2007/04/25
Ebisu Liquid Room
BY DAVID HICKEY
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Sakamoto's got his blood-red pants on, so you know we're onto a winner.
He's slipped into his favourite slacks, perhaps, because tonight, Yura Yura Teikoku are playing on familiar territory. Twelve months ago they had a monthly (always sold-out) residency at Ebisu Liquid Room. Now the three-piece is back again for two more shows in consecutive nights - also sold-out.
Familiarity also bleeds into the setlist. Yura Tei start with a trio of tracks from their most recent album (2005's "Sweet Spot"), with gig opener "The Communication" sounding more than ever like it could soundtrack a spaghetti western - if Leone had taken Clint to the dark side of the moon instead of the American Southwest.
Four songs in and Sakamoto announces a new song, and it's a delight, spun around a gorgeous, spidery guitar figure that sounds like the kind of thing John Squire might have written had he not swapped axe duties for growing shrubs on a Cheshire farm.
Encouragingly for a band that's been going since 1989, having first earned a reputation playing toilet venues like Koenji's U.F.O. Club, the crowd is mainly a mixture of male and females in their twenties. Here's hoping the kids are ditching the MTV-sponsored twat-pop of Your Song Is Good and cock 'n' roll of Beat Crusaders.
This can only be a good thing. Perhaps they recognize this band has as much integrity as Melt-Banana, as much intensity as Guitar Wolf, and a pop sensibility as assured as ... any chart act you care to mention.
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Not that everyone approved. In a typically no bullshit setlist that saw one song flow into the next without pause for breath, about the only on-stage communique from Sakamoto was to acknowledge a heckler:
"Don't play the slow stuff! Play something more upbeat!" the lone dissenter says halfway through in Japanese.
"Thanks," replies an utterly deadpan Sakamoto. Granted, Yura Tei didn't play any of the three-and-a-half-minute psych-pop nuggets from yesteryear like "Machi bito," but that misses the point. When do they ever these days?
Of the older material, "Evil Car" stands out for its bluesy swagger. Coppola should've used cast it in the reconfigured "Redux" version of "Apocalypse Now."
Elsewhere, Yura Tei tackle mod-psych - propelled by the melodic, John Entwistle-esque basslines of the band's timekeeper Chiyo Kumekawa - before finishing with the dreamy MOR pop of "Hoshi ni nareta," from 2003's "Yura Yura Teikoku no Memai." It might have brought a smile to Karen Carpenter's face. An encore would have been entirely superfluous.
Yura Yura Teikoku's new single "Utsukushii" is out July 4.
Their three-date tour of Australia starts May 16 in Sydney and ends May 19 in Melbourne. The band also plays Hibiya Yagai Ongakudo, Tokyo, on July 8 (5 p.m. start) supported by The Hello Works (feat. Members of Scha Dara Parr and Sly Mongoose) and Ink (feat. Takkyu Ishino and Hiroshi Kawanabe). For details, visit www.yurayurateikoku.com.
Listen to Yura Yura Teikoku at www.myspace.com/yurayurateikoku.