the church -  three incredible albums live, untitled 23 the lush emotive strength of power and force meeting grace and sublimation, a transforming fix of evocative soundscapes that pull you in to their landscape and if you're not weeping you're already dead.

then there's priest = aura the epic, wagner meets mahler meets proust on smack, the musical grimore to the opium goddess, the terrifying yet magnificent velocity of these songs sucking you into the empire of dreams and nightmares, played with such power and beauty one can only tremble at the journey made and know that the writer made it back with a strange story to tell about the edges and perimeters experience can take a man.

lastly starfish, ode to a lost city, a masterpiece of displacement and scorn, a complex joke in a complex fractal and the punch line is a bitter truth 'we have lost our way.' starfish is like a prayer, made up of postcards from a bad trip, the searing words cut through the glamours cast by the los angeles demons,  the corrupting angels, under clear visionary perspective.
each album preformed in full, in sequence, with incredible sound, this cannot be over emphasised, the sound guy nailed it perfectly and if there is justce, should be THE only person to do the church sound from now on. everyone agreed the sound, the mix, the clarity could not be better.
marty looking excellent as he stands in black, lean and ever leaning into his guitar, meshed as one single unit, he played with the passion of a holy man, fire in the eyes, searing through the sound and vision, into the elegant playing of peters guitars which added the sonic layers of tapestry and harmonics, intricate and complex, elegant to the point of sublime, the church are a guitar band after all, but they take the guitar and transform  it into something else.
tim plays the drums, he is in my eyes the best drummer the church have used, for he uses the less is more quality the daoist approach, he keeps it all together, and his embellishments will leap out and wrap themselves around you like a snake or a serpent, they rise up and strike and once you have been bitten you're left wanting more.
throw into this craig wilson, part time member of the church, a young multi talented guy playing, mandolin, guitars, keyboards and some percussion and you have that wonderful round corner that balances the edge.
but it has to be said that it was steve tonight who held us all, spellbound, the man did not play as much base guitar as he usually does, in fact there was no base on all on aura, instead he played the guitar, but steve being free of an instrument was able to focus on some other skills that constitute his genius, acting, theatrics, mine and singing his words, for those words were delivered in a way that matches their content.
for me it was as though shakespeare or proust or milton or philip k dick were narrating their work via richard burton, ben kingsley, johnny depp and orson welles. this was not a rock concert, this was not popular music, there was nothing about this performance that was not enriching, challenging, disposable, because it was the real deal, authentic art from artists that have been generous enough to share their talent with us and take us with them for thirty plus years into territory that challenges, provokes and stimulates the listener as much as surprises us. the church are in a special place right now, they can do anything they want from now onwards, it's taken over thirty years to get the recognition where people listen to them with the respect they deserve, and steve's lyrics taken as serious writing. all in all the great work is done, but the interesting thing  is where they chose to take us next, because this is just the platform on which they can leap into the stratosphere if they chose or burn up like a beautiful star we all saw shine in our skies and followed knowing it would lead us to a promised land.  it has.
we were delivered safe and sound and much richer for the experience but oh how i want it to go on. there's very very little that gives me this much joy but to see the church live is  like an autistic phase-out into bliss. they are the moments, spalding describes in his books as perfect moments, they are short lived and far and few between but when i see the church, that's one hell of a hit!