Live Report of envy in Portland

Amidst the bustling scene in Hawthorne, Portland, fans casually waited around for night to come. Hours before, the members of all the bands appearing that night could be spotted in the shops and boutiques on the main street, blending in with the locals.

As soon as night fell, a line began to grow outside the Hawthorne Theatre. Time passed and it grew chillier outside. Traffic passed by as excited chatter filled the night air with fans shouting to one another, “Who are you here to see?” Most favoured seeing La Dispute or envy, some said they were equally as excited to see Touché Amoré. The sounds of traffic dulled any anxious feeling as the line grew longer, but as soon as the line began proceeding into the venue, tension and excitement grew. A swarm of bodies soon filled the dim Hawthorne Theatre.

Sensing movement onstage, all eyes focused on the opening act, As I Watch You From Afar. With the volume at damaging, ear-piercing levels, the guitars squealed, and only a few people in the crowd were head-banging; the rest were notably silent. Touché Amoré, a relatively young group from LA, piled onstage and the crowd became more involved. Later, when the sweat laden front man from La Dispute concluded their last song under red hellish lights, he urged the crowd to stay for the headlining act, envy and introduced them by shouting excitedly that they were from Tokyo. By then, it was a full house and the crowd was most interested in staying to see envy.

The fans watched curiously as envy proceeded onto the stage. It was clear they were different from the previous acts, but they appealed to the crowd. They appeared more relaxed, tranquil - almost wiser - as seen from the expression on each of their faces. The crowd was silent for a brief moment before they applauded and welcomed the group onstage. The first song, Zero, silenced the almost packed Hawthorne Theatre and awed the audience immediately. The song started off with a combination of melodic tones and eerie background noise programmed by Tetsuya. The ambient sound was faint but grew quickly as bassist Manabu and guitarists Nobukata and Masashiro threw themselves into the music. Teeth-vibrating feedback rocked the venue as the intensity grew; wailing guitars overthrew any other sounds heard for a few moments. The floor shook wildly from the audience's moshing. To Tetsuya’s screaming, the audience jumped ecstatically as they experienced something new and undiscovered.

Zero calmly faded into the next song, Lies, and release from silence. After a minute or two, the song morphed into a slightly faster mess of a J-pop-trance-mixture. The “lies” and “release” were felt through a sudden layer of screaming. The floor still shook, making the experience entirely surreal, and Dairoku’s drumming was incredible to watch. Although Lies, and release from silence - like most of envy's music - is almost entirely instrumental, there were moments when Tetsuya murmured a few lyrics under the undertow of the pounding melody. By then, the crowd had already sensed that envy was truer to the hardcore/post hardcore sound than any of the previous acts. They were more jovial in headbanging and moving to the music as they experienced the best screamo act of the night.

Tetsuya expressed a wrathful storm in Thousand scars and established a pattern. After the quiet ending from a previous song, the next would continue with Tetsuya’s quasi-orchestral sound programming on a synthesizer. The pattern had the audience anticipating the change and thus kept the crowd interested. Thousand scars was significantly quieter than the previous two songs. Although acoustic, it was composed in major key. There was a moment of lingering background noise before the song stretched into a heavier composition. One of the guitarists, Nobukata, sunk to the floor as the other guitarist, Masashiro, headbanged.

Scene marked just over the halfway point of the live, and the tempo dropped to a slow hush. As soon as the song started, the audience expected something big - which they received. For the next seven or so minutes, the largely instrumental composition hit the awestruck audience and washed over them like a typhoon hitting land. Scene, from Insomniac Doze, was a dramatic and beautifully strong piece. The few lyrics that appeared were in Japanese, some spoken in a husky whisper and the rest screamed at the top of the lungs. Feeling the intensity was Nobukata, whose speedy guitar picking was intriguing to watch. Tapping into the innermost feelings of guilt, wrath and uncertainty, the entire live played out like a symphonic album.

For a moment, the crowd in the small Hawthorne Theater was completely silent as the trailing threads from the previous song, GO MAD AND MARK, reverberated across the venue. The last few notes dissipated into the air and slipped right into A Warm Room. The audience seemed drunk with pleasure; the distant hum of ambient background noise filled the theatre yet again. The bass line, while mesmerizing and clear, harmonized nicely with the two emotionally driven guitarists: Nobukata and Masashiro who pounded out the notes and swayed sharply to the rhythm. Simultaneously, Tetsuya danced a bit as he loudly whispered the lyrics. The dancing seemed a bit out of place for such an intense, powerful song but was otherwise amusing.

As soon as A Warm Room faded into silence, envy bolted off stage. The red lights faded and normal lights came on. Immediately, there was a sense of disappointment in the air - the crowd wasn't ready for the show to be over. A few audience members glanced at each other, as if to say “Now what?” and then began to chant the band's name in order to draw them out on stage again. It didn’t take long for the members to come back on stage, and as soon as they did, Tetsuya briefly re-introduced the band before beginning to play. The crowd cheered much more loudly than before, so much so that the title of the song Tetsuya named couldn’t be heard.

The live ended almost as quickly as it started: as soon as the band finished their one encore song, the members darted off stage once again, leaving the audience dazed, enthralled and for some, became a new fan of envy.


Set list:

01. Zero
02. Lies, and release from silence
03. Thousand scars
04. Shitsuren
05. Scene
06. Incomplete
07. GO MAD AND MARK
08. A Warm Room

Encore:
01. Playback


(Live photos by Jeremy Corral in Paris, France)