Melt Banana (Medicine Bar, Birmingham 9/11/05)

It’s like some torturous anxiety dream; you’re in a dark, crowded rectangular room waiting for the best band in the world to play, but you’ve got to leave at 11:20 to get the last train. The clock’s steadily creeping past ten, and some gang of grinning goons is still on stage wasting your time with a load of self-indulgent, joyless garbage. Under other circumstances I might be more lenient toward the Modified Toy Orchestra (does exactly what it says on the tin, and might have been funny for about half an hour after they came up with the idea), but please guys, goes the psychic plea aimed in their direction, COULD YOU PLEASE JUST FUCK OFF?

Thankfully they eventually do, and we get to see about 40 minutes of Melt Banana's set. And yes, it’s still hyper-real sci-fi punk rock heaven, the music still explodes out of them like a pure fireball of WOW, and still more fucking fun than… pretty much anything. This is the third time I’ve been lucky enough to see Melt Banana, and somehow – I’m not sure know how, but I’ll do my best to try and explain it – this is the first time I’ve seen their untouchable edge slip, the first time their super-human mystique has started the evaporate. Why? Well for one thing the sound is punk-rock-venue muddy - a lot of Agata’s mind-shredding guitar moves and any hope of decoding Yuko’s lyrics are lost in the wall of noise. This time they’re decked out in drab combat gear rather than the cocktail dresses and surgical masks of previous tours. The new drummer does the job ok, but he’s not quite as fast or hard as grindcore legend Dave Witte (?) who was touring with them last time ‘round. They don’t seem to be jumping up and down so much either – but then neither am I, I’m too tired. Niggling details, but when you’ve got a reputation to maintain as the best band in the world, these things matter. Maybe it’s just that for the first time since I saw them at the Garage three? four? years ago, I’m close enough to the action to notice these imperfections – and back then I was yet to become a devoted fan, so expectations weren’t so sky-high. Thinking back to the frenzied, mystical effect gigs like this used to have on me a few years back, it seems a blessed miracle that I considered leaving before the band had finished to be a better option than taking my chances on the freezing streets of Birmingham ‘till sunrise.

Melt Banana are still unspeakably incredible, but for me personally – weighed against the mind-blowingness of my previous experiences with the band, and due to various minor annoyances – this wasn’t a classic gig.

Threatened by the multimedia feast that is Alex’s weblog, I was hoping to enliven this gloomy post with some photos I took at the gig after finding myself catapulted to the front row. The photos didn’t come out at all – such is life – but I’m still into the idea of showing the world some Melt Banana photos, so here some really good ones somebody else took, at a different gig. Check 'em out.