HENRY CAVILL as WILL SHAW
The Cold Light of Day

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HENRY CAVILL as WILL SHAW
The Cold Light of Day
The Cold Light Of The Day
Good morning!
Who could use a lil PWP with this guy?
You hear a ping and panic. “The door”, you squeal, trying to squirm around Will and get to the lift’s console.
“Don’t worry”, he pants, crowding you into the corner and turning you to face the wall. “It’s a private elevator. I told you when we went over amenities on the plane, remember?” You relax slightly, letting him slide your skirt higher up your thighs.
“Wait -”, you say. “You said the suite comes with assigned staff. What if -” your concern melts to pleasure as Will nips at your ear.
Mk.gee Live Show Review: 10/3, Vic Theatre, Chicago
Photo by Will Shaw
BY JORDAN MAINZER
Two Star & The Dream Police (R&R), the debut studio album from L.A.-based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Mk.gee, feels like an album of endless possibilities. Its palette--effected guitars, metallic drum machines, rubbery synths--creates a wholly abstract sound, but one with enough up-front elements to wake you from the dream. The first time I listened to it, I was reminded of albums like Frank Ocean's Blonde and Bon Iver's 22, A Million, because they all share not an aesthetic (though individual moments are similar) but a penchant for world-building, the type with the potential to grow beyond the album's initial release.
Indeed, live, the world of Two Star & The Dream Police expands exponentially. Last Thursday, Mk.gee played the Vic Theatre in Chicago, performing the entirety of the album, but in a different order just as cohesive as that of the record itself. He entered on stage obscured, the light show not yet kicking in. Mk.gee is Michael Gordon, but he's the type of artist who could ostensibly operate in anonymity without it being annoying, toeing the line between the mysterious and the uncanny. As such, it felt appropriate that the crowd screamed not at the sight of the artist, but the opening disintegrating haze of "Dream police". If you were going in cold, you might hear his strong vocals delivering yearning lines like, "I'll bleed tonight / She lit the world on fire / The dream police is alive," atop stadium-sized heartland rock replete with chintzy synths, and think the song was once part of the soundtrack to an 80s road-trip movie. Such is the magic of Mk.gee and his ability to tap into the blurry years gone by.
Then, he broke character, screaming, "CHICAGO!!!" The same way the sound of a piano or saxophone on Two Star & The Dream Police can ground you, Mk.gee reminded the crowd that he was Michael Gordon. It bears saying that throughout the show, both the impressionism and rawness expanded. Like Adam Granduciel of The War on Drugs, Gordon knows the power of a well-timed vocal whoop when playing a nostalgic-sounding song, like "How many miles". The light show often moved in sync with the music, giving noodling songs like "Breakthespell" a tactility it lacks on the studio version, making you aware of how the band pulled back parts piece by piece. Really, the lights often clued you in to the tone Mk.gee was going for. On "Little Bit More", a song that somehow combines a sea shanty sway with a guitar funk bounce, the lights looked like the extension of the table hosting all of Zack Sekoff's sample pads and sequencers, as if to suggest that the sounds you were hearing were conducted in a lab for maximum induction of awe. Truly, every time Sekoff triggered the occasional blast of distortion, the high teenagers behind me screamed, "What the fuck?!?" as if they couldn't believe what they were hearing. For the record, I was screaming it in my head.
As much as Mk.gee is occasionally flashy (the prickly, disjointed guitar solo on "Candy" comes to mind), their live show had me thinking that never has a band (Gordon, Sekoff, guitarist Andrew Aged) done so much work to create a vibe. In the hands of lesser musicians, the sheer number of samples and effects would come off as braggadocious maximalism. During Mk.gee's show, on the other hand, nothing included was superfluous. The hissing drums, riffs, and vocals--themselves an instrument--on "You got it" combined for the most satisfying Hornsby-indebted slow jam since "Beth/Rest". The strobe-lit industrial drums and auto-tuned vocals added a tongue-in-cheek temper to "New Low", a song that chides artists who try too hard to be someone else. Even the fact that Mk.gee played "DNM" a whopping five (!) times total, three during the main set, and two during the encore, seemed to serve to emphasize that you, too, probably had it on repeat the first time you heard it. Each time the band began it anew, Gordon looked over his shoulder and screamed, "ZACK!", an instruction to Sekoff to begin its swollen drum introduction; the audience sang along, "Never want to talk about it, how come? / Never want to talk about it, with no one?" louder with every instance.
It seems almost unfair to say that Mk.gee's show at the Vic was the best I've seen all year, and if I had to rank it, I might consider it the show of the decade so far. At the risk of sounding like an insufferable hippie, the show was an experience, one that constantly defies easy categorization and your expectations. When the band closed with an absolutely cheap-sounding instrumental cover of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" that also seemed to adopt the melody of Andrea Bocelli's, "Con te partirò", I laughed, but I also realized that the heel turn was more emblematic of Mk.gee than any of the Dream Police songs. He's always got one foot planted in the past, but he's always one step ahead.
Henry Cavill as Will Shaw in "The Cold Light of Day" 🥰
i would keep messing up on purpose just to be in this man’s arms !!