14-10-2009 MUCC

Venue: Tivoli de Helling, Utrecht (The Netherlands)
By: Sabine van Gameren

The Japanese band MUCC brought quite something going when they play in Tivoli de Helling, Utrecht (The Netherlands). Already before you enter the venue there are signs everywhere telling you that it is strictly forbidden to touch the artists or their equipment.

MUCC Seeing such a warning might make you wonder what they expect that will happen. A quick look around teaches me that the audience of this band is quite various, but overall quite young. The band self is not that young as they formed 12 years ago, in 1997. Their repertoire is wide with 9 albums released and some more live and compilation albums on their name. The fans of this band are wild and enthusiastic. I got warned by some of them, “If you are in my way I push you!” but they do not really seem to be that aggressive as a quick apologize come to tell me that they are only because of their excitement over MUCC.

It is not before the band members enter the stage that I realize how much of an impact this band has. The band makes rock, with little break outs to metal, pop, electronic and much else. They choose to perform songs that vary a lot, so they continuously bring something new. The band members are not really trying to have contact with each other, barely paying attention to the others, but rather focus on playing. Vocalist Tatsuro is the one that makes connection with the audience every once and a while and the fans follow him in whatever he says. He plays them like marionettes when asking them to scream, they follow. Asking them to sit down and then jump, no problem. Within a split second everyone is down on the floor. Overall he seems to be quite an entertaining person and there is nothing to debate about when saying that this band knows how to built an atmosphere.

Guitarist Miya takes my attention with his guitar that looks so small with him. When watching this iconized band you would almost forget that there are also very interesting riffs every now and then. Don’t forget to have your eyes on the drummer as well, who secretly hides behind his drums in anonymousity, but brings quite some passion to the music.

Overall, this band could probably hardly do anything wrong according the fans, but convinced me as well. MUCC is a band that has the overall package that makes an artist pleasant to watch.