What: O.L.W.D.T.W, Suzuki Junzo, Cal Lyal vs. Tomo, Ezra Woolnough & Dave McMahon duo
When: Sunday 13th March
Thought that I'd do an occasional entry on a whole concert. Two days after touching down in Tokyo on 3/11, only to be greeted by Japan's largest earthquake since records began, Campbell Kneale played at one of Tokyo's shonkiest (in the most awesome sense of the word) character bars - Gari Gari in Ikenoue. Everyone was still nervy after Friday's quake, which made Gari Gari seem an odd place to put on a gig to me at first. Gari Gari has a flimsy look to it - a plywood shack created in a Tokyo basement. However, the genius of a post-earthquake gig at Gari Gari is that the floor is already so bouncy, that aftershocks can't be distinguished from people walking around.
Junzo Suzuki was up first with a solo noise-guitar set. It was deep, thick and nasty, appropriately like a force of nature, and one of the best things that I've seen him do.
Then Ezra and Dave (who often play at Gari Gari with Cal Lyall as Jahiliyyah) pulled out the single best thing I've seen them do - a cold ambient set with tinges of new age.
Tokyo's first Gaijin of noise Cal Lyall (or second perhaps, if you count Jim O'Rourke) and Tomo pulled back from the loud drone they practice with a drummer as Tetragrammaton. It was a choppy set of acoustic guitar and hurdy gurdy, which really took off when Cal started bowing his guitar.
Finally, Our Love Will Destroy The World topped off a night of surprising restraint with a set of utter excess. Campbell Kneale has reinvented his sound again, and it's great. Starting with duelling Tabla beats, Campbell whipped up a frenzy playing his guitar through what is possibly the best guitar pedal I have ever heard. The set ended with sounds straight out of Bad Comany's "The nine", which finally faded into some killer choral music. It was an ecstatic mash-up, and it worked perfectly.
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