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In my show preview I said these two bands were musically way over the top. Turns out, they’re visually way over the top too: Sigh featured an extremely energetic frontwoman on sax and vocals, and while she naturally drew the bulk of attention (her choice of wardrobe was likely a factor here), bandleader Mirai Kawashima, pictured above, was one of the more animated keyboardists I’ve ever seen. Before them, Unexpect left the entire stage in front of the drum riser wide open—-pedals, mic stands, etc all shoved to the side—-to give them room to dance, headbang, and generally jump around spastically with massive amounts of hair flying everywhere.
Musically, Sigh were fun, although much more guitar-oriented than they are on record—-though that might have just been because the keyboard and sax were mixed way too low. Unexpect’s live show seems to be getting better all the time, which makes sense since they never seem to stop touring. The two opening bands were both pretty solid. All in all a good night for a metalhead; shame the club wasn’t anywhere near packed (it was actually the emptiest I’ve ever seen Jaxx, which usually seems to get good attendance).
Tons more photos are here at Flickr, but here are some highlights from Sigh:
And a few from Unexpect:
