Shift presents "applechair&bananadesk", Club Goodman, Akihabara, May 1st

Most of the concerts I go to in Tokyo are fairly sparsely attended. If there are five bands on the bill there will usually be around thirty or forty people there. It seems that each band brings five or six friends and family members who have no choice but to go. Add in the small number of people who are there because they want to see the bands, and the obligatory blog writing gaijin and that's pretty much it.

Tuesday night at Club Goodman was the exception to the vague rule that I just made up. Despite this being Shift's event most of the audience were there to see Tokyo luminaries (or 'it bands' if you wanted to be unkind) nhhmbase and Melt-Banana. First up was CLISMS. Like all the bands on tonight's bill apart from Shift, this was the first time I'd seen them. Taking their on-stage moves from The Who (without the instrument annihilation), they played a lean twenty five minute set that any fan of the Nuggets series would appreciate.

nhhmbase were one of the first bands I heard about when I started this blog - various people told me that I had to check them out. I bought their first mini-album and while it certainly wasn't bad, it didn't seem that special. I was then told that I had to see them live, that the CD hadn't really captured them at their best. I've been told this kind of thing before and sometimes it's little more than a way to cover up the fact that a band aren't actually that great. With nhhmbase it IS true though - played live, their songs are have more space in which to meander and expand without ever drifting off into muso-wank-noodling territory. One downside to the band could be the fact that apparently they've been playing much the same set for the last two years - do they have any more songs in there or have they shot their bolt too quickly? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Sometimes you go to a concert where you only know one or two bands on the bill, but one of the unknown acts turns out to be the best thing you see all night and you spend the next couple of days raving to all your friends about how good they were. Unfortunately ヨルズイノザスカイ (Yolz In The Sky) were away over on the other side of the spectrum. I looked back at my notes under I've underlined the words "utter pish" in the same way a bitter cuckold might highlight his cheating ex-wife's name in the phonebook. Musically, their stew of relentless guitar noise and frantic rhythm works well, but their vocalist fucks the whole thing up. He looks like Bruce Lee and sounds similar too, as he yelps his way through every song like a loop tape of every fight scene in Enter The Dragon. It has me scrambling for the beer machine outside in the hallway for much needed oral and aural respite. One final point before we leave the whole sorry episode behind - to the bloke who stood next to me giving the sign of the beast all the way through their set, this band is not Satanic, just diabolical (before any smart arse goes to write a comment about the meaning of 'diabolical', look here).

According to Wikipedia, Melt-Banana singer Yasuko Onuki's vocal style has been described as "a rabid poodle on speed". After their set (this was the first time I'd actually heard any of their music - am I allowed to write a blog on Japanese music after such a confession?) I was trying to figure out what to say about them when my girlfriend trumped both my half-arsed notes and the anonymous critic cited on Wikipedia - "The music was OK but she sounds like Alvin and The Chipmunks going through teenage angst." 'Nuff said.

Shift were last on and came out to a slightly depleted audience (even if it is your event perhaps playing last after nhhmbase and Melt-Banana isn't the best idea). This was the first time I'd seen them since their show at Shibuya O-nest last year, and they seem to have left behind some of the more melodic parts of their sound. Yuki Funayama's vocals stand out above Alvin and Bruce Lee, but the band's sound wasn't as distinctive as before. Then again, maybe it was just the songs they played that night, or maybe the beer I'd downed deperately during Yolz In The Sky's set was playing havoc with my ears. Either way, Shift remain a band that everyone should see live if they have the chance.