Strange Pulse

Daniel and I went to the show last night, since I missed EE the night before, and he wanted to see all the bands, so we stayed for the whole thing. We got there at 9:00, to make sure we didn’t miss Eternal Elysium, and the show didn’t start till 10. We talked to Scott and Nicky Hill, who were there to see Acid King. (The Fu Manchu guys toured with them, I think, and they’re good friends.) We’re excited because Fu Manchu is playing an all ages show this Thursday at the Orange County Art Museum as a promo for their skate art exhibit, and we’re taking all the kids.

Anyway, Eternal Elysium were awesome. They have these epic songs with all kinds of crazy changes in them that I just love. It makes me happy that they’re still around and can make it to the States. They’re in town recording their new album.

The venue, Zen Sushi, was interesting. It’s a sushi bar downstairs. There’s one stage area downstairs, and another one upstairs. The show was upstairs, and it felt a lot like a private party. It was pretty cool. Except the sound isn’t that great. But the lighting was!

Acid King did a lot of new stuff again. I wish they’d play down here more. This was their last show with the bassist, Guy, he’s leaving the band, and they already have a new bass player lined up. So I’m glad we got to catch their last show with him.

Sasquatch are an LA band that always draw some enthusiastic fans. It was great to see them again–Rick, the drummer is super nice. They totally rock.

My Sunday was pretty mellow yesterday, we went to check out the new temple being built in Newport Beach, just down the road, about 20 minutes away. I’ll post some pics later maybe.

Daniel’s out of town on a snowboarding trip with Nathaniel, so I went to this show on my own. I left about a quarter to nine, thinking I’d have plenty of time. But of course I got lost on my way to the venue, and by the time I got there, Eternal Elysium were halfway through their last song. At least it was my favorite song I got to catch half of.

Eternal Elysium are a stoner/doom metal band from Japan. I saw them in 2002 and figured it was my only chance to ever catch them live–how often do stoner bands from Japan get to tour the US? That’s right. So to have them play just down the road in Long Beach was such a great opportunity–and I missed it! Fortunately, they’re playing again tonight in LA. I wasn’t planning on catching both shows, but now I’m going to have to go to the LA show. I may just leave after they play, we’ll see. EE’s line up has changed–new bassist and drummer. The new bassist is a female.

Acid King is another band I haven’t seen since 2002, they’re pretty rad. More stoner/doom. I like them especially because there’s a female in the band–she sings and does guitar. There were some very enthusiastic fans there, which was really great to see.

Nebula are one of my favorite stoner bands to see live. It’s nice to see a band in this genre who’ll do guitar solos. And what always impresses me is how they’ll take requests. Their drummer is really good, too.

It was kind of funny, there were a lot of people taking pictures for the size of the crowd. Two pros were there, one I know from a web forum, he and his girlfriend drove down from Oakland. He was there because he was a fan, I’m not sure about the other. Maybe a band or the venue hired him, don’t know. But there were professional-wattage flashes going off all night. I kept taking pictures at the same time the other photographers did, too, entirely accidentally. I wonder if there was something about the music that made us click our shutters at the same time.

You can see in these photos that another photographer’s flash went off same time I took my shot:

Kinda cool! Wonder how my flash affected their pics.

More pictures and one Nebula videoclip here.

I’m going to see Eternal Elysium tonight in Long Beach. They’re a Japanese stoner/doom metal band. I saw them once in Seattle, thinking it’d be my only opportunity to ever see them, since they’re from Japan. And Japanese doom bands don’t tour over here much. Although I hear rumors that Boris may be doing a show in the States sometime soon.

Eternal Elysium are in LA recording an album, and they’re doing another show in LA on Saturday. I’m going to try to go to that show as well, but we’ll see. Saturday night shows make running the nursery in church on Sunday particularly hard. Almost painful. But that’s what painkillers are for.

Daniel’s out of town, so I’m going on my own tonight. If I go to the LA show, it’ll be because he wants to go. Oh, and I think Nebula’s on the bill tonight, and Acid King. I’ll post pictures tomorrow.