haha! i finally got in to see a melt-banana show (without my entrance being followed immediately by a forced exit). even with some of the highest expectations i've ever had for a show, this was too impossibly good to disappoint.
opener trauma = 80's thrash + hardcore (yasuko calls it "fastcore"). normally these bands annoy me, but their matt freeman-esque bass was lovable enough.
pt. 2 = frostiva, an all-female post-punk conglomeration. they sound like something gsl would sign, with gothy synth parts that sound like the vanishing and tribal funk like kill me tommorrow. there are even some static-y noise parts, and the high-pitched spoken/warbled vocals are very original, but the songs seemed underdeveloped. they often tried to go in an experimental direction but failed to sever the ties to poppier sounds, and ended up lumping both together ineffectively. still, very good and undoubtedly going to get better.
melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana is awesome. not awesome like "rad" but awesome like awe-inspiring. this band is impossible to describe to someone who hasn't heard the records, but anyone who has can imagine them sounding ten times as intense. agata is amazing live, with noisy guitar freakouts somehow coagulating into a rythm over which yasuko barks her squeaky staccato vocals. four (4!) encores averaged about 30 seconds each, but were still amazing enough to make us forget about lack of classic rock covers (these are said to be highly amusing). melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana melt-banana is awesome.