The Boredoms at Congress Theater 3/26/08

            Should you have been there? Definitely. Was what you were doing instead worth it? No. Should you now be hard at work on a time machine that will take you back to Wednesday March 26, 2008 to the Congress Theater in Chicago to see the Boredoms? Actually, no. Not only because time travel is unlikely a trip a coherent human body could undertake, but because the magic (and if it isn’t real magic it is only shy but a hair) is that they are arguably the most modern band in doing anything right now. Now, such a bold declaration warrants some backing up, which I intend to provide, but to save both my time and yours, I will provide a nice breaking off point for the less invested reader and simply say that you should have been there. What were you thinking?

            For the more robust of you, let us continue down this path that I have so recently cleared, and explore the overwhelming modernity of this band the Boredoms. For those who don’t know, the Boredoms are one of the longest running, most influential, most prolific, and most erratic of Japan’s stellar underground music scene. They got their start all the way back in 1986 (some even attest that it may have been as early as 1982, which would make them older than me). The only element that has remained even remotely consistent about the band is the founder/ frontman(?) Yamantaka Eye. Everything else is up in the air. From total band overhauls, constantly fluctuating and incestuous line-up shifts, to transformations in sound and subject. Their early and middle career was primarily noisy junk rock (if that means anything to anyone, I’d be happy to hear from you). But they have flirted with dub, electro, psychedelic, minimalism, punk, funk, and everything else in between. I have had their album Super AE frozen in my mind as one of the pinnacles of recorded music for some time now, but this most recent iteration is one of the most encouraging things I’ve seen or heard happening in my lifetime. My experiences are going to be different from yours, perhaps you have your own moments like these, but I have, for the most of my life, pulled most of my interests from the past; music and movements that had already happened before I was even born, from Punk, to Psych, Krautrock, Dub, Folk, Post-Punk, Industrial, Black Metal, Goth, everything I’d ever really gotten into was already over. Sure there is new stuff I like, but mostly because it is just a good appropriation of something that happened years ago. The Boredoms just changed that. I just couldn’t help thinking that this was a total synthesis of the potentiality of the moment. One of those catalyzing events that says everything that needs to be said about where we have come from, where we are, and where we can go. This is music electric with hope. It is a tidal energy without anger. It is power without aggression. It is where music should be in 2008, and it’s the first time I’ve found anything modern that didn’t feel like it was just going through some old motions with the new styles caked on top of it.

            They played (Yamataka with his 8 electric guitar rig, and three drummers) for an hour and a half, and the entire time I just stood gape jawed in amazement at this bands singularity. I was unable to gauge if the rest of the bodies standing around the Congress that night felt that same force, or if they were just bored, or too jaded to be impressed by anything ever again in their lives, but I felt something I don’t think I’d felt for a very long time (almost 8 years at this point). I felt hope for an exciting and better future. I felt that someone somewhere had got it right. That this crazy band has somehow managed to pull together all these many fractured and disparate elements out of our age and turn them into to something real, something cosmic, and something powerful.

           Everyone was there that night was certain that it was going to sell out. They only had five dates in the States this time around, and it’s the fucking Boredoms right? Everyone bought their tickets early, and was prepared to be packed into the enormous Congress theater shoulder to shoulder with other oogling, drooling, fans. But looking around, it wasn’t even close to selling out. There was space to run around and do cartwheels in. Where were you? What were you doing? You missed one of the few singularly modern moments to come around in a long time. And I can’t promise that it will happen again the next time they come through (if they come through next time). The present is tricky like that. It is very hard to capture, and just because you’ve got it one moment, it doesn’t mean that you will still have it in the future. For my money I’ll see them next time, but you have to promise to be there too. We’ll watch the future together and talk about how it used to be different in the past.