The Reverend

Thanks for reading and enjoying guys! What? Really?? I wouldn't have ever made that connection. Im going to the black swan later today.... And (you'll be excited for this) Emmuree on Monday.

The super long name for this show seems to have been: 君は鋭く。「panorama3echoes」 発売記念主催 「残響、攪拌、振動覚について vol.5」 (if any mods read this... I wasn't sure if this was the right forum for my own live reports... seems like the focus is on translations. Move it if there's a better spot) I'm in Japan for a little bit, and of course that means hitting some VK shows while I'm in town. On this particular Thursday night I went to see a band I really like (君は鋭く。) and a bunch of other bands I didn't know at all. This isn't a full fledged narrative live report... but rather some thoughts and first impressions about each act. And of course since this was a VK show in Tokyo I followed the rules about no pictures and have none to share... other than this one of some flowers in the lobby for the show: Let's start with a bit about the venue. Takadanobaba AREA. The most defining feature of this live house is that there are three tiers of the concert floor with bars at the front of each, helping give everyone a good view. Another positive aspect of AREA is that the bar is outside the main floor (and I imagine the merch could be also but since this show was pretty sparsely attended they had that taking up the highest tier.) I watched all the bands because the whole experience is pretty novel for me, but I could imagine hanging out outside the stage area near the bar if I didn't like the band playing (or if I wasn't there by myself ha). On to the show: コントラリエ (Contrary?) - Such a baby band. A little too ‘cute’ for my tastes (singer had a sock puppet thing on his hand the whole time). If I had some advice for this band it would be to not spend 6 minutes of a 20 minute set talking after playing two songs when nobody knows who you are. Gotta give us a reason to care before you start chattering about *whatever* (I should note I don't speak Japanese at all... but the audience did not seem particularly captivated by the MC either). 黒乃うさぎ (kuronousagi) - Cringe-worthy embarrassment. 8-bit garageband angura kei (?). This was just the singer.... and his one fan in attendance. At its peak tonight AREA only had about 50 people in it, but Kuronousagi had literally one person on the bottom level of the floor nearest the stage. He tried to bribe people to come down and participate with candy…. but ended up just handing it to that one girl and having her give it to the people in the back. I actually didn’t completely hate it.. but I came for a rock show and this guy was doing goofball karaoke. Bask in the Deep - like a 180 degree turn from the last act (at least tonight's lineup was very diverse). Very pro, not VK at all except for a really slouchy top and cardigan on the singer/guitarist. Bassist had some sick runs. Finally got my head bobbing some. ジグラット (Ziggrat) - Is this the same band as the one around like ~5 years ago?? I could’ve sworn they looked like an Aicle copy band at some point with lots of bright colors and happiness. Now the vocalist was wearing a polka dot dress but he was definitely going for a darker kinda ugly on purpose thing and the guitarists were wearing gallo esque black with white stripes get ups. (in stark contrast to the vocalist the guitarist was super pretty and could actually pass as a girl). Was fairly heavy and fun… but I was confused for most of the show about who this band was because I swear ziggrat used to look sooooo different. (One fun thing... instead of an 'MC' the vocalist did this little show wherein he pulled out two tea mugs and drank some water from each, then made a girl from each side of the audience come take them. No idea what it was supposed to be about, but I guess a couple people got a cool souvenir.) カラビンカ (Karabinka) - Unlike Contrary, this band didn't say one word to the crowd and barely even looked up at them. A three piece very angura (I say that mostly because they had white face paint and a noisy kinda punk sound) band with a girl bassist. The guitarist/singer was super focused on the ground in front of him but did make a ton of noise with his guitar and sang with a ton of passion. They came out, played their hearts out for four songs… and left abruptly. That’s how you play to an un-friendly room (not that they didn’t have fans… I just mean when there are more people who don’t know you than do… give the unfamiliar as many reasons to like you as possible and as few to dislike you.) They were selling, and wearing, nooses of different colors at their merch table, I can't believe another VK band hasn't done this yet. マルコ (Marco) - IDK, not bad or great... some or all of the members of this band definitely love Merry. 君は鋭く。(Kimihasurudoku) - The band I came to see. They had only released three songs before this show... but one of them (Stargazer) is a favorite of mine. Earlier in the show after the first band an older lady and younger girl came up to me in asked me in broken English (no offense intended, it was still wayyyyy better than my Japanese) what band I was there to see. When I answered 'kimi wa surudoku' they both smiled big smiles and asked me again to make sure of what I said. Unless I find out otherwise I'm going to assume this lady was someone in the band's mom because she was very happy that I said I liked them... she then went over to their merch table and grabbed a wrist band and insisted I take it. She was sweet (and gave me some free swag!) Related; @JRD will kill me or herself if she finds out how little I paid for a couple of their live-limited releases at the end of the show. Their two vocalist set up was fun. I'm not one to participate in all the choreographed dancing and headbanging but when they played one of my fave songs ever I was definitely bouncing and raising my fist when appropriate. The vocalist with glasses had to keep taking them off to headbang like he wanted to. They made some announcement as they were leaving about something ( i think a show or release in December.... I'm probably wrong but I thought I heard 'juu-ni gatsu') that had two fans in front freaking the fuck out. Didn’t play that long for hosting the event… but I guess they don’t have a ton of songs haha. I had a lot of fun during their set. All in all my biggest complaint about the show was that they definitely did it at too big a venue. It was never even 20% full. I saw some cool bands I need to check out and some I'll definitely be ignoring. Not a bad night.

If I do this again I feel like I'll need a cool name for the series.... suggestions are welcome! This video ends slightly abruptly because my phone ran out of space about 30 seconds before I was done! You're not missing any essential insight haha. (And at least one more time... shoutout to jrocknyc shoutbox-er Ken who did some ride along reviews/reflections on VK that I'm shamelessly copying)

Didn't know they released new stuff, I need to check it out.... but I do plan to see them this summer on that 'reliving 2004 tour'. That first EP with Anthony Green was soooooo good. I wanted to like Circa Survive more than I ever really did.

I made a lasagna!

Bummer. I don't think they'd done much lately but I loved their first full album. This is probably to be expected considering they're signed to "Kaisan Records".

Heh I figured you were just keeping the prettiest one for yourself

I voted for Luna Sea and Deadman because those are the riffs among these that get stuck in my head after simply reading the song title.

Nice! Their last (only?) release was like three years ago.... 'bout time.

Not sure my eardrums are ready for a night of Boris AND Earth! Thinking I might try to catch that Philly show.... thanks for the heads up.

That Animals as Leaders song is pretty sick (and Tosin looked super handsome in the video I just watched of them playing it.) I checked out Hands Like Houses because you highlighted their track (and because their name reminded me of Curse These Metal Hands) but everything about them was just a little too slick/polished. Here's mine from my entire music library on shuffle: 1. D'espairs Ray - Tatoeba kimi... ga... shinda... ra 2. St. Vincent - The Strangers 3. Jyakura - Sara to karen 4. Hybrid-Zombiez - 異電子 5. Nirvana - Breed 6. Slinger - セイヴィア 7. Robyn - Don't Fucking Tell Me What To Do 8. Planetarium - 激情Revival 9. Armor for Sleep - Very Invisible 10. Mitochondrion - Rift / Apex Whoa I listened to some awesome tracks in the last hour. I really like that Armor for Sleep song... but that D'espairs Ray is an all time great VK song! Hands down my favorite of the bunch.

It's a good sign for the new album's longevity/place among my faves that I'm still spinning it and still not really skipping any tracks (except maybe the bonus track). When that live vid of them came out recently I was a little surprised to not see Jojo rapidly karate chopping his neck like I have to do whenever I sing along.

Not that @JRD needs anymore feedback.... but I figure whenever I buy some things and it goes well the least I can do is bump this thread. So that's what I'm doing.

LOL so a year from now Rare will just come to your house and break a couple of your CDs (maybe while wailing goth-ily). " -1 Limited Release"

Maybe this is old news, but I just noticed that Dogma and Toxic are both available to stream on AmazonPrime Music. Their other full albums (well the digital mp3 versions) are also priced like American CDs at $8.99 on Amazon. Nice! Have they always been up there and I didn't notice or is this a new thing because of the world tour?? Related question: Were they selling CDs at the merch table at their shows / for how much? (I didn't check out the merch as I got to the show barely on time and didn't want to fight with the huge crush of people there after the show ended.... s/o to @TheStoic for telling me how much T-Shirts cost so I didn't have to bother with that crowd for another band tshirt I'd rarely wear )

Feel like I'm jealous of @emmny right now.

These VAs are actually worthwhile when they've got unreleased songs.... damn good lineup too!

I agree with this sentiment.... it's a shame I really wanted to like Words more than I did because god damn I think that's an awesome album title.

Resolved: That part in Slowdive's 'When The Sun Hits' when he sings 'it matters where you are...' and the drums and guitar really kick in is the greatest moment in recorded shoegaze. Rebuttal: Bring it on! @00:58 if you want to jump right to it.

Thanks for all the positive feedback guys! I'll do another one of these the next time I feel like a drive in the country. Yeah there's a bunch.... glad you two also remember Ken's vids. (I posted to the shoutbox/collab-blog as James or James/Julio... sporadically though)