At least 4 Japanese people rock. I saw Mono last night and they were great. It wasn’t the show that I expected to see, but that wasn’t their fault. Russian Circles and Pelican were both extremely predictable from song to song. Mono still has their style of swelling into a wall of noise built into most of their songs, but the songs are beautifully orchestrated and varied. They also had 2 or 3 songs last night that didn’t come off like “traditional” Mono at all (one beginning with keys and the other with 3 guitars vs their usual 2 guitars 1 bass setup).

I really wish the live recording would have worked out, but it wasn’t meant to be. They have just released a new album so I can’t claim to not understand, but it would have been fun to do. I’m a bit worried that if I ever do pull it off, Headliners will be a difficult place to record and one of the places that I would end up at often. Everything comes off sounding very simlar regardless of the style of music. The sound man is so set in his ways. It isn’t necesarrily bad, just his voice rather than the band’s voice.

I was able to get quite a few pictures of the evening. Not many of them are worth looking at. Mostly low light blurred movement kind of stuff. There are a few that came out a bit dark but still, and a few more that came out well all around. You can find them in the Gallery under “wasn’t at work” for yesterday.