Kishi Bashi – I Am the Antichrist to You

I’ll get back to the memorial service playlist (long version) in a little bit but I’m stuck on the Kishi Bashi show I went to over the weekend. Wow. This advice comes a little late as the tour only has two more shows (Charlottesville on Wednesday and Asheville on Thursday) before heading to the UK and no other dates posted, but if you get the chance to see him, you should go. For reasons I can no longer remember I have missed the shows that came within driving distance of me before. Not a mistake I will repeat in the future.

The musicians he has playing with him are really talented and versatile. I feel like the songs really soar in a way that the recorded versions just can’t match. The harmonies are fantastic.

When I’m at a show, I usually grab a couple of pictures when the opportunity presents itself but I don’t usually try to do more than that. Both because my phone’s capabilities are limited and my own concert-going protocol is pretty old school. Be present. Be in the moment. Don’t watch the concert through your phone. Now and then I’ve tried to record some part of a song but the results are usually bad and I’d rather be dancing than standing still filming anyway.

But just before he performed this song, he asked everyone to take out their phones to make a sound effect. If you and a friend call each other, then put the two phones very close together, just a few inches apart, it will create a chirpy, cricket-like feedback. Well, I was by myself. And since the people near me moved a little to be able to get their phones in position to make the noise, I had a clear shot and my phone in my hand. Watch it in HD and full-screen (my daughter always gives me a hard time that I forget to turn the phone for a horizontal shot but then I’d just have people’s heads in the shot) if it looks too small and blurry above.

That’s just him looping the violin and his voice, and the sound is so big. You can really hear the phone feedback clearly at the end of the song. That is not me you hear singing along. If you are in my car, you will have to endure me singing along, loudly, maybe even repeating a song enough times for me to be able to sing the different harmonies, but at a show, I am only going to sing along when the performers are encouraging the crowd to join in. I actually think I’m pretty good at singing along but I’m there to hear them, not me.

This was the only song he did solo, several they played as an acoustic four-piece, then others with everything plugged in and lots of additional instruments. It’s worth the price of admission just to see the banjo light show that Mike Savino brings to the outfit. Go. I can’t imagine you would regret it.