sgt. with Yuji Katsui Live Report

When HearJapan conducted an interview with sgt. last fall for the release of their latest album, capital of gravity, the band mentioned an upcoming show with Yuji Katsui, the violinist from ROVO. The glee in the bands eyes when talking about this show was so eminent, that a few staff members from HearJapan came to check out the show and some pictures were taken with a digital camera.

This was certainly not an ordinary sgt. show. The concert opened with a violin solo by Mikiko Narui, sgt.’s violinist. Yuji Katsui later came thundering in followed by the band with an explosion of sound and riveting violin harmonies. Interestingly enough, both violinists had identical pedal board setups (click on any picture for a full screen view).



Adding an extra violinist added a lot to the structure of each song. Mikiko was the star of the show and stood in the center playing the main parts of the songs with Yuji adding in a lot of fills. As this was the first time they had done a performance together they were constantly eying each other to make sure they were on the same page.







Despite the additional musical parts, the band still retained their impeccable sense of timing. The bassist, Kouji Akashi was having a blast and was ecstatic to be playing with this lineup.



The second song started with a tight drum solo followed by the violins getting experimental with vibrato filled, pedal soaked verses. This was a crazy sound that the band had never been able to do before. They were definitely bringing something new with the addition of an extra violinist. In fact every song had major additions to it that were stunningly brilliant. For example in the third song the two violinists started off with a pizzicato duo for “Tears of na-ga”. There was a delay between the two creating an orgasmic sensation. The guitarist came in with a downward arpeggio that could only be described as one of the greatest song intros ever. The audience was going absolutely insane. There wasn’t one head not bobbing along with the drum beat and the fat bass line.



The song later evolved into a full song but this five minute intro was absolutely incredible. It should definitely be put in their next album if they have a chance.



The violinists pulled out every violin trick in the book and this felt like a complete redo of their latest album, capital of gravity. Normally sgt. refrains from talking too much at their concerts but one of Yuji’s strings raptured at the frenetic ending of the last song so the band had to talk for a few minutes while he was replacing the string. This led to a lot of awkward conversation. During this they brought in Mr. Nakamura who recorded some piano tracks for the new album. They also announced that they were the #2 most rented post rock album at Tsutaya, Japan’s leading rental store. The conversation went dead and then the drummer announced that he would take off his shirt but then decided to leave it on because the next song would be tranquil but he promised that he would take it off for the last song. The next song, “Epsilon” broke with the song order of the album but was tranquil as promised. In this song Yuji took the lead while Mikiko was mostly background music. Most of the members went into their own improvised solos and ferocious playing from all members including the newly added piano player. By the end of the song Yuji’s bow seemed destroyed.











The drummer starts tapping his drum sticks to start the next song and then suddenly, “I almost forgot!” He then proceeds to take off his shirt. The last song, “Ant’s Planet” seemed to work the best with the two violins without changing the original song too much. It was a great closer for the evening.



The concert ended just as it had started with the just the two violinists.







The concert was one of the best ones HearJapan has seen them perform and seemed like a waste to be a one time only event. Hopefully with their next album they will do something similar again.