Lithium Magazine

Review and photos by Mike Bax

www.myspace.com/borisdronevil
www.myspace.com/russiancircles

F#$k yeah – this was a friggin’ rock show!

Lee’s palace was packed to the back door for Boris’ triumphant return to Toronto for a sweaty club show.

Chicago three-piece Russian Circles warmed up the early birds with a 45-minute minute set of their stellar thundering instrumental material that touched upon their Geneva, Station and Enter albums. I still play Enter like it’s a new release, and was happy to hear songs included in their set from the album. ‘Carpe’ was amazing. Russian Circles, much like Boris, play a heady set of metal/ambience, and I was happy to see them again knowing they were playing to crowd of potentially new ears who would totally get what they were doing.

As a remixed version of 'H.M.A. – Heavy Metal Addict' played over the speakers before Boris came on stage, I was filled with a mixture of emotions. I was totally stoked that Boris were minutes away from taking the stage, but I have to admit to being a little bummed that a recorded version of 'H.M.A.' meant the likelihood of the band playing the ACTUAL song live was slim (H.M.A. is one of my favourite songs from the triple vinyl 45's Boris release last year under the title of Japanese Heavy Rocks Volumes I, II and III). The band DID play live versions of ‘8’ and ’16:47:52’ from Japanese Heavy Rocks, so I ultimately left the venue a happy camper in that respect.

Boris has a wealth of material and much of it was available at the back of the venue by way of rare vinyl and obscure CDs and DVDs. The majority of this evening's performance lifted heavily from Japanese Heavy Rocks, Smile and Pink (Boris’ most recent output), but the set list did dip back to some older material to the delight of the crowd.

I realized something at this Boris show… something kind of sad... I am officially an old fart. A mosh pit started in the centre of the floor about three songs into Boris’ show, and I actually scowled as it erupted. I’d like to say it was because I had an expensive SLR camera around my neck… but that wasn’t the case at all. I’m officially old, and feeling melancholy because of it...

I also learned that not a lot of women in Toronto rock on Boris. If there were more than six women at this capacity show I’ll eat my shorts. August 9th at Lee’s palace was dominated by math-heads, bearded vinyl aficionados, and air-guitaring long-hairs – and I was right in there with them (albeit that I was watching the moshing from the sidelines).

This Boris performance was rife with show-stopping moments. Boris’ touring fourth member Michio Kurihara was in attendance and played some amazing whammy bar guitar solos on numerous songs. Takeshi played a dual necked guitar (bass up top and six string down below) for the entire set and it was really hard to NOT fixate on the man as he dealt out blistering riff after riff. Atsuo Mizuno banged away on his drum kit (and his monumental gong that hung immediately behind him) occasionally standing up while he played to howl at the audience. And Wata’s singing over ‘16:47:52’ was even more amazing live than it sounds on the album.

This was an excellent show by an excellent band – it will easily be one my favourites for this year.

Setlist:
Farewell
Rainbow
8
Luna
Statement
Floor Shaker
A bao a qu
16:47:52
Akirame Flower
PINK
Korosu
1970
Untitled