6A — Monday, October 2, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Manchester brings emo
Before they took the stage, I
had practically no clue what the
Manchester Orchestra sound
was. I vividly remember seeing
Foxing and Tigers Jaw — two
of my favorites — announced
as openers for this tour, hitting
stages I never even dreamed
they’d reach when I was 16.
Yet, by Manchester Orchestra’s
moniker, I assumed they were a
plain-Jane indie outfit. I could
not have been more wrong.
After I was knocked on my
ass by Manchester Orchestra’s
performance, the brilliance in
their choice of tour-mates hit
me like a truck.
Foxing’s
elaborate
compositions
and
powerful
presence set the mood at the
Fillmore in Detroit. They’re
a band that is really hard
to ignore just by the sheer
force of their music, and even
though the stage was far larger
than any I’d seen them play
on, frontman Conor Murphy
demanded attention with his
soaring vocals and occasional
trumpeting.
The
beautiful
band even did us the service
of playing a brand new song
off their forthcoming record,
which showed promise.
Next came indie rock outfit
Tigers Jaw. Fresh off the release
of their album spin this year,
the band played a surprisingly
lengthy set, full of new songs
with a sprinkling of classics.
Singles like “Guardian” and
“June” from this year’s release
still hold up as some of the most
solid of the year, while “The
Sun” and “Chemicals” have
remained staples in their sets
for a while now. Truthfully,
I
think
everyone
on
this
planet should be seeing and
hearing Tigers Jaw, and their
performance last Wednesday
only reaffirmed my devotion.
Their mix of an emo sensibility
and commercial accessibility
of wonderfully composed indie
punk rock make them all too
easy to fall in love with.
Manchester
Orchestra
proceeded to rip through a 17
track set, each new song pulling
myself and the crowd into a
deeper understanding of their
gorgeous music — a vast, diverse
hybridization of intimacy and
raucousness. After frontman
Andy Hull started passionately
screaming on the chorus of the
fourth song “Shake It Out,” I
was hooked.
Touring in support of 2017’s
atmospheric,
moody
release
A Black Mile To The Surface,
new material composed a little
under half of their set. They
sprinkled in crowd pleasers like
“I’ve Got Friends” and “The
River,”
producing
mirrored
passion in a crowd that yelled
every word back at the band
—
passion
indicative
of
a
typical emo and punk show. It
dawned on me, suddenly, that
Manchester Orchestra is an
emo band, despite their indie
associations.
It was on this basis, this
foundation
of
talent,
that
Manchester Orchestra and their
tour mates succeeded in moving
an entire room of people (those
smart enough to have ended
up at the Fillmore, instead of
the poor souls down the street
watching
America’s
favorite
panderer of mediocre folk pop,
Ed Sheeran). By perfecting their
loud-soft dynamic, Hull and
company crashed wave after
wave of emotion down on the
crowd with the help of vocals
ranging from tender croons to
piercing yells, booming riffs
and elegant piano melodies. The
sheer versatility of the band’s
musicianship is as incredible a
spectacle to see as it is to hear. In
the span of an hour, Manchester
Orchestra turned me from a
bastard hipster showing up for
the lesser known openers into a
rabid fan, an accomplishment as
rare as a solar eclipse.
DOMINIC POLSINELLI
Daily Arts Writer
SONY MUSIC
Manchester Orchestra performed at the Filmore last Wednesday
CONCERT REVIEW
DAILY LITERATURE COLUMNIST
Laura Lee on the dispute
over Oscar Wilde’s legacy
Talk with the author of a new book on Wilde & ghosts he left behind
Over a century after his
death, Oscar Wilde is still a
contentious character. Many
are familiar with at least
some snippets of his life story,
if not the whole thing: his
impassioned personality, his
fame and success, his trial
and imprisonment for gross
indecency
with
men
and
his death only a few years
afterward.
As if it weren’t enough
for
controversy
to
follow
Wilde throughout his life,
it continued even after his
death. This took the form
of a bitter conflict between
Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred
Douglas,
and
his
literary
executor, Robert Ross.
Laura
Lee’s
new
book,
“Oscar’s Ghost: The Battle for
Oscar Wilde’s Legacy,” deals
with this conflict and with the
enormous fallout of Wilde’s
death.
“It actually started when
I got a Kindle for the first
time,” Lee said. “I was looking
for something to download
that was free and I chose De
Profundis, Oscar Wilde’s long
essay that he wrote in prison
in the form of a letter to Lord
Alfred Douglas.”
This prompted Lee to start
investigating
more
of
the
work that Wilde and Douglas
had written about each other,
which spurred her onward and
opened up more questions.
“I found that everything
that had been written was
kind of arguing from the point
of view of one of these guys or
the other. And I wanted to see
what the context was and be
sympathetic to all of them, but
figure out what I could about
what the truth was,” Lee said.
That was six years ago.
Now the book is complete, and
Lee has gained a much fuller
picture of what motivated
both Douglas and Ross as they
sparred in the years following
Wilde’s death, battling over
whether the death should be
blamed on Wilde’s circle of
friends and admirers or on
Douglas alone.
“[Wilde] was an aggressive
man, he inspired them both,”
Lee said. “They were both
quite a bit younger than him,
and he talked about art and
made them feel like they were
part of a community, part of
something that was forward-
looking and exciting instead
of being on the margins. So
I think that they were both
very devoted to him, and they
both felt, in different ways,
responsible for parts of what
had happened to him ... I think
a lot of their feud was not
wanting to be blamed for what
happened.”
It was a complicated battle,
in part because people are
complicated
and
because
it was hard to put Wilde’s
decline in health in black
and white terms. There is
no question that Ross and
Douglas both cared for Wilde,
but it is interesting to note
the ways in which Douglas
has been increasingly blamed
for Wilde’s misfortunes in
the years following his death,
in large part due to Ross’s
writings.
“[Ross] really framed our
dialogue about Oscar Wilde,”
Lee said. “But interestingly,
Lord Alfred Douglas, later in
his life, even though he had
no warm feelings for Robert
Ross, he even said that that
mythologizing of Oscar Wilde
was a necessary first step to
preserving his legacy.”
In the end, it seems that the
point is less to declare a true
and definite winner, and more
to examine the interesting
manifestations of this conflict.
“I
don’t
think
there
were
winners
and
losers,
necessarily,” Lee said. “I think
that grand mythology about
Oscar Wilde is part of what
made him so intriguing, and
such an enduring figure. So
I’m sympathetic to both of the
men in the battle, I understand
both of their motivations. I
try to see them as much as
possible on their own terms,
and with empathy.”
Lee’s book will be available
for purchase in the United
States starting on November
1. She will speak at the Ann
Arbor
District
Library
on
October 17 at 7:00 p.m.
LAURA
DZUBAY