The first band out tonight was nisennenmondai. I saw them at Nest Fest in October, but I thought they were pretty bland and boring. Could be because I was tired, and not in the mood for that kind of music or something. This time I actually thought they were really cool.
nisennenmondai can be described as a sort of psychedelic drone rock, maybe? Purely instrumental, hypnotizing waves of sound that builds up and ends in wonderful noise. I had forgotten ear plugs this time though. My ears were ringing afterwards. Especially my left ear seems to be sensitive to noise these days... Anyways, like I said earlier, they made a much bigger impression on me this time. Could be because I was standing in the first row and could see the very energetic drummer during the entire show. She was seriously awesome.
I've seen Ogre You Asshole a number of times the past year, more precisely about once every month (fangirl alert). I've come to realize that they're not the most amazing live band to watch if you were to compare them to f ex The Novembers' intensity, Otogi Banashi's charm, OWARIKARA's craziness etc. That's not to say that their bad live. Definitely not. They're solid from beginning to end, play really tight and most importantly they make me happy.
Since I reviewed them last time in February I've seen them at the tiny venue in Chiba Look, their "pinhole"-tour oneman final at Quattro and at the Tobu Ongaku Sai. The festival was a really nice experience. Outdoors venue, nice, warm weather and a great atmosphere.
This time it was back to good old O-Nest. One of the first times I saw them was here, and this was the last time in a while. I'm leaving Japan in August, and although I'm certain I'll come back one day, I'm not sure when that will be. So yeah I've been feeling all sentimental at concerts lately.
They played the key tracks from each cd, and then a whole lot from "shiranai aizu" this time. I'd still love to hear a couple of the older songs, but I guess that will only happen at onemans nowadays. I don't think I've heard "Rail" that much live before, so that was nice. "Necktie" with the swirly noisy guitars at the end are really cool.
I think Ogre's strongest point is the fact that they have so damn good songs. Great guitars, catchy melodies, unique vocals and good lyrics. They have a sound unique from all the standard Japanese rock bands, and although they're often compared to American indierock bands I think they sound different from them as well. Apparently they've been recording new stuff this summer, so that means a new release is on the way. Also, Ogre will be opening for Sunset Rubdown on their Japan tour this fall. Pretty exciting.
Btw, tonight's gig was part of a series of gigs presented by moools called "moools matsuri" (moools festival). They were headlining, and I like mools, but I ended up only seeing like ten minutes so no review this time.
It disappointed me a little bit that Ogre You Asshole didn’t play the title track from their upcoming EP 「しらないあいずしらせる子」(shiranai aizu shiraseru ko). However they opened with another new song 「ひとり乗り」(hitori nori). It’s rather slow-paced, but I like it a lot. I think the new tracks lean a lot more towards pop than before, and it sounds more polished maybe? I like catchy songs, but I also like some good guitar noise. Here’s hoping the new EP has both. It has actually been released in the iTunes Music store, but I’m waiting patiently for the cd. I’ve realized that if you hear albums in advance it takes away some the excitement when you finally have the physical cd in your hands. Anyways, their performance was good. I think they played a rather short set, and I’m looking forward to their oneman in November.
Ogre You Asshole - ひとり乗り live
Although the audience didn’t seem that into Ogre You Asshole it felt as if everyone left the stage area after they had finished. They sold merch, cd’s and tickets in the hallway and food on the second floor. I got my ticket for group_inou’s oneman in December. My ticket number was 71, but after a closer inspection I realized it was G-71. Usually it means that they call the A 1-100 tickets first then B 1-100 etc. In other words I’m like nr 700? Oh man.
Nisennenmondai was next in the lineup, but after half a song I came to the conclusion that I have very little interest in them. They’ve played in Norway at least twice this year, and I’ve read that they’re a noise band which is supposed to be influenced by Sonic Youth and similar bands. They were totally different than my expectations though. They didn’t really have any structure in their songs, no apparent melodies and it sort of dragged on forever and yeah, we went to eat some curry instead. I don’t like Japanese curry.
The stage area was packed during Shing02 set. Again, hip hop is not my thing, and in contrast to group_inou this was more mainstream hip hop which I found it really hard to get anything out of.
Next followed I AM ROBOT AND PROUD, an electronic act from Canada. I’ve seen him before at O-Nest. His music is likeable, but a little one-sided in the long run. I think his sound is a lot more organic compared regular electro music and I like that a lot.
We saw toe and dosh from the second floor. About that time I was extremely tired, and seeing many other people sitting against the wall sleeping, I say I wasn’t the only one. Toe mostly have instrumental songs, but I believe they had vocals on a song they played towards the end of their set? I’m afraid I was half asleep at that point. Sorry. Dosh was kind of cool though. They were the second foreign act of the day, and they had some interesting tunes. Not that I remember them very well. Sorry again.
Finally it was Shugo Tokumaru’s turn to perform. Tonight he performed together with the Magic Band and they were 8 people on stage on percussion, synth, contrabass, toy instruments etc. They played a variety of songs from all three albums and a couple of new ones as well. The songs from his first two albums, f ex “the Mop” and “Mist” sounded a lot bigger when performed with the band. Tokumaru’s voice is kind of light and timid and in the beginning it drowned a little bit in the music, but it soon became better. They new songs sounded pretty similar in sound with the songs from EXIT – playful and beautiful at the same time. I was really hoping that they would play “La La Radio” from Exit because it sounds amazing when performed with the Magic Band, but unfortunately. All Japanese bands usually say thanks for coming, next live is then and then, thank you again etc during their live set. Last time I saw Tokumaru with the Magic Band he started talking after the first song and the man went on forever talking about everything and nothing. It was interesting the first five minutes. Tonight however, probably aware of his tendency to talk way too much, he did a little speed talk. Funny. The set ended with a great version of “Green Rain”. I wished they had played longer though, but it appeared that they weren’t the last act of the day after all.
Shugo Tokumaru – Green Rain
Secret act! マヒルノ(mahiruno) played one song at the little side stage. Hardrock with pretty cool guitar sounds. The vocals and lyrics were a bit crap though. But it was a good ending to a long day.
The first band out tonight was nisennenmondai. I saw them at Nest Fest in October, but I thought they were pretty bland and boring. Could be because I was tired, and not in the mood for that kind of music or something. This time I actually thought they were really cool.
(pic from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/drwng/3708905026/in/set-72157621253591770/)