Godflesh – Streetcleaner: Live At Roadburn 2011 (2013)

November 16, 2023

I was in attendance for this momentous event; it was not one that I would have missed for the world, having travelled to France the year before for Godflesh’s reformation show (hideously cut short to half hour). Roadburn of course, pulled all their tricks (or is that cash?) out of the bag and thus began a series of performances of Godflesh albums at the 013 in Tilburg. I was not present for the others, but I was there for this one.

This 2xLP set (which I picked up the year after, if my memory serves) is an accurate a document that you are going to get of the messy, destructive carnage that was this performance of Streetcleaner. In some ways more brutish than its original recording, in others perhaps more restrictive without that second guitar, but nevertheless a fantastic rendition.

I’ve toyed with selling this off many a time, but I’ll probably hold onto it for the sheer memory of it alone. Aurally its not THAT good – I would always pick the actual Streetcleaner album over this. But it’s pretty important to me, as a physical trace of a memory. After all, this was now 12 years ago, which is just fucking insane to me.