STOMP!

[High and Mighty Color - Dreams]

I caught STOMP last night at Memorial Hall and it was amazing. If I'd taken anything away from the performance, it'd be "音乐掌握在你手里". (You know how sometimes you'd feel that it's easier to describe something is another language, this is one of the rare occasions.)

The performance is exactly like anything you've read about the troop, lot's of sound produced from everyday items being put together into what we call, "music" or "rhythmic beats". But it's not so much on the items they'd used to produce the sound but the beats that are being put together in an artistic piece. Their coordination was perfect and add a little humor in their act, STOMP managed to get the entire hall into the groove.

By the end of the performance, I felt like my rhythmic senses were heightened. It's like I'm Evan Taylor in August Rush. "Every sound/noise can be music" is what their acts seem to say. The last act was probably the best where they incorporated clapping and stomping of feet from the entire hall (they'd warmed up the audience and broken up the hall to produce different sounds) into their final piece. The piece ended not with the last drumming beats from them but actually the sounds produced by us, the audience. It was as if to say that, "here, now we hand the power and knowledge of producing music to you". How meaningful is that?

If I ever have the opportunity and resources, I'd definitely bring someone to catch STOMP with me in NYC again. After all, St Mark's Place is just around the corner. ;)