Outdoors,
A Miserable, Rainy Day.
Indoors, The Exact Opposite.
Part V
now
playing: Aliene Mar'iages' Les Soiree (1999)
Over dinner Kayo and I were watching the evening news, and someone
was interviewing the clerk at a gym where one of the hijackers had
signed up last year. The clerk punched up the name, swiveled the monitor
to face the camera, and the camera dramatically, almost violently,
zoomed in on the screen (as japanese cameramen are wont to do).
It
has the guy's name, address, card number, membership expiration date,
and in a box called "Notes" at the bottom of the screen,
in red and yellow: "MEMBERSHIP
EXPIRED ATTACKED WORLD TRADE CENTER."
Just,
i dunno, weird.
Right,
back to the front: the next band out was Bang Doll, they were also
cool, the singer was friendly and got the crowd going, the one guitarist
with the kanjified name looked like Toshiya from Dir en grey a bit,
the other guitarist played a warlock and had poofy yellow hair, there
was no drummer, and the bassist had a feather boa that he kinda whipped
and dangled over the girls in the front row, and which is a trademark
thing for him I guess.
They
were good, I would've bought their demo tape too if they had had one,
but they didn't. They were heavy, fast, and had cool songs. (This
is getting repetitive!) Unfortunately, it was like five days ago now,
I can't remember much more about them, besides the fact that I would
enjoy seeing them again, which I suppose is enough! To bad they weren't
in the lobby later on, it would've been cool to say hello. Especially
the singer, he encouraged me to at least do a fist in the air thing,
if not a break-down-the-door body leap thing, which only made the
show more fun for my involvement.
And
in between I talked with a few more Japanese fans, and embarrassed
some guy who's apparent schtick is that he doesn't talk(?!?!), and
took a couple pulls from my water bottle (actually it was Water Salad,
which is just like fruit-n-veggie Gatorade, kind of) and then mercifully
the last band came on, a little after 9pm. Gidi!
The
kana they use is actually "Giji," but their email has Gidi,
so that's what I'm sticking with for now.
They
come out, and after an awesome night, I was hoping for more of the
same. But like with movies, when you're expecting it to be great,
it often can't live up to your expectations. What was true with The
Phantom Menace was true tonight with Gidi, and they put on a very
good show but one that I personally didn't especially enjoy -- at
least, to as much as their Narciss gig from the last time.
One
very cool part, though, was when the rhythm guitarist... well, not
the rhythm guitarist so much as "the Inoran guitarist"...
or perhaps more insultingly we can call him "the Pata guitarist".
You know, the guitarist who isn't Sugizo, or Hide; the guitarist who
is the quieter, more restrained, less wild of the two guitarists.
So
he, our man of the secondary guitar role, a.k.a. Kou, shot a fire
extinguisher into the crowd in mid-song. It was totally out of nowhere.
And it was very cool, the surprise and the fright of that loud hiss/splurt
the thing made, even over top of the noise of the music. So he shot
that once or twice, for maybe 5 seconds, then set it aside (instead
of throwing it, tsk tsk) and I saw that it was just a boring green
tank of whatever, and not an actual fire extinguisher at all, and
that was a bit of a let-down, but then I reconsidered and decided
it was cooler -- I can only imagine what kind of birth defects would
arise when that crowd of girls became mothers, after breathing in
whatever chemicals are stuffed inside those red extinguishers. But
it was a logical cool, not an emotional cool. Emotion cools are better.
Emotion
cools are what had me going for pretty much the entire evening. Now
I was a bit more relaxed/restrained, a bit more tired, a bit more
looking forward to heading home and getting some yummy in my tummy
and nighty-nightness. And also I wanted to see the 170 photos I had
taken!
The
Hide/Sugizo guitar role is filled by Yuri, and as would be expected,
he was maniacal. He had developed this ear-piercing scream-thing that
he used without mercy gist in time for the gig, and it was cool (emotional
cool!) in the same way the shrill shrieking on track 7 of Aliene Mar'iage's
Les Soiree is. Just imagine your vocal chords tightening to
guitar-string-esque tautness, and then turning the tuning peg even
tighter, gist a bit, so that the danger of snapping is very real.
That was HIS voice! Plus the asylum-brained staring and looking around.
Fun showmanship; I didn't like the kimono outfit he wore very much
though (the black-and-red vinyl look works better on him, imho). (What'
the name of that asshole who critiques all the women's dresses at
the Academy Awards? Blackwell or something? I feel just like him!
[No I don't!])
And
I feel obliged to mention how cool the drummer is. And the bassist,
who, with Yuri, I met at Studio Penta briefly a few months ago, and
again at Narciss after their show, is a good bass player. And the
singer does a good job too, I s'ppose, despite the visual similarity
to Michael Monroe.
So
after riling the crowd into a frenzy with their 10-minute audience
participation song (during which at least one girl is hurt during
the break-down-the-door flying leap dance bit. But the show doesn't
stop and she doesn't leave the area -- she just squats to recupe for
a few minutes and I slide a few inches to the right, effectively blocking
any more girls from jumping into her and breaking her spine and/or
skull again -- you shoulda seen the beast that leaped onto her, yikes)
Gidi leaves the stage and the show and the night are potentially over.
Then
we all slowly head out through the lobby, praising the show, Steven
quite excited, and me swearing to buy as many demos as I can...
