Boris at The Echo

One of the last things I had to do before Eloise was born was go on tour with a band. Always wanted to do it and I knew that my window of opportunity was closing fast. So when indie rock royalty Damon & Naomi asked me to sell T-shirts for them on a tour with the Japanese metal upstart Boris, I signed on in a heartbeat. So I got to see the groups (with guitar god Kurihara playing both sets) every night for a week. Then, before I knew it, it was over. (See GR51 or old blog enties for details.)


Last night was my first time seeing the kings of doom rock since then. It was cool being on the other side of the merch table and getting to go up to the stage. Many of the songs have been burned into my brain and are so familiar that they're like a primal calling. One of the greatest live bands around with no gimmicks and simply pure rocking. The new songs sound great, and they really tweaked some of the older ones. I was standing by the right speaker and got closer to the stage as people could no longer handle the volume. Maybe they forgot earplugs?


Afterwards, I asked Boris' manager and my friend Enju if she needed any help at the merch table and she said she was in control. Similarly, I had to exercise my control not to buy anything. The Inoxia Records proprietor is a master of laying out limited-edition releases, amazing T-shirts, and other stuff that fans want.

The tour is over, but I recommend you catch Boris next time if you even remotely like drone, sludge, doom, or stoner metal. They are a band I will never miss.