FRF '99 Green Stage Boredoms anything but [1999.7.31 14:30] Eye Yamataka (or whatever he's calling himself this week), the leader of Japan's (hell, the world's) premiere art-noise band, does look a little like an Indian, what with his waist-length hair and noble countenance. That's the only reason I can think of why one brave fan worked his way up to the front of the wildest mosh pit of the day to wave an American flag with a picture of Geronimo on it. Then again, Eye is something of a renegade himself. Though the band started out tunefully enough, things quickly descended into the Boredoms' usual cacophony. Yamanaka, who spazzes and whirls across the stage while a guitarist, keyboard player, and three drummers do pretty much whatever they want behind him, doesn't sing so much as describe with his vocal cords the everyday ugly sounds that surround us: jack hammers, brakes screeching, babies sounding as if their hair were being pulled out. Even when he starts reciting the word "chigau" (no) over and over again the word is less a negative rejoinder than a negative sound attached to a negative meaning. The band played a fairly succinct, nonstop 30-minute set that alternated blaring noise with sudden bursts of rhythmic exactitude. The crowd reacted viscerally rather than emotionally. Some people looked seriously deranged by the music, as if it had upset their mental balance. Nevertheless, they did seem to enjoy it all, though one would hate to imagine what they would have looked like had the group played its allowed 50 minutes. The mind boggles. 1999.7.31 Reported by Scott/Phil 無断転載を禁じます。 They may not be reproduced in any form whatsoever.

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