Enslaved at Duo Music Exchange, September 3rd 2018

“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated”. That’s what John Lydon said at the end of the last Sex Pistols show before walking out of the stage. That quote resonates to this day in many other contexts as a statement of intent from an ideological point of view (skepticism, nihilism, punk, etc.) But on this night it applied to its original environment: the rock show. It was my first time in over twenty years going to concerts that I saw a headliner playing a 40 minutes set.

I knew something was off the minute I walked into the place and saw those overpriced t-shirts at the merch table. Then I went to grab a beer and was informed by an unusually rude bartender that this shitty venue charges ¥100 on top of the drink ticket everyone needs to buy at the door, first time I’ve ever seen that. But the scam was just starting.

The first band was Violent Magic Orchestra, VMO. Their set started with images projected on the screen behind them telling the story of a group of aliens that landed on earth and founded black metal records. It was cool to use that space iconography and they’re definitely an interesting concept. Their music blends black metal and harsh noise with EDM. The female lead vocalist shrieks also added to the uniqueness of the concept. They need to turn down the emo bits down a few notches, though. For some reason it seems like some Japanese bands believe that black metal has something to do with emo.

Not the guys from Ssorc. I thought for a minute that these ghouls on stage were going to  open the gates of hell or something. They were an orthodox black metal band in full corpse paint and wearing dark robes, endearing in their sloppiness and actually quite good. At the end of their set they made a full 180 and closed with three thrash numbers with some really good riffs in them.

Sigh was the best band of the night, hands down. I’ve seen them before and they never disappoint. In my opinion, that’s how psychedelic avant-garde metal should sound. Experimenting with textures, adding saxophone and flute. Seamlessly blending growls, shrieks and clean singing. No being afraid of following Iggy Pop’s advice to bring it down to tighten things up. I can’t wait to see them again later this year at a few other shows I have lined up.

I like the concept of Vampillia, but I have some trouble with the execution. I like how they’re going for a big sound and how they experiment with strings and keyboards, but the emo thing turns me off immediately. After ten minutes into their set I just focused on the drummer Tatsuya Yoshida, what an amazing musician he is.

Enslaved opened with Roots of the Mountain and you couldn’t find a better set opener than that. The “metal” aspects in the lyrics sound genuine and the melodies are both uplifting and dark, if there could be such a thing. I was pumped, but in hindsight I think I should’ve noticed that I was being set up for disappointment. The band enthusiasm on stage looked a tad exaggerated, as in “we know we’ll be out of here in 40 minutes, so let’s give them something extra”. Ruun, Storm Son and Isa followed and then Grutle Kjellson announced they were going to “play their last song of this short set”. I couldn’t believe my ears, he said that 30 minutes into the set. They played Allfǫðr Oðinn. Shook hands with the people up front and were gone. No encore, no nothing.

I love music and going to shows. I saw Lee Scratch Perry at age 80 playing an amazing two hour set at Liquidroom a couple of years ago. I also saw Hermeto Pascoal, aged 80 at the time; he played two sets on that night, I went to the second one. He played for two hours and basically destroyed that fucking venue. You can read my review of the Terry Riley show I saw last year. It was also the second of two sets and it was a memorable hour and a half. Mr. Riley was 82 at the time. Now, what kind of excuse those guys from Enslaved have?

Look, I’m (was) a big fan of the band and got my ticket back in May, as soon as the concert was announced. I was really looking forward to seeing them play live. But there’s no other word to describe what went on this date. It was a scam. I think the promoter wants to push ticket sales for an extra show that was announced literally less than two weeks ago, and in cahoots with the band, they made them play an extremely short set to lure gullible idiots to that second date. 

At the end of the day it’s all about the money. Who ends up losing? The Fans. People who takes unpaid days off of work, who buy tickets for a show announced as a headlining show -I didn’t see the word “festival” anywhere on the flyer, there’s a huge picture of them on it. Shame of you, Enslaved, for falling prey and agreeing to a greedy promoter scheme. For thinking that because you’re in Japan you can get away with weak ass bullshit like this. And foremost, shame of you for disrespecting your fans.

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Update (9/05/18): After a brief exchange with the guys from Enslaved on Facebook my suspicions that the promoters were onto something fishy were confirmed. I’m sorry for putting the blame solely on the band, they obviously had to deal -in this particular case and for the first time- with Japanese business politics of the worst kind. Hopefully the fans will get a better shot next time and the logistics will be handle by professionals and not egotistical maniacs.