If there was only one item of wisdom I could pass to someone going to see Melt Banana for the first time, it would be the following:

Wear earplugs. Seriously.

Of course, about midway into local openers Locks set, I came to the realization I was without my trusty earplugs and was about to be subject to a serious aural ravaging by the upcoming headlining act. One would think that after years of attending shows, bringing some ear protection would be quite the routine act. Add this to the laundry list of items of why sometimes... I'm just not the sharpest knife in the drawer. As I sit here and write this almost 12 hours after the show, that high pitched ringing in my ears is a constant reminder that will hopefully serve as a good lesson learned for next time.

Anyways, back to Melt Banana. I've never considered myself a huge fan of the band, but I have had the pleasure of seeing them on multiple occasions now, and each time my respect and admiration for their craft increases tenfold. This band has remained together since before I started high school (that would be 14+ years ago), a tremendous achievement by any band regardless of stature. They have also managed to do this while living on that little island country we know as Japan... a place not necessarily known, in general, for its bastion of art-noise-punk bands. However, their regular tour stops in the US and the UK have earned them quite the rabid following worldwide, and seeing one live performance really punctuates how they've been able to do it.

So Melt Banana proceeded to rip through an hour long set at the Abbey Pub last night, and the crowded house was subjected to a sonic assault of old favorites, as well as some new tracks from their May '07 release, Bambi's Dilemma. In true Melt Banana fashion, about midway through their set, they broke into a series of 10-20 second songs consisting of calculated, tight bursts of musical energy accompanied by the frenzied, barking vocals of Yasuko O. Even if you aren't a fan of the band, one has to appreciate the surgical precision of the riffs they can pull off live. This is where Melt Banana simply outperform other bands in the same genre. While most bands that attempt to create as much of a ruckus as they can, it can often come off as sloppy and unintelligible. To my ears, Melt Banana's noisy side is merely a byproduct of the intricate, solid songs they create. Even when the band is in full freak-out mode, it is still relatively easy to pick out what each band member is doing, and parts are not just getting lost in the mix.

With the decibel level in the room approaching absurd levels, coupled with the fact that I was sans earplugs, perhaps listening for this aforementioned attention to detail caused my ears permanent damage, but the chance to see an incredibly solid band work a room to a fevered pitch is worth seeing every time.

Here is a video of a song I captured about half-way through their set. I'm about 98% sure the song is 'Hair-Cat (Cause the Wolf Is a Cat!)', which appears on Adult Swim's Perfect Hair Forever.