Blog - Kengisyu Kamui's Samurai Night

Kengisyu Kamui's Samurai Night

Last night we went to Shinjuku Loft to see Kengisyu Kamui's Samurai Night, an event starring Kengisyu Kamui, sword fighters who appeared in Kill Bill (as the Crazy 88's). (Pictures from Kill Bill sets.)

The event's MC was Yamada Hirono, a funny guy who wears an old-style brown suit and beret, famous for doing live narration over short films he directs. After seeing a few of his films that he presented there, I think I may be tempted to grab one of his DVDs next time I drop by Tacoche (a weird bookshop) in Nakano Broadway.

After a few films and an introduction by Hirono-kun, wadaiko player Miki Hiroki came on stage and played his unique, impressively large taiko drum set, on which he would accompany Kengisyu Kamui's performance throughout the evening.

The samurai fighters appeared on stage to Kill Bill's music, dressed up in black suits as in the movie and fighting with long swords.
They were soon be interrupted by the freaky 溺れたエビの検死報告書 ("The Autopsy Report of Drowned Shrimp"), a group of percussionists led by an electric-cellist controlling loops and effects with a bunch of pedals. Most impressive was their weird costume with a large shrimp mask and their wacky dancing.
It felt like we were assisting some mutant shrimps' secret sect's musical mass. Their sound ranged from funky Primus-like slappy bass grooves to slow horror-ish themes. A very odd show I wouldn't mind seeing again. (Do check out the photos on their Web site.)

Kamui then reappared several times through the evening in more traditional clothes, simulating fights most of the time using wooden sticks as swords. Their performance always seemed perfectly choreographed.

After some more of Hirono-kun's films, this time featuring Kamui and accompanied by Miki Hiroki's drumming, came up 漁港 (gyokō, who I had recently seen at Komaba Rock Festival) who played a set of their funny fish-themed songs. I could see better this time than the previous time, and the long-haired guy's silly dancing during one of the songs was quite worth it. As before, their show ended by cutting some fresh sashimi and giving it to the audience.

When we thought it was all over, Kamui came back on stage for another 20 minutes of performance. This time one of the guys was dressed up as a girl, with wig and lipstick.

All in all this was a fun evening full of very Japanese-style stuff.

Posted on December 14, 2004 at 16:21 | Tweet |

---

Trackback

---

Comments RSS

---

© 2003-2024, chi­pple­.n­et