The Tokyo Concert Experience

I don’t mind a bit of cheese in metal, but is it really cheese, though? Honestly speaking the air-fist-pumping, the horns, the “hey!…hey!…hey!…” at shows are things that I enjoy watching but don’t feel comfortable joining in. These along with stage banter in the vein of “Tokyo, are you having fun!?” are elements that tip the scale towards cheese, no question. I would argue that a metal concert is larger than the sum of each of those parts. The energy and the sheer volume of sound are what make these experiences unique. This show was a perfect example of it.  Sigh started the procedures with a solid half an hour set that opened with Purgatorium . “I… live… you… die!…” is the infectious chant from the song. Sigh is one of those bands that rely a bit heavily on the accentuated monosyllables, they use them for almost every song, but they work to get the crowd going. It’s a band that never disappoints, there’s a reason why they’re the go-to opening act for major extreme me...

Lee Dorrian and Gaz Jennings were founders of Cathedral, a band that defied the fast tempos that were the norm in extreme metal at the time of its inception by slowing things down, announcing the birth of doom metal as we now know it. Dorrian’s label, Rise Above Records, signed key influential bands in that genre. Among them Electric Wizard and Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats. Scott Carlson leads the proto-grindcore band Repulsion and Dorrian was the lead vocalist in the first two Napalm Death albums. With this kind of credentials this was a show not to be missed. Septic Tank was formed in 1994 and this Tokyo concert was only their second one since their inception, I believe this was their first headlining one. Despite a not so impressive turnout the band pulled out all the stops and delivered the goods in what was a memorable show.  There were no opening bands and things started by delivering a message to all of us iPhone wielders with the unrelenting Social Media Whore...

Starting a review with the word “mesmerizing” sounds cliched, contrived. But if one word is needed to summarize the experience of witnessing the world premiere of Hecker’s latest album performed live, “mesmerizing” wouldn’t be so far off the mark. It made sense to have the first live performance of music from Konoyo in Japan. The album was partially recorded here with Japanese musicians and inspired by the sounds of Gagaku, an ancient Japanese Classical music style, performed almost exclusively to members of the Royal family. This set reproduced and reinterpreted that record with musicians from the original recording sessions.  An hour and ten minutes after the doors opened, the lights faded out and stayed that way for the remainder of the show. Kara-Lis Coverdale walked in and performed a forty minutes set that slowly built up from a succession of long ascending chords with the occasional synth stabs and dissonance. It was a hypnotic minimalist set.  In the...