I am so tired. Dead tired. And my ears are still ringing.

What a great show.

Picture from rich1million’s Melt Banana Flickr album

I enjoyed the opening acts. They looked like they were having a good time and the crowd seemed to react well to them. In particular, Fat Day seemed like a fun band. Mainly because of the homebrew electronic used in the show. They wore construction hats wired as synthesizers that could be played by pressing buttons or manipulating switches and knobs on top. Also, the lights seemed to be reacting directly to the sounds of the drums.

But, the night was all about Melt-Banana. As soon as they begain to play, the crowd came alive. And what a great crowd it was. The Middle East Downstairs was jampacked with people swaying, head-bobbing, jumping, having epileptic seizures, and of course moshing.

I am only a newcomer to the Melt-Banana experience. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to them when they were opening for Fantomas during their Delirium Cordia tour. Now that was an unbelievable, if I ever saw one… but I digress. I immediately picked up their latest offering, Cell-Scape and was instantly hooked. If you have never heard them, it is high energy punk mixed with just enough noise to make it interesting. I will try to post some links to my favorite tunes sometime later.

They hit the stage at 11:30pm and played about an hour-long set that included a 2-song encore. They also treated us to their own version of a Devo song (which, for the life of me I can’t remember… ugh, I need some sleep). One of my favorite parts of the show was when they played a series of their shorter songs (none lasting more than 30 seconds). When the brief explosion of energy of each song finished, Yasuko would just say, “Thank you. This one is called …“, let us know the name of the next burst of music and the band would just begin playing the next song. It was fantastic.

If I had enough energy, I might go on describing how amazing fun it is to watch Agata play guitar or how powerful the driving bass of Rika is, but alas. I am plum-tuckered.

All I can say is, Wow.

So, I proclaim that the official start of music month begins tomorrow night when I stand in the presence of musical mastery at a Fantomas show. I only just purhased the latest CD recently. Yes… you read that correctly. I drove to the local music store, walked down the aisles, located the CD, took it the cashier, and handed over some hard-earned cash. Why, you ask? Well, for one, I like supporting independent music labels. Also, even if I could have purchased the album on iTunes, I would have missed out on all the fancy artwork. You see, the Fantomas CD is really a calendar for the month of April. If I chose to, I could hang it up in my cubicle. Rather neat and worth the ca$h-money.

Next up in music month, is a Handsome Boy Modeling School show. Going from the bipolar sounds of Fantomas, to the hip-hop genius of Mr. Automator will be interesting.

Just a couple of short days later, I am dragging an unsuspecting friend to Japanese-punk-noise-fest, ala Melt Banana. I was introduced to this fun group when they opened up for Fantomas on their last tour. I was hooked instantly.

And, finally, rounding out the month of music is Boston’s own Dresden Dolls. They will be taking a break from the tour with NIN to play a show for us Bostonians. I haven’t seen them live and am really looking forward to this show.

Maybe May will turn out to be the catch-up-on-sleep month.