Hardly Boring, the Boredoms Shattered Ear Drums and Melted Faces

[Boredoms] are more interested in sound than songs. Their show last night at Terminal 5, well over an hour long, was full of brutal noise attacks and musical movements that ran from one into the next, sometimes seamlessly.

While three drummers maintained a relentless and exhaustive beat, Yamatsuka Eye, or simply EYE as he is known, screamed into a variety of microphones while jumping around on what seemed to be a broken leg. EYE reigned as the master of chaos, creating a squall of dissonant sounds via hundreds of knobs, buttons and track pads. The experience was visceral. The music was easy to move to but hard to listen to, which was  the desired effect. The intention is not so much to entertain but to bewilder. When EYE takes a stick, a drumstick or otherwise, to his seven-necked guitar, beating it like a totemic gong of sorts, it’s like a punch in the face. You come to right away, but you don’t know what happened.

Terminal 5 was perfect for Boredoms, who reportedly have been looking for this exact type of room—big and open where they could play “in the round.” The band set up on a stage in the middle of the floor with the crowd circled around. Two rings of balconies rewarded those who could get to the edge with a bird’s eye view.

A band is only so good at what they do if they can do it with variety. And that’s where Boredoms crush the competition and make it clear why they are the leaders in the noise rock scene. Even though there is only a handful of lyrics, mostly incomprehensible shrieks and wails, and even though the songs are mostly devoid of melody, each song, or each segment of the performance, is different. EYE has such mastery over his knob turning that he can make dissonant feedback sound at times more organic or more monumental—essentially, more than just noise.

Boredoms rarely play live shows and the crowd, knowing this, went wild for them. While some people looked a little, well, bored (they more than likely just didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or scream), the majority was bobbing up and down and staring in gaping mouthed wonderment.

Yoshimi P-We, the only female member of the band, sang back-up on a few songs. Her added vocals were one of the highlights of the show. Yoshimi, of Free Kitten and Flaming Lips fame, has been in Boredoms for longer than any other member except EYE, who started the band in1986 in Osaka, Japan.

Boredoms are interested in cause and affect. EYE’s new “instrument”—two wired up glowing orbs he waves around like a possessed witch doctor—involves motion-controlled sensors attached to the body that elicit sounds based on movements. The Boredoms music is wholly based on this principal. They don’t just make music; they create havoc and incite chaos. Just to see what happens.

[[Photos by Jason Bergman on Flickr]](http://www.flickr.com/photos/tront/2377515452/)