Tribal Witchdoctory in Neo-Osaka

The event was called Drumandara at Namba Bears Livespace, and I went there expecting to see ten bands. I was shocked and excited when I opened the door to 10 drum kits and knew I was in for a special night. Everyone in the small crowd of about 20 people gave a small applause as the drummers began to take their places before quickly falling silent.

Members included: Aono Tadahiko/WATCHMEN(ex. Melt Banana), Yosuke Okamoto (neco sleep/rythm dada), 10 sand island NANI (Bogulta), Pikachuu (Afrirampo) just to name a few.

The owner of the club and band member of the Boredoms, Yamamoto Seiichi was set to be the shamanistic ringleader as he waved his totemic styrofoam pole to control the tempo and changes of the drumming orgy. However he spent most of the time sitting right in the middle of this cacaphony of crash symbols, and after about half an hour, the natural unrehearsed rythms started to take on a life of their own with no need for direction. They had succeeded in evoking the almighty spirits of the Drumandara!!~

It was such an amazing experience listening to the tempo's slowly build and grow and morph like some kind of entity struggling to existence before reaching a plateu where it was free to explore itself. The drummers were instinctivley answering each others calls in a primitive orgiastic language of rythm, which at some points, began to take on an ethereal quality akin to the half heard/half imagined cries and chants which I've heard occur during zimbabwean mbira(thumb piano) or traditional african djembe drum sessions.

(Damn you small inadequate bladder... why did you make me miss out on precious seconds of aural extacy!?!!)

My new Aussie mate from Melbourne whom I met at the show and who had also come the previous night, informed me after the concert that the first night was more comedic, with drummers experimenting with playing on different surfaces such as an ashtray which was then thrown into the middle of the circle. He said that night was good, but this night was awesome. He even got to keep the shaman stick although I'm not sure if he had to reserve an extra seat on the plane for it...