Indie Light

How do you review a concert film with a narrative thread running through it?  Not as a concert…I wasn’t there. Not as a film…it’s hardly Goodfellas. Not as a live album…you can’t be sure what’s been touched up in post-production. To answer my question, I don’t know. Here I am trying anyway. This June the Swedish led Heavy Metal Band Ghost released “Rite Here Rite Now”. Their first concert film with a bit of a story told throughout.

The film starts with a wee preamble to explain some background info for the folk who might not be familiar. But why would a concert film need any background info? Because Ghost have “lore”. Within the band there are fictional characters with histories and backgrounds and relationships with each other. If you just listened to the albums you’d have no idea, you don’t need to have any idea to just listen to the albums. But it’s there, and a lot of people can take it very seriously. I’m not overly fucked about that side of things with this band. I kind of enjoy the way we as fans are in on the joke and pretend there are different singers on each album (when it’s the same guy in a new mask) but hang around on r/ghostbc for a few minutes and you’ll find the people with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the characters, timelines, and events that don’t really exist outwith the bands Youtube channel…UNTIL NOW!

The narrator explains that the band’s “current” singer is Papa Emeritus IV, who was promoted to Papa from being a lowly Cardinal on the previous album, making him the only person to sing on two Ghost albums (mind he isn’t, they’re all the same guy). Papa IV is struggling to accept that his time may be coming to an end as the frontman for the band, while his father, Papa Nihil, and mother, Sister Imperator, are trying to help him ease into the transition. This all takes place over the course of a live gig in a California arena in 2023.

Post narration the show can kick off in earnest. And kick off it does, with “Imperium” as an intro to “Kaisarion”. I previously described these two tracks as being the best opening to a metal album since Iron Maiden’s “Brave New World”. I do think the setlist was well crafted for the film. More of half of the tracks are from their more recent era, which I will define as being post “Meliora”. So, what you have are a lot of very big, rather epic, awfae melodic numbers. It doesn’t forget the heavy tracks though. “Faith” is up there right at the beginning, “Cirice” and “Mumy Dust” make a welcome appearance too. They also played “Con Clavi Con Dio” from their first album, that’s a great one for the moshers. But now I need to talk about where the narrative started to get in the way of the music.

Most of the film is set on the stage of the performance of course, but most of the “plot” happens on a set made to resemble the backstage area. So, we get to see Papa IV ducking in and out for his costume changes and heart to heart talks with Sister Imperator, Papa Nihil, and his faithful roadies. Most of which was fine. However, Papa takes us behind the curtain during the outro of “Con Clavi Con Dio” for another outfit. And instead of just seeing that happen…we get a slightly sped up re-frocking while a jarring version of “Funiculi Funicula” happens over the actual track. This is not a Ghost tune, dear children, this is a 19th century tune written to celebrate the opening of a funicular railway. In the Ghost film.  In the Ghost concert film. While “Con Clavi Con Dio” is still playing on stage. Not so keen. There was one much more egregious example of this though. “Miasma”, being an instrumental, seems a great time for Papa to run away briefly as he isn’t on stage. It’s a great part of a live Ghost gig where the nameless ghouls in the live band get to have the stage to themselves and play a 5-minute prog rock absolute banger-ito. But we don’t get to see that. That would be too simple. Rather, Papa IV spends the most part of the song getting an inspirational speech from the ghost of Papa Nihil (Remember him, his dad…from the intro and all the Youtube videos? Well, it makes sense to us). The saving grace for this is that Ghost fans knew Papa Nihil couldn’t stay yapping for the whole song, as he was needed to rip a mega sax solo over the outro. The sax solo is such a great thing to capture on film in feature movie quality but come ooooon give us the full song.

The narrative did enhance the experience of some tracks though. The biggest change of the gig dynamics came when Papa IV was secretly wheeled over to a smaller stage nearer the seating in the arena. There he had a pianist, two cellists, and a singer all clad in spooky veils to perform “If You Have Ghosts”, the band’s Roky Erickson cover. Being played with just the quartet really affected the feel of the tune. It came with that haunting quality that a Pope in his prime contemplating his demise might deserve. The moment of acceptance seems to come during the final song before the encore. “Respite On The Spitalfields” from their latest album “Impera”. This was the part of the film where I felt the narrative and performance made the most sense together. I think that can best be explained by a quick look at the lyrics.

He appeared to ascend
So we all stood there in awe
Now we have to pretend
We didn’t see what we saw
When the curtain unveiled
To the sound of applause
That the king that we hailed
Was the Wizard of Oz
We will break away together
I’ll be the shadow
You’ll be the light
Nothing ever lasts forever
We will go softly
Into the night.

Aye. That’ll dae it. Luckily the encore seemed less concerned about being thematically appropriate and more concerned with leaving the gig on a high. “Kiss The Go-Goat”, “Dance Macabre”, and finally “Square Hammer”, the track which gives us the lyrics “Rite Here Rite Now” that the film is named for. Three high energy, up-tempo, sing a long tunes to finish up with. That’s totally the way it should be. I’ve been moving away from the slower, more emotional, particularly *epic* endings to albums over the last few years. I much prefer the full beans outro, and this encore could not have been fuller or beanier.

Of course we haven’t answered the looming question. Does Papa Emeritus IV come to accept his death? Aye, but he shall live on. Not as Papa Emeritus on the next album…but as the new head of the clergy for he shall now be known as Frater Imperator. (please comment if you find the character stuff too silly, I want to know what the general feeling is). So, if he is no longer Papa and won’t sing for the band anymore, who will? Is the new Papa revealed to us loyal fans? Are we rewarded for staying after the end credits? Are we treated to a featurette showing us the new singer’s face? No. What a load of old hot cock.

The combination of movie, gig, and live album seems like a difficult thing to balance. But are Ghost not the band that balances Heavy Metal and Pop-rock? Commercial success and cult status? Real life and fiction? It’s not something I want to see from every band contemplating a concert film, perhaps Ghost had the best chance at pulling it off, however.

“Rite Here Right Now” will likely come to Disney+ in the coming months and I definitely recommend watching it. If you are a Ghost fan, it has lots of Ghost! If you are looking to experiment, the worst that can happen is you discover some kick ass heavy metal.

Until then you can check out Ghost’s latest single released with the film “The Future Is A Foreign Land” and read my short review of “Impera” on my albums of the year 2022 list by clicking here.