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I was lucky enough to see them twice live in Tokyo. Both times were amazing, but I discovered what they mean about being unable to tour Japan...
For one, they were about third tier of both bills. A few gaijins like myself were super excited to see them, but the Japanese people didn't react much at all. At one show everyone went batshit, but that was just because everyone was drunk (later in the festival day). People were happy to see me so happy, though.
The other time, no one reacted at all. Totally stood still silently. Same thing for DMBQ (which seems impossible). Then they reacted to some twee guitar J-Rock that sucked.
Don't think Japan has an awesome subculture just because of all the cool shit that makes it to the States. It's clearly much more difficult for a prize band like Melt Banana to make it in Japan than it would be if they lived in NYC or something.
Oddly, though, the show that I stood still was about the best I've seen from them. Might have simply been that I was actually watching rather than going weird.
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