GRETA VAN FLEET IN CARCASSONNE

On tour since the release of their last album Starcatcher one year ago - 23rd July 2023- the rock band Greta Van Fleet ignites a burning fire on the stage of the medieval city for Carcassonne’s yearly music festival.

Photo Credits: Starmanonfilm 

Stractacher is definitely different from the epic and cinematic journey that its predecessor, The Battle at Garden’s Gate (TBAGG) offered. Indeed, following a rather different artistic direction, far away from the gravelly bass and synths on TBAGG, it instead tells stories of medieval fables with torrid and thunderstricking guitar riffs.

Almost half the album is in double drop D, The Falling Sky and Meeting the Master being the most obvious examples, creating a new sound for the band that seems straight out of the 1970s or one of Tolkien’s fantastic novels. 

Photo Credits: Starmanonfilm 

After an opening show by The Amazons, the British band following Greta Van Fleet during this summer tour in Europe, we see the sound engineering team on stage, revealing an array of Gibson SG '61s, a transparent drum set, and a keyboard then a piano modeled after the album’s logo. The setting seems like something out of a psychedelic film.

The group finally arrives as the last notes of an orchestral reprise of Starcatcher's songs fade into the sunset behind the castle: the air is heavy and the stone walls store the suffocating heat like a treasure but this heaviness rather accompanies the landscape: the expectation in the eyes of the audience, gleaming with golden makeup and silver rhinestones; there is a quiet moment of wavering anticipation. 

The guitar tears apart the oxygen with the first notes of The Falling Sky. The riff makes the seats vibrate as a crystal clear voice perforates the air. At first, the contrast between the band members’ outfits is striking: Josh Kiszka, the singer, in messianic white, the guitarist Jake Kiszka in a black silk suit with an embroidered sword, Sam Kiszka, bassist and pianist, in red with a chain around his chest from which gems of the same color seem to flow and finally Daniel Wagner, the drummer, in a chainmail shirt and a dark cape that looks like it’s about to crumble in the air; each one is like a mystical character, a musical virtuoso about to grab our hands to take us into a mystified and phantasmagorical version of the Middle Ages. 

Photo Credits: Starmanonfilm 

The music grabs you by the throat without warning, moves like an invisible thread between the audience and the band whose performance, although confidential in the city, seems to go beyond its fortifications, echoing even to the red, orange, and purple halos which pierce through the scene at times, gradually fading into the indigo night.

If the guitar begs for our attention, it is also Josh Kiszka's voice that still resonates when we come out of this experience: during Caravel - a nice surprise that comes straight out of The Battle At Garden's Gate, we witness a musical break after a vibrant bass line, Sam Kiszka lets stray notes linger on the piano while the front-man whispers high notes like an incantation. It's magical and unreal.

Then, a sort of interlude, a change with a shift to an acoustic sound for the first single from the new album: Meeting the Master, a spiritual and mysterious ballad that begins with an audacious cover of Norwegian Wood by The Beatles only to end in shatters with a transition from the almost folkloric acoustic guitar to the electric one for a grandiose solo mimicking a religious ascension, a grand finale that is reminiscent of an ambition and orchestral arrangements that seem to have been lost somewhere in 1971. 

Photo Credits: Starmanonfilm 

We barely have time to breathe before the group moves on to the elfish Heat Above, a metaphor for music as salvation with poignant lyrics that seem to resonate more today than ever in the context of the medieval city welcoming this so-called music. It is harmonious, sometimes subtle and allegorical, and other times direct, but always profound. What once was the dramatic start of TBAGG here illustrates the peak of the show.

"This is what life is worth, When the fires still burn and rage all around, Can you hear that dreadful sound? Fire still burning on the ground".

The singer invites us to fully participate in the moment but he doesn't need to. In front of him and no matter where you look, people observe him with stars and tears in their eyes, as if the surrounding world no longer exists. The song detaches itself from the band, perhaps even from its original meaning. Tonight, it belongs to the audience.

Still in what seems like a breathtaking musical marathon, the band cuts directly to Highway Tune, their first “hit”, and has fun playing with the audience's expectations on a revisited classic blues riff. The instruments play in perfect synergy: unexpected bass solo then dynamite drums then guitar solo again, spectacular in speed.

The number ends with Daniel Wagner, the only musician still on stage, who moves from triplets to sixteenth notes in a demonstration of both technical and melodic mastership that echoes John Bonham’s Moby Dick in its ability to hold the attention of listeners for whom the instrument remains a sonic mystery usually blending into the stormy melody of the song.

When the rest of the band members return, Josh Kiszka is in a different outfit, one of his many wardrobe changes tonight. This one, purple and patterned, echoes the cover of their first EP From the Fires from which the following song is taken.

Black Smoke Rising, like many other Greta Van Fleet songs, is a metaphor that gradually unravels. If its meaning has evolved and transformed over the years into a formless entity, the feeling remains sincere, constant, and powerful. It is a fable of power and resistance. The echo resonates here again as a call for unity in protest, unity in music, and protest music specifically, despite the apparent apoliticism of the show.

Photo Credits: Starmanonfilm 

Then, it's Sam Kiszka's turn to steal the show, switching from bass to the keyboard to begin Fate of the Faithful, lugubrious and menacing behind a metal wine glass and the opaque smoke of incense. Almost like the phantom of the castle behind his black eyeliner and his blood-colored costume, the melody he plays takes us by surprise and seems to come straight out of a dungeon. The song is apocalyptic and threatening: it announces the third phase of the concert and promises a story that might not end peacefully. 

The Archer confirms these suspicions. While this tale of a warrior who ends up turning to his arrows and his bow to draw the blood of his enemies unravels before our eyes, we imagine ourselves right from the first notes, galloping on a white horse seeking revenge. It's an epic ending explicitly crafted by Jake Kiszka who sports a black BB-King-style Gibson from which powerful, fast, and lively solos emanate.

During the ten minutes that the song lasts, he monopolizes the stage, confident and alternating between bends and legatos, the instrument sometimes behind his back. Guitar hero in the making, he climbs onto a platform from which fire springs, imperturbable, then approaches the exhilarated audience again who cheers him while the singer reappears, covering the lyrics of Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) by Melanie before disappearing backstage again with the end of the song.

The tension is still at its height, almost material, when the Encore begins with the magnificent and moving Light My Love. Words and sensations rush as LGBTQ+ flags flutter in the air like symbols and emblems of a love devoid of shame. 

Photo Credits: Starmanonfilm

There is an indescribable impression of unparalleled unity, of a connection, of living in a bubble where hatred has perished for a moment: this is another song that everyone receives like a gift, in tears and with a lump in their throat despite the desire to say thank you: thank you for the music and the words.

Turning around to observe the medieval castle illuminated with colored beams in the dark night, we see the looks of the crowd shouting at those words learned by heart, the smiles, and the trembling lips when Josh Kiszka pronounces them like an anthem : 

 "Hate bound by fear will unwind, Your mind is a stream of colors, Extending beyond our sky, Hate bound by fear will unwind."

If the concert ends with a heavy heart, the duty to go home and bitterly leave the melodies behind, the memories and the encounters remain untouched: the laughter in the queue under the sun, a rose handed out by the singer or a guitar pick received by chance. Far from Stadium Rock despite the grandeur, Greta Van Fleet offers Carcassonne a performance that is both personal and universal. While undoubtedly impressive, all four members seem genuine in their intense energy and love, both of music and the audience.