holy impressions cut through the clutter
umbrella portraits
木洩陽通りにて ( ( 2 ) )
Lamp at the Salt Shed
The first surprise at the Lamp show unfolded as we traced a long queue around the block to find our spot. Counter-flowing the line, my pattern-recognition capacities went into over-drive registering the flurry of faces and fits, my perception felt like stop-motion. My neural program reported that the crowd was unexpectedly young with way cooler clothes than I'd guessed. I wondered if Lamp brought the crowd in from Shibuya. Now as we filed into the venue, I was getting pretty excited but also maybe a little self conscious about my relatively plain, but twee threads.
We found a spot on the tightly packed floor, feeling more like a single grain of salt against the piles that used to fill this warehouse. We were happy to be about 40' away from the stage, slightly off center to the left. Then, Lamp entered to a bright, energetic applause. They wasted no time and opened with a few of their best from 恋人へ. They sounded amazing, especially Kaori and their percussionist; with an unreal consistency with their recordings. Kudos to the Sound Engineer for that one: I really enjoyed how they mic'd the percussion, which had perfrect clarity and a bit of reverb to help it settle and pepper the mix.
There were 7 members total: the "original" 3 and 4 in the rhythm section (drumset, keys, bass, percussion+trumpet). I would love to know the rhythm section's relation to the band, they were super tight. I wouldn't be surprised if they were the recording musicians too. Yusuke had vocal fry from touring, which he addressed with a cute cup of tea (almost too on-the-nose) but he still delivered. Kaori stole the show, though, especially when she pulled out the flute; the crowd was fawning.
Overall it was very fun and lively show, easily the most energy I've seen on a Tuesday night. Gang agreed with me on this point; but, on our way out, we couldn't wrap our heads around that large crowd. We articulated a nagging feeling we were left with: where did these people come from? Why is Lamp so big? I wish I could say we arrived at a satisfying conclusion, or even that I've reached a thesis a week on, but I guess it'll remain a mystery for the blog. Sort of hand-waving, we blamed TikTok for the popularity; on reflection, I that was a synecdoche for all algorithmically distributed platforms-- like Spotify or Youtube. I may come off as a snob, but it's not like I didn't discover Lamp through Spotify and I had a great time. Still, I had this complicated feeling. On one hand, even if their popularity is artificial, I'm glad Lamp benefits materially through these platforms (though likely not as much as they should). On the other hand, I wonder if I should've identified more with the crowd. IMO, there is no locality or scene experienced by the streaming consumer, they're just funneled deeper into their niches and sold corresponding concert tickets (actually fees) that they will go to great lengths to attend, even on Tuesday night, because their niche band from Japan is playing that one time. Nevertheless, for a little while, I enjoyed my time in Chi-buya with Lamp
"what did they know?" - OS
bing meeting a cicada. warning: audio suddenly gets a bit loud. at 0:58s you can hear the cicada's little exclamation as bing touches his nose to their thorax through the window screen.