Goat / MaidaVale / GANS (live at The Troxy)

London
24 October 2024

It was rather a dull day to traipse halfway across London for a gig, but I had high hopes that Goat were going to bring some life and spectacle to the evening.

First though, a few words on the venue, the East End’s Troxy in Limehouse. This is the second time I’d been here after last year’s Swans gig and it’s clear that this is one of the most soulless, enervating gig venues I think I have ever been to. What should be a fantastic location, with its glorious Art Deco architecture and bags of room, actually has all the vibe of a Mecca Bingo hall with its conspicuous pink lighting and multitude of ‘let’s get the party started’ TV screens everywhere.

As for the front of house security and their overzealous attitude to bossing the pit photographers around, the less said the better. Yeah, and they might want to let the punters know the bogs are unisex as they don’t and people were clearly getting very confused.

Anyway, on to the bands. First off were GANS, a two-piece from Birmingham (UK), delivering a noisy thirty minutes of punky aggression. Not bad but possibly an odd choice of support for Goat. I was kinda expecting the support to be a little more attuned to the headliner’s voodoo ritual aesthetic and unfortunately they weren’t, in my mind at least.

So I was pleasantly surprised by the second support, MaidaVale, an all-woman four-piece from Stockholm. Having not seen or heard them before I mean no disrespect when I say that they initially came across as quite unassuming, so I was expecting not much more than a generic indie band if I’m honest. Instead, I was quite blown away.

This lot are full-on psychedelic warlords, cosmic pioneers, with lots of freak-out guitar à la Dean Wareham and some lovely electronic noises that Dik Mik would have been proud of. And dancy too. Banging, and a great warm up for the main act. I will be getting all three of their albums, you can be sure of that, and I’m looking forward to seeing them again too.

The last time I saw Goat was in 2016 and I was interested to see if and how they’d changed, especially given their higher profile since soundtracking the recent BBC TV series The Gallows Pole. Well, it transpired that Goat have not changed much, they were still excellent, though interestingly their audience is a lot more mainstream now than they were at that crowded night at the Coronet seven-odd years ago, probably due to the aforementioned TV show. Or maybe the Mecca Bingo vibe just made it seem that way. Whatever, there seemed to be less freaks around. And security made me cover up my Electric Wizard t-shirt as well. For fuck’s sake.

So these last days of the counter-culture thoughts were pinging round my head as the band took to the stage, masks in place. And all was soon forgotten as they were amazing. The setlist covered most of their rather now-extensive back catalogue, but all the favourites were still there, including “Goatfuzz”, “Under No Nation”, “Let it Bleed” and “Talk To God”. New songs given an airing included “One More Death”, “Goatbrain”, “Dollarbill” and the excellent “Frisco Beaver” and even more excellent “Ouroboros” (though truthfully, they’re all excellent).

Further favourites “Let It Burn”, “Queen Of The Underground” and “Run To Your Mama” were saved for the encores, though some may have missed the latter as the venue decided to turn on the houselights (and probably the TVs) after the first encore, meaning many left at that point. Oh well, as I said before; The Troxy, it sucks.

Goat were awesome though (has that come across yet? I hope so). My only complaint was no “Gathering Of The Tribes”. But that kinda felt appropriate in a way. But Goat, brilliant. Go and see them if you can. But not at the Troxy.

-Dave Pettit-