The final one leans out into the crowd, eyes maniacally wide, and chants “You ***, you ***”. Welcome to the confusingly brilliant world of Electric Eel Shock. I love it when a band grabs their audience’s attention from the word go, and EES take hold, sink their fetid fangs in and drag the crowd kicking and screaming through 40 minutes of total chaos without pausing for breath.
 | | Electric Eel Shock (pic: Stefan Klenke) |
Drummer Tomoharu’s double sticked stand up, sit down, cock-and-sock entertainment is made all the more impressive by the fact that he doesn’t drop a single beat, let alone stick. Bassist Kazuto’s mind-over-matter cranium cracking is punctuated with moments of flawless thunder. His attempts to involve the crowd were so relentless that, three songs in, every single person was at least nodding their head and forcing terrified fake smiles. And finally, singer/guitarist Akihito Morimoto is an absolute rock god in the making. Captivating, amusing and, best of all, completely uninhibited, his stare-outs and drop-to-the knees soloing are impeccable. I’ve never seen anyone perform single-handed lightning-fast solos while shouting obscenities and pointing at a 16-year old girl in the front row. I have now. And I like it. As if things couldn’t get any better, EES have raucous, memorable songs. Encore pairing Do The Metal and Japanese Meets Chinese In USA tore the place apart, and even I could not prevent my head from banging along to the infectious beat. My only gripe was that they neglected to play I Wanna Be A Black Sabbath Guy, But I Should Be A Black Bass, but you can’t have everything. The future of rock and roll is here. Catch it while you can, before everyone else stakes a claim.
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