Simulacra + Vera Icon-The Changcutters at 代々木公園 10.07.11

Spending summer in cities is such a bittersweet experience. I've spent most of my summers stuck in a city, usually mastering how to be a hermit extraordinaire, accidentally picking up flawless planking skills along the way. Nowadays, it's a long process to get myself out of the house mostly due to my contemplating until the very last minute, in my full makeup(for some reason, it makes sense to walk around looking like a drag queen in this humidity) and outfits, whether I really want to tear myself away from my beloved AC or not.

In my teens + early 20's, one of the very few things that got me out of my hole voluntarily during the humid, scorching hot weather was a gig, which is one of the upsides of staying in a concrete jungle in this awful weather. It's been a long time since I've spent my summer in NY but fortunately, Tokyo has no shortage of great gigs, albeit much more expensive than its NY counterparts.

Years ago, before I had a chance to attend any gig in Japan, some bands who had played here told me about the superb lighting systems and Tokyo is indeed gig photographers' wet dream; even the dingy looking venues are equipped with astonishing lighting, making it so easy to snap away.

The audience however leaves much to be desired, mostly because of the reserved, collectivistic nature of the culture. People dance and clap in unison, not one person doing a thing out of line. For someone who's used to mosh pits full of sweat, blood, screaming, cheering, beer/water/whatever liquid being thrown around, crowd-surfing, stage-diving-basically, chaotic fun bordering a bedlam, here, it's rather...tame.(whereas NY is full of bores who are "too cool" to enjoy themselves).

This is where The Changcutters come in-leave it to the Indonesian expats + band to deliver proper fun in Japan. It's been such a long time since I've been to a gig with a properly energetic audience so I was a bit awestruck. The videos and these pics don't really do justice to demonstrate how much fun they are live-imagine the Indonesia's answer to The Hives but with an even better frontman(sorry Pelle) who can perhaps best described as Pelle Almqvist meets Dennis Lyxzén-but let's face it, I have never seen anyone who "dances" as well as Lyxzén.