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| Now with the band's newest member, a can of Miller High Life |
On the way down to see Mono in Iowa City on Sunday night, I returned a call
to my parents. They were leaving Iowa for
several weeks to fly down to their home in Arizona , where the majority of my immediate
family has begun to establish roots.
They told me that one of their cats died unexpectedly on
Friday. My Mom is a big cat lover, but now three of her four cats have died in
as many years and she gets distraught about things like that.
The point of all this-as if there is one-was to bring up a
conversation with my father while we talked on the phone. I explained that I
was driving to Iowa City
to check out the band Mono. This lead to telling him who the band “Mono” was,
and this inevitably led to a discussion of their country of origin (Japan ).
Then came the “What kind of music do they play?” question,
to which I began to tell my Dad, a man who just turned 66 a few weeks ago, all
about the “post-rock” genre and how the most notable of those bands ended up
scoring the music to the television show Friday
Night Lights.
I could have reminded him that they are similar to a band I
saw a few years ago called Godspeed You Black Emperor!, but that would be as
pointless as him trying to tell me how good Neil Diamond’s Beautiful Noise album was.
Finally, I left it as “It’s not very often that a rock band
from Japan ends up playing
in Iowa ” and
he seemed pretty satisfied with that explanation, leaving my discussion of the
entire “post-rock” genre as a piece of ancient history.
I’ll spare you the discussion too, even though this is
probably a more appropriate venue for it, but let me quickly set up the night
as a much-needed stress-relief evening where Mono were supposed to come into
town and beat all of my real-world dramas into sonic submission.
And the great thing about it was that the doors opened at
7:00pm.
Yes, early shows are the way to go for working stiffs with a
family like yours truly, but I have a feeling that the real reason was the
exact opposite: it was a method into tapping into the “19-21” crowd, thereby
bringing the patron total up a bit for this early evening, Sunday night show.
I arrive a little later, we’ll call it 7:15pm, where I buy
my ticket and people watch until they let the dozen or so devotees upstairs to
the stage area. The ticket guy tells me they’re still finishing up soundcheck,
of which I can hear the sounds of layered guitars making its way down the
stairs along with an unmistakable sound of a timpani.
How this Japanese quartet lugged up a timpani up those
stairs in back is beyond me, but I’m excited at the prospect and casually
eavesdrop on some of the conversations surrounding me.
There’s the chick in the Mono shirt who incredulously asks
another “So you’ve never seen them live?” There’s the dude who drove four hours
by himself to see the band, I believe from Illinois . There’s the boyfriend who asks his
girlfriend, “Are you ready to get your mind blown?”
Then there’s me who wonders “When the fuck are they going to
let us in?” It’s obvious that there
won’t be a big crowd for the show, so who really cares if we get to see the man
(and woman) behind the curtain? We’re already hearing it, so let us in!
The story goes that the band arrived late, to which I don’t
understand in the days when GPS devices are as common as a smart phone and the
fact that Iowa City isn’t that big of a town.
One couple, the one where the Mono t-shirt wearing chick is
a part of, tells the story of how they came early, went upstairs because there
was no one working the door, only to find the band bringing in their gear while
a staff member shoo’ed them back downstairs.
Maybe it was a problem with the van, but all I know was that
it was at least an hour before they finally let the crowd of a dozen or so up
the stairs so that we could endure a pair of opening sets by Alex Body and Chris Brokaw. I had no idea who Alex Body was, but Brokaw I recognized through the
bands Come and the totally underrated Consonant, the project with Clint Conley
created before Mission of Burma got started again.
Regardless, this “early show” was turning into a “much later
show,” and the idea of going to work the next day exhausted was not sitting
well with me. The stage was already full of gear, so imagine my surprise when
someone starts setting up a table full of electronic equipment directly in
front of the stage.
Ladies and gentlemen, this must be our opener, Alex Body.
I’ll write more about him later, but I have experienced this
same kind of set up in previous gigs and all of them have had nothing but
dismal results. Why Gabe’s does this is beyond me, but it’s amateurish and a
complete momentum killer. I don’t want to see some last minute local act if
you’re not going to provide them with some respect so that they have some time
to set up beforehand and to at least allow them to perform on stage like a real
artist. If it doesn’t fit, then don’t book it.
My blood began to boil. I wanted a refund. I wanted to go
home. I went out to my car and took a quick nap.
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| Take that, Alex Body! |
When I returned, Chris Brokaw was finishing his set, but at
least I was calm and rested for the headliners. Brokaw was on stage with only
an electric guitar and a microphone, which I’m guessing is his bag now, so I
can’t say that I was really that bummed that I missed his set.
I grabbed another ginger ale, which they totally make at the
bar at Gabe’s, and began hearing entrance music. This was strange as the
attendees now numbered only around a few dozen, so it was without any effort
that I cozied up to the stage for an immediate view.
Off to the side of the stage is a dark hallway that leads to
an outside door. This is where the bands load their gear in, but as the music
on the p.a. continued to play, I saw four Japanese people standing together at
the end of the hall by the doorway.
It was Mono, silently waiting for the obligatory moment in
their opening music to walk up the stage. It was a bit off-putting, watching
them stand in silence and in the dark, only to begin to briskly walk behind
the crowd so that they could walk up to the stage, when all they really needed
to do was to walk in front of me and a couple of other runts just to reach the
stage quicker.
But whatever; within moments the gentle strums of guitars
and the slow-paced drums signaled another lesson in dynamics as things were
about to go from soft to loud for the rest of the night.
Guitarists Takaakira Goto and Hideki “Yoda” Suematsu kept
things ebbing and flowing all night, coming up with some memorable endings that
sometimes found Goto wailing his guitar strings and lying on the floor, fucking
with the myriad of pedals he had in front of them.
Bassist Tamaki Kunishi played a bitchin’ Gibson bass and occasionally
headed over to some keyboards for the evening’s more delicate moments. Drummer Yasunori
Takada had a Ludwig kit and a big fucking gong for the evening’s less delicate
moments.
Was it all worth the wait? Probably, but thanks to an
incredible amount of anger, generated by something beyond my control in a venue
that I should have come to expect, my experience was less than ideal. Mono
played no part in it (except for the being late part, Christ, they were only in
Minneapolis the
night before) and in fact, they made the late evening somewhat worthwhile.
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| Good night, Iowa Citay!! |
Yes, I was exhausted the next day and yes I will continue to
have second doubts about any future Gabe’s show as it’s turned into this
shithole of amateur excuses and you wonder if they could even pull off a big
show if it fell into their lap.
You’re competing for bands that hit other venues now, but
more discouraging, you’re competing for the attention of the fickle youth who
have tons of other things to capture their attention.
And it’s immediate too, so if you’re scheduling an early
evening show, you’d better be prepared to make sure it’s on schedule, or be
prepared to cut out an opener to get back within the time designated.
Because you know what happens when you make old people like
me wait.
We get cranky, post-anything.
