live report: girugamesh / lynch. @ Nagoya ell., Sept 6/07
Pre-show
I got to the club comparatively late, maybe around 6:45pm after the doors had already opened. That meant the lower numbers had already been called up and for all I knew, my segment of numbers had also already been called. We were up on the third floor, so I waited in the line with the rest of the people and we shortly made our way through the entrance. From what I could tell of the line, the girugamesh / lynch. collective fandom boasts a healthy portion of male fans. Not unusually many, but enough to make me feel a little better for being seemingly older than most of the girls (not all the females were teenagers, but it was hard to pick out the older, more laid-backed girls from among the younger, sometimes childishly dressed/behaving ones). The guy collecting tickets took 500 yen for a drink ticket (I knew about it, but I’ll never be convinced any drink they give at these events is worth the five bucks). The dude also asked me who I was there to see, girugamesh or lynch. I replied, “both”, of course. He sounded surprised for some reason.
The 3rd floor of the ELL is a pretty small space. I think it couldn’t have held more than maybe 300 people. It also has just about zero ambience and personality, being pretty much a tiny box with the insides painted black. The stage is well-lined with lights, and there’s a pit area barred off and depressed in level from the back area. So in general, it has the basic requirements of a live venue, but isn’t exactly the nicest club I’ve been to. The small size does lend itself to a more intimate performance, I’ll give you that.
Well, since I got in late and also opted to use the washroom, I ended up fairly far behind. I was pretty tired from all the bike riding and running around from the earlier part of the day, so I was content enough to just stay back there and take it easy until an opportunity presented itself. Plus, I was pretty much one of the tallest girls there, so I had really no complaints about the view.
girugamesh
There was very little waiting, thank goodness. Girugamesh came on pretty promptly at 7pm. I was expecting a bit of a crush towards the front, but this crowd seemed rather sedate. Nobody really bothered to get in closer, which kind of surprised me and took me off guard. I chalked it up to my standing in the middle of the lynch. fans, who probably respected girugamesh enough to bob their heads along, clap and cheer for them, but not enough to get too aggressive about it. There were some obvious girugamesh fangirls in my section nonetheless, which was kind of nice to see in contrast to the guy right in front of me, who refused to do anything to show appreciation for girugamesh besides nod his head in miniscule amounts. His feet never even moved from the floor.
I already forgot what they opened up with, but it was a loud, fast, and high-energy song. I was standing slightly towards the left, so I had a great view of Satoshi and Shuu on his right, while my view of Nii was kind of hindered. They wore their standard black suits with their white ties, and looked pretty fantastic. The band sounded clear and well-coordinated, their movements easy with one another and the audience. They didn’t pull any fancy tricks, but let the musicianship speak for itself. Shuu got an unexpected amount of screams (I expected Satoshi or Nii?!). It’s actually really funny listening to these girls growl his name in their not-very-deep voices.
They ended up playing every single song off the new mini-album, pretty much in the track order, including omae ni sasageru minikui koe. They interspersed those songs with some older ones. I remember clearly that mouja NO koushin was about the third song in, and then they must’ve launched into reason for crying, crime -tsuba-, and smash!! Like I surmised when I first heard the song, smash!! is loads of fun live. I was pretty ecstatic to hear it played. The band kicked it up a notch and Satoshi flew all over stage for it, and let the audience join in. The girls here don’t really mosh (and by extension, neither do the boys)-and this song is lamentably the kind of song that would’ve been really fun to mosh to. Still, the band handled the energy really well, and Satoshi threw in a couple of tried-and-true VK vocalist mannerisms (dare I say popularized by Kyo?) like the grimace and the lunge-and-whirl-back (I need better names for these moves). Still, they’re young and they’re definitely fresh. Satoshi may pull some traditional moves, but he is a great energetic vocalist; the kind that isn’t absorbed by ego, so you can really connect to him.
Hearing these guys live gave me a chance to realize why Shuu does honestly deserve respect. He’s a good bassist in the way the recordings don’t always show, and he is entertaining. He doesn’t hang back like a lot of bassists do-he often came forward more than Nii and engaged the fans. That’s always so great: seeing the band have fun. Ryo had a couple of drumming moments, too, where the attention was all on him.
After smash!!, I think they broke up the new songs a bit by throwing an older one. I’m not sure which one, but shadan and aimai na mikaku definitely got played at some point and it might have been here. Here’s a thing about me: I remember songs well, but suck at remembering the names. I tend to listen to entire albums in one go (and with girugamesh it’s never a problem because their songs are all good enough to not skip) and so I easily lose track of song titles that way. So for shadan, while I knew very well it was on the “13’s reborn” album, I couldn’t place the name. On the ride to Nagoya, I had bought a weird little Japanese grape-flavoured drink by Calpis (a guy I know most eloquently described the name as “bovine urine”). So during the chorus for shadan, I kept thinking that they were repeatedly screaming “cow piss!”… at least it made it easier to identify later.
There was a little bit of a technical problem during aimai na mikaku-they stopped the song maybe ten seconds in, fixed the problem, and threw out a few well-humoured comments to the audience in the interval. Then they started it again, and it was beautiful. I’ve always loved that song, and it’s just as haunting live. Eventually they played Melody and Freesia. I can’t say those are my favourites off the album since they can get laborious when you’re not in a ballad-mood. But it was fine live-not too saccharine or maudlin. Emotional, but not melodramatic.
A little thing I noticed about Satoshi was that during some songs (especially newer ones) he sounded a tiny bit off-key. Not so much that he was horrible, because he was spot-on for most of the songs and even better than in the recordings, but enough to distract me a little. I remember it hit me most for Freesia. Anyway, omae ni sasageru minikui koe was one of the last songs to get played, which is a great frantic, aggressive song to end off with, lots of movement in the pit-and I was having a good time even in the steadfastly lynch. section. Altogether, they must have played around ten to twelve songs since they ended at exactly 7:55pm. They garnered a very healthy amount of applause, and Satoshi went off the stage brandishing a lynch. flag coyly. It was a very solid performance, and I’d go see them again for sure-next time maybe at a one-man where the energy might be higher and the attendees more appreciative.
lynch.
There was about a ten-minute break while the roadies changed up the equipment. At this point, the crowd started to shift-the girugamesh fans leaving the pit (possibly leaving the venue altogether?) and the lynch. fans filling in. The guy who was standing in front of me-the one who had refused to move an inch for giru beyond some slight head nods-he started moving in, which is when I realized… he wasn’t a guy at all. He was a girl who just happened to be unfortunately stocky and masculine-looking. Oops, mental embarrassment.
Anyway, I also made my way up to the front since I didn’t see any point in wasting perfectly decent pit space. Nobody got mad at me for doing it, but I still stopped at maybe the fourth row or so, because I was aware that I am about the height of the average fangirl in killer platform shoes and I always feel guilty when I’m blocking somebody. Reminds me of many times when a ginormously tall man will move in front of me at a show and frustrate the fuck out of me.
Okay, so the instruments were being set up, and some background music was being played (it sounded suspiciously like the Smashing Pumpkins…). Then without too much fuss, lynch. exploded onto stage-Yusuke first, the new guy who looks oddly like Hizumi from D’espairsRay in the right light; then Reo, who’s looking deliciously buff and whose face is pierced like a pincushion. Hot. After that, it must’ve been the support guy, (don’t know his name!) since I didn’t recognize him. And then, Asanao, sporting a pimptastic hat and reminding me just a tad of a much less sleazy Kid Rock. The crowd was undeniably chanting for Hazuki, though, and when the man himself bounded onto stage, the volume in the club must’ve trebled.
Girugamesh was good. They were even great. They were solid; the band was fun, and Satoshi an obviously capable vocalist with great crowd skills. But lynch.? They, and Hazuki in particular, blew me away. I wasn’t expecting to be roped in so fast-I was expecting to enjoy both bands equally. But god, Hazuki is riveting, and he’s in a league of his own. His experience shows. He’s been around the indie circuit for years, and he knows how to perform.
I don’t even remember the first song, only that it was fast, furious, and the band an inexorable and formidable personality unfolding before me. Of course, it obviously helps that I adored their music already; it’s just such a pleasure to discover that they’re wonderful live. Reo is cheeky, smirky and suave; Yusuke knows what he’s doing, and I definitely approve of his addition. Support guy is uhh, good (I’m ashamed to say I didn’t pay him much attention). Asanao is a confident and unassuming drummer-firm, meshes well with everyone. And Hazuki? Hazuki is lithe, is graceful, is seductive-he toys with the audience, directs them, reels them in, and throws out all manner of coquetry into his performance subtly enough to not trigger my disdain for how he manipulates his own obvious appeal. His voice is even sexier live-thick and deep and a little smoky.
He rewards the audience’s participation and adoration with absolutely brilliant and charming smiles and encouraging body language. He wasn’t even particularly visual (lynch. seems to want to dissociate itself from the most traditional of that discipline), dressed in layers of black and a flirty scarf, and some dark eye makeup-but the way he moved, the sensuality of his singing and growling, his generous smiles-I have to say that I thought him absolutely beautiful.
They played a slew of songs, mostly off the new album “THE AVOIDED SUN”, but a couple of older ones, too. I don’t recall them playing anything off “greedy dead souls” but I might be wrong. In some rough semblance of order, the songs I know they played were: roaring in the dark, stuck pain, STARZ, liberation chord, forgiven, the whirl, the universe, I’m sick,b’cuz luv u., enemy, possibly dazzle. There was something else from the “underneath the skin” album, but I’m not sure which-I think it was alien tune.
The moment they launched into the opening little bass riff of stuck pain was a moment of pure joy for me. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that of all the songs on my playlist, I adore that one the most-I know for certain it’s the song I’ve listened to the most recently. And the live performance was nothing short of amazing. It might’ve been a little emotional for me, I admit. I was a little disappointed to see that the other fans around me didn’t seem to appreciate it quite as much, moving very little and listening pretty passively. That in no way hindered my enjoyment of the song itself, though. Everything about it was perfect: Hazuki’s delicate, ethereal voice and its progression into a series of growled prayers, the whirling dervishes spun by the guitars, and Asanao’s spot-on drumming. Easily the highlight of my night.
Other songs that are fantastic live: enemy, liberation chord, and the universe. The last one was ridiculously fun. The Japanese audience might not have the same aggressive energy at shows, but they do have those quirky group-coordinated movements. It’s simultaneously strange and great fun to join in on. Hazuki held out the mike often during the universe and let the girls chant it out to the grinding beat of the instruments and their emphatic fist-thrusts. He was perched perilously over us, grinning with enough wattage to power my air conditioner for the rest of the month. I’m sick,b’cuz luv u. is also a crowd favourite since there were a lot of cheers for that one. It’s probably also my favourite off the new album.
I headbanged the fuck out of my neck (and I’m feeling it today still, two days later), but it was worth it. At some point, the band left the stage, and was called back on for an encore. I can’t remember which songs were played for the encore, but they were general pretty fast ones. The band came back onto the stage and the members had changed clothes. Hazuki was wearing a girugamesh tour t-shirt and pointed to it affectionately and mumbled something, smiling. Lots of people clapped. I love it when bands show friendliness for one another.
Anyway, it ended on a great note-I was tired out in a really good way, and was already trying to arrange my schedule in my head to see them for their next one-man. Spent that 500 yen drink ticket on a weird-tasting grapefruit chuhai. It was about 9:15pm when lynch. left the stage and when I met Deanna down in Kanayama 20 minutes later for a late dinner, I was a little tipsy, a little deaf, and also a little more in love. :)