Blood Ball

A couple of weeks ago (on Christmas Day), I was fortunate enough to see an awesome death metal show at the venue near my house! My friend, Kenichi, who is the owner of the venue, was the one who recommended the show to me, since he knew I was into things a bit on the heavier side. So, I showed up (with a huge headache from the Christmas party the night before) at about 7PM, not really knowing what to expect. Long story short, my face was melted.

Midway through their first song, I opened the door to the small venue. Two things struck me immediately; there was no crowd, and this band was playing some really heavy death metal. Because I had come with some expectations for some serious moshing, the former realization was a little disappointing, however I soon realized that being the only one of the 4 or 5 patrons directly in front of the stage meant that the band focused all of its energy into my face. I had the singer inches away from me, flicking me off and growling into his microphone, as he headbanged like a Japanese kid who watched the infamous pokémon seizure episode one too many times. The bassist thrashed around to my left, whipping the neck of his instrument hither and thither, which had the effect of turning his instrument cable (connected to an amp far to large for the size of the venue) into a very agitated serpent across the floor of the stage and venue.

I was sucked into the band's energy right away; I basically stood alone in the middle of this small room headbanging as hard as I could. Honestly, it was kind of a weird experience having this very intense death metal band performing right in front of me, while I stood alone in the middle of the front of the stage.

The band was called Blood Ball, and I highly recommend them to anyone in Kyoto. I didn't get to take any pictures... I was pretty focused on rocking out. I did get one video at the very beginning, though. The sound is absolute garbage, but you can get the idea of the experience.

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