Gorky's Zygotic Mynci

What exactly do you want, people? Having had to stand among your pathetic company for the better part of an evening, I demand some answers. By which I don't mean Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, of course, but the thin, disengaged, self-satisfied audience that was responsible for this potentially transcendent event becoming the most unnecessarily dispiriting night of the year. It was no fault of the band; the wondrous Welsh sextet brought to the stage the quiet confidence and melodic grace of every moment of its decade-plus career — an improbable alchemy of pop, folk, psychedelia and country that was perhaps more moving onstage than on record for the fact that it was transpiring in the midst of such opposed surroundings. And what did you do? You stood in stone silence when urchin-like singer Euros Child sweetly introduced himself. You loudly discussed the excruciating minutiae of your romantic and academic lives during the hushed loveliness of "Christina" and "Faraway Eyes." You walked away, apparently satisfied, when a second encore would have been ours for the asking. I could have cried. I could have spat and overturned tables. But your apathy had sucked the life out of me, and so I departed for home knowing that this rare and rarely seen band likely will never brighten our city again, and the local music press will continue to wring its hands over the fact that Vancouver so seldom plays host to the international touring bands that our Seattle neighbours enjoy as a matter of course. And I'll know who is to blame.