Guitar Wolf

Back on June 28th I dropped a few bucks to go see Guitar Wolf, one of the many and varied Japanese bands I listened to back in high school. When I told a friend I met there who asked if I was into them, "I used to listen to them ten years ago", I felt like I'd fallen into some kind of trans-dimensional hole. All those years can be readily accounted for, sure, but sometimes it's just totally bizarre when it suddenly sinks in how much time has passed since some particular event, emotion or period. You know that feel, everybody does.

Anyway, it was a nostalgia trip, so I figured I'd go. Unfortunately I only had my phone camera on me (the dream of buying a DSLR might be alive in Portland, but for me it died back in March or April), but I also found myself in these professional pics:

I just used the cheap trick of manipulating mine by saturating the shit out of them and turning up the colour volume to make them look as if angrily dyeing Easter eggs had a sound to make them look a little better.

I wasn't in the best shape emotionally when I went out to this show - alone - but had decided to do my hair and makeup like I didn't give a shit about how unhappy this country and the people in it have made me. I successfully got drunk enough on gin tonics to take a bathroom selfie that was bombed by some girl who gave up on her falsies and stuck them to the mirror.

Guitar Wolf was pretty fucking loud, as is evidenced by the video I've posted below and everything they've ever recorded, but not as legendarily damage-inducing as I'd anticipated, unfortunately. Blood wasn't leaking from my ears after the show. I demanded a refund.

I could've chatted up the extremely sweaty dudes in the band at the obligatory samgyeopsal afterparty but wasn't even in the mood. The friend I met there - Jesse - knew I'd been pretty down and took me to a cute all-night bar/cafe after the show so we could talk for a while. He successfully consoled me, there was a random cat, we almost fell asleep at the table as daylight crept into full view, and it was good.