Reverend Billy creates a church, a congregation, this is true preaching, saying what needs to be said. Finding the words in the moment, so that what might be pastiche in less potent hands is delivered with the full force of conviction, with the urgency of the need to save us from ourselves. Only this is not a moral salvation in the hereafter but a practical call to stop killing the planet on which we live. Because we are all dying together and we are not doing what needs to be done. Painting a far-reaching image of humankind’s toxification and destruction of the biosphere, with song and the spoken word Reverend Billy challenges his audience to rise from apathy, to see the situation in its dire entirety, and act, act now.

Touching on the necessity of biodiversity, the lessons present in the escalating temperature of the planet, and focusing on the effects of neonicotinoids upon the honeybee. These potent insecticides are linked to colony collapse disorder and present the terrifying possibility of the loss of the honeybee, which would devastate human agriculture and the natural world in equal measure. Expounding on the mysterious and fascinating abilities of the honeybee, they are made a symbol for every necessary link in the self-sustaining web of life. Chemico-physical communication through the waggle dance, wherein a single bee precisely triangulates plant, hive, and sun, accounting for the rotation of the earth: such wonders draw us to the fabulous unknown, that ephemeral territory where knowledge ends and wonder begins.

Celebration and provocation, joyous, righteous, full of the life and love so strongly present in their activism: Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir deliver an irresistible call to action.