The Locust, Melt Banana, Sleeping People @ The Epicentre.

On Wednesday Dec 5, '07 I went to the Miramesa Epicenter to see The Locust, Melt Banana, and the Sleeping People. Yip Yip also played, but I just couldn't make it out there in time to see them.

Melt Banana is pretty insane. Definitely the most straightforward rhythmically of the three bands that night, but that doesn't mean shit. They are unrelenting, noisy, and LOUD. They just pound away with a little japanese girl that doesn't weigh more than 100 pounds yipping and screeching her ass off, amid crazy lazer sound guitar effects, blast beats, and thumping bass lines. I was the only one of my friends who thought to wear some sort of ear protection. They were pretty fucked.

Seriously, Brandon Relf and Gabe Serbian, the drummers from Sleeping People and The Locust respectively, have to be the most goddamned talented drummers ever. It's ungodly. Speaking of ungodly, The Locust's live show alternates between sounding like a satanic cult invoking the devil and a fucking bomb Raid. They play a really tight set. There's no witty banter inbetween songs, no wasted time, maybe some quick re-tuning, and go. Consequently, not many people, including myself, really knew where songs ended and began. Inbetween songs, and during rests in songs, the venue was dead fucking silent. It was awesome and kind of eerie. It was an all ages show, and kids are kids, so at the beginning of the set, some eager young Locust fans decided that the people up front had to earn their spots. There was a lot of cannon-balling into the crowd with a good 10 yard running start. Thankfully, it didn't last long. I might be getting too old for some of this shit.

I saw Sleeping People first. Of all the instrumental bands out there that play really mathy ridiculously intricate and complex rhythms that make your head hurt (Tera Melos, Planets, Hella, Lighting Bolt...) they are still one of the most listenable. You can rock out more than just listen with mouth agape in awe of talent you could never in this lifetime achieve yourself. That's what I do most of the time anyway. Brandon played the set wide-eyed and sober looking, which is a departure if you've ever seen him off stage. I think he can play just as well as ever baked out of his mind, or from the bottom of a bottle. It's like magic. Jason Hendrix from the North Atlantic, who played with him in the short lived but highly controversial band Barfer, said of Relf something to the effect of "some days, I don't know how he puts his pants on in the morning... [but] it took me like half an hour just to figure out what he was playing, much less write something to it." The Sleeping People just keep getting better in my opinion. They have some beautifully contrasting changes between really heavy droning parts and really quick plinky beepy picked out parts in some of the new material. Brandon also did something I've never seen before where he scraped the tip of his stick across the bell of the cymbal that made a resonant ringing sound like rubbing the edge of a crystal glass with a wet finger. They just got done touring the U.S. with the Locust (during which I'm sure everyone's heard by now, the Locust got robbed in St. Louis). Now they are touring in Japan, though they may already be back by the time you read this.

Again I had a lot of pictures, but managed to corrupt a memory card with over 300 photos on it. Gone forever.

If you feel so inclined, I think you can still donate to the Locust Relief Fund.