Go! Go! 7188 pt II
Long ago, the Wang blogged about a little Japanese band named Go!Go!7188. Last night, the Wang has completed the full circle of the Wang’s musical beginnings and blogging circle jerk. Last night the Wang and musical sidekick, Mr. Starfizzy took a rather reluctant trip to the Hollywood Knitting Factory. We showed up late after an afternoon of a lot of movies, one of which being the new Korean horror/comedy, The Host. Good movie, but this post aint about that. SO mr. Starfizzy showed @ the Knitting Factory like 2+ hrs after the starting time of the Japan night Tour happening to be greeted by a sold out crowd. So the Wang, happily looking forward to a evening of leveling his Draenei shaman headed out, when a bouncer mentioned to us that, “the dude in the blue coat" has scalping tickets. With another reluctant discussion, that ended in the “the dude in the blue coat" giving us tickets for slightly cheaper as we were walking off our diner, we entered the Knitting Factory. I think we walked in on Oreskaband, which at the time wasn’t all that. But now after listening to their MySpace page, it was a shame to have missed em.
But with our usual good timing, the main event of Go! Go! 7188 took the stage not 20 min after we got there. And Akku, Yuu and Turky was up on stage. Having been a big fan for the last 3 yrs after stumbling upon their music via some Chinese music site, the Wang has always been a fan of Yuu’s ability to mix a Japanese singing style with a Rock sound. And the Go! Go! 7188s did not disappoint. Even Musical Comrade, Mr. Starfizzy got into them despite the language barrier. Go!Go!7188s rocked the house as the Knitting Factory was packed and hot (me thinks the AC was down… they even passed out water to the pseudo mosh-ers up front.) Not being a frequent fan of the Knitting Factory, the Wang wasn’t sure if the usual crowd their consist of little anime geeks and geek-ettes. But the crowd was definetly not the usual indie music scene. Rather it looked like the manga section of Borders… + a few American Japanese kids, trying to do the punk thing. But ya, Akku and Yuu rocked the house down, and the Wang is always amazed at how such little girl that Yuu is, and how much she rocks the guitar. Though she kept it calm as compare to Akku’s rock stage antics. Akku was bouncing and hopping all over the place, definitely not a ‘lazy’ bassist. Of course the Wang’s attentions were on the girls, so as for Turkey, I think he did good…
The most important thing that the Wang learned or reinforced was that a musical concert is the best when u truly enjoy and love the act. Having heard their stuff really makes the music experience that much better. Some of the Wang’s most memorable musical events in the last 2 yrs has definitely been, this Go!Go! concert, Scissor Sister @ Coachella 06, and probably the Decemberists @ the Fonda. All these bands the Wang frequently and arguably listen to, too much. Thus at the concert event, u really can sing along, which the emotions of the crowd, and notice when the band does something special for the live show. As in contrast to a new act, for all u know they can be playing 5 extra cords for their song, u would never know the difference…
Other bands the Wang saw last night were The Pistol Valvea collection of 9 girls in a burlesque outfits and brass instruments + 1 DJ turn-table-ist, and the Hy. The Pistol Valve was… interesting. Cause that’s all one can say about 9 girls playing brass to some rock/punk music being spun. While Hy was the epitome of a well rounded Japanese rock band from Okinawa. Musically they were good, some good singers, + a drummer/rapper doing that Japanese rapping thing that Marc Panther from Globe does; Kinda of a euro-rapping thing. (gratuitous shout-out to Keiko hawtness! Specially starting @ 3:53) The Wang does like the use of the Shamisen with a few of their songs and the use of the female keyboardist with singing talents is a plus.
And then the Wang went home and all was good. Much WoW was played.
Note: pictures linked here are from Previous shows such as the Knitting Factory show in NYC. The Wang has not located actual footage from last night’s show yet.
Here’s the Go!Go!7188s rocking out to one the Wang’s favorite song, Ukifune:
They rockout.
Rocking out @ a live concert.
Some photo sets/links:
Flickr Search on the Japane Night tour 07
a Flickr Pool on Japan night with a lot of the Pistol Valve girls.
Another flickr set for NYC Knitting Factory
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And justa few random left over tidbits from last week, paw style:
One of my real aspirations of [Spore] is I wanna see interstellar wars between Care Bears and Klingons.
A Summary of Will Wright’s Key Note from SXSW via Wonderland
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Thank you Nintendo, thank you, for bring girls into the video gaming world, cause there’s something hawt about girls playing with the Wii.
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Mr. Luna gives us his SXSW coverage. One day the Wang will go there, one day. For now, we can only read the coverage of much cooler bloggers.
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"Now, I realize that this song - and the album from whence it came - outgrew Modest Mouse’s long-held punk rock ethos long ago, but this - this was like the modern musical equivalent of the Kennedy Assassination, Watergate and and Jack Nicholson getting killed at the end of Easy Rider, all happening in front of us, at the same time, set to the soundtrack of Avril Lavigne covering ABBA’s “Dancing Queen". In short, sensory rape." -quoted from BWE about the American Idol 7 cover of Modest Mouse’s “Float On".
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And incase u didn’t know and care, the Ze Frank Show ended on 3/17/07, just like he said it would.
Bonus:
Go!Go!7188 – C7 (via whom also has a review of the NYC show.)
THANKYOUs:
