have found myself less and less able to do with my growing age and list of responsibilities.

For starters, right after Christmas, I took off down to Boston for the evening to take in the second to last set post-hardcore pioneers Thursday ever bestowed upon these fine United States. To be honest, tickets were purchased pretty much solely on the basis that it was my last chance to see one of my favorite bands. It was a little difficult to take a night off from work and go out and spend money I didn't have, but lo and behold; there I was climbing into my fiancée, Emily's, Subaru, with my younger brother Nick holding down the backseat.

On the drive, I was too preoccupied with my financial status and not getting lost in Boston to get excited, and openers Make Do & Mend put on a competent opening set, even if their music is probably better suited for a sweaty basement than a swanky club like the Royale, where the show was held.

It wasn't until the lights dimmed and I realized I was about to see Thursday take the stage for the last time that I really got excited. For the next hour and a half, lumps of various sizes ebbed and flowed within the confines of my throat, only subsiding when periodically replaced with yelps and screams of joy. Geoff Rickly looks exactly the same as he did when I saw the band for the first time, on tour for their masterpiece and scene landmark, Full Collapse. The set was excellently balanced, putting as much emphasis on deep cuts that had been stripped from the set years ago as it did the greatest hits. "Understanding in A Car Crash" and "For the Workforce, Drowning" were both there (the former causing my brother to run from the balcony where we had stationed ourselves downstairs into the pit, hoping for a chance for Rickly to pass him the mic, one last glorious time), as were a couple less road-tested songs from the band's swan song, No Devolucion. All in all, it was a touching, fitting goodbye to one of the few bands I listened to when I was 12 that still affects me the same way today. Goodbye, Thursday, you will be sorely missed.

On a brighter note, in late January, I departed from my apartment in Ashland to pick Nick up in Keene, where we embarked on a journey deep into the bowels of Hell. We traveled to Cambridge to take on one of only a handful of sets performed on U.S. soil by Swedish Satanic rockers Ghost, who recently took the metal world by storm with their debut album Opus Eponymous.

Ghost are an anonymous, mask wearing, Satan worshipping metal band from Scandinavia who sound like a more evil Blue Oyster Cult. Their frontman, Papa Emeritus, dresses as what can only be described as an undead, Satanic Pope, at times even swinging a thurrible with incense back and forth while singing. The rest of the band take the stage in black robes, covering their faces. Nick had just turned 21 and relished the opportunity to purchase various beverages for his older brother in the hour leading up to Ghost's arrival at the sold out Middle East Club, so in the interest of full disclosure, some of the details are hazy. 

What I can tell you is that Satan is way cooler than Jesus, and jams like "Elizabeth" and "Ritual" were a foot stomping, evil good time for everyone in the room.  Papa Emeritus never addressed the crowd; he only sang eerily haunting tunes about death and the Underworld while staring intently into his loving legions. I absolutely cannot wait for these guys to come back with Mastodon in the Spring and release another blast of blaspheme later this year on Metal Blade Records. Hail Ghost, and Hail the Dark Lord!