It Slices, It Dices

In case you haven't, yet, a few highlights:

Those antlers do not look comfortable, but don't worry.  This show - a 10th anniversary retrospective - had enough costume changes to make Cher jealous.  In some ways this concert wasn't as impressive as when she first performed with an orchestra on her Baishou Xstasy tour.  There was the shock of newness, then, plus the strength and depth of the KZK material.  (If you've no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry, just keep pressing play.)  Obviously conceived for video - must have been disappointing for the audience to show up and find a whole army of musicians between them and their star - it's a good thing Shiina's songs work no matter what the scale.

The knife is genius.  The haphazard way she wields the thing almost makes the fruit - her nickname, Ringo, means apple - redundant.  When she's not metaphorically chopping, stabbing, or carefully skinning herself, she keeps the thing blade-up under her ear or lets it float like a psychotic's baton.  The direction is obsessed with the utensil; when it's off-camera you can do nothing but worry about where it's at.  Jesus, the tension, kids don't sing this at home.

This fucking song, man.  It's a mean one, Mr. Grinch, it'll smoke everything you've got.  Probably not appropriate to say that it's the first time I've found Shiina attractive.  And here she's hot, hot-hot-hot, hot with a capital Yowsa.

This fucking song, man.

The fart-balloon skirt (a seed pod, maybe?) offers some corrective to that.  This song about birth (given a bit of a Stravinsky bump) was proceeded in concert by a recorded welcome from Shiina's seven-year-old son, and followed by a pair of warm duets (one a Gaye-Terrell/Ashford-Simpson cover) with her brother (who wears what looks like a Native American headdress with rust-colored feathers).  Awwww.

Sweat or tears?  The look she gives the camera at 4:15 makes me wonder what I've done wrong and if I can ever make it up to her.

This song will be on the new record; a different version was on the soundtrack-related Heisei Fuzoku.  A touch shrill, a smidge awkward.  Submitted for the sleeves and the exit.  (A brand new song, Yokyou, was also performed... and given it's got the climactic spot on Superficial Gossip's tracklist, it's sort of underwhelming.)

Woman loves the megaphone.  It's her way of saying YES MY VOICE IS NASAL.  One of the reasons she doesn't have to flop around (as she did on "Tsumi to Batsu," up there) is that there's such certainty to her presence.  Circling that catwalk is the swing, stopping and standing still is the punch.  She is dramatic, not theatrical; her mark is wherever she decides to be.

I'm tempted to nitpick at this setlist or how her newer material sometimes feels too soft or too jazzy.  But I just watched all 30 video clips twice over realizing that should Shiina Ringo ever ever ever play a show in the U.S., it'll just be her and four guys.  That's more than enough (and in some ways, might be for the better), but I'm never going to get to be in a room with all the stuff that went down at this concert.  For now I'm just honored to be on the same planet as this woman.

tags: shiina ringo  

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