When World’s End Girlfriend, a solo act from Japan, took the stage on wednesday night, we had no idea what to expect. The set up was intriguing: A man alone on stage with his guitar, mixing boards and Imac. Despite the consistently growing crowd through his set, he remained alone on stage. World’s, in fact, did not even so much as look up at the crowd to see what was going on. It was this intensity and focus, combined with his Sanjaya-esque pony-hawk which kept those around riveted on the performance. And what a performance. The sound began when he stepped on stage and did not stop for over an hour of crazed one-man-showmanship. The music itself kept bringing me back to an episode of Friends in which Ross brings out his keyboard and plays “The Sound.” It was almost as if, being alone, he didn’t have anyone to tell him what was great, what was good, and what maybe should have stayed off the stage. My boyfriend got to the bottom of it when he mentioned this is what he did back in high school, only alone and with the door shut to his room. “Would you have killed to do it on a stage, halfway around the world?” I asked. Needless to say, as we left, we declared him a new genre of music, previously undiscovered: Space Emo.
Next up was a change of pace from local band Kinski. Similar to WEG, they had a space rock flow that didn’t stop often, but this quartet knew just how to rock the crowd at Neumo’s. Each song had quiet moments and swelling crescendo’s which often caught me a little of gaurd, but in a good way. The sound was nothing revolutionary, but it was certainly different enough from your usual Seattle rock band that it made me smile to know that people were out there, changing the scene. The beat behind the space rock sounds blew it up a bit bigger than WEG and helped to wake up the crowd, much of which seemed to be just waiting for Mono to come on. While it wasn’t necesarily my brand of music, it was hard to keep your eyes off the performance of this band–from the bass players use of a bow on her bass to the flute playing by the keyboardist.
Josh adds: I showed up late and missed both Naomi and the opening acts, arriving just in time to catch Mono. By that time Neumo’s was feeling like an aquarium supply store, warm and humid, and a welcome reprieve from the unseasonable cold April evening. As the crowd packed in for the headliners, the band set up to a low ambient drone. Just as they started playing, a man began painting over the large paper crane mosiac on the left side of the stage. As the band ran through their furious loudQUIETloud fits of alternate contemplation and epic ear-destroying crescendos, he kept pace, reworking the images over and over to match the mood of the songs. From the crowd, a mix of stunned appreciation, violent swaying, and a surprising amount of ululation.

a few more mono pictures [
flickr]
p.s. Brian Connolly taped all three bands, the audio is now online for your listening pleasure [iamserio.us]