The other day I was able to attend a Boris x Kiyoharu gig on their Heavy Rock Breakfast tour. Here’s a brief live report of the event!
The opening act was a locally based band new to me called Mach Pelican. They played a very energetic, upbeat set of light, punky rock to start off the show.
A couple songs they played:
Tokyo
Rock’n’roll Honesty
Next up was the guest, Kiyoharu, with his backing band: Kosuke on percussion, Hideyuki on guitar, and Takeshi on saxophone.
Setlist (source):
- 砂の河
- 妖艶
- アモーレ
- 夜を、想う
- 忘却の空 (1st half)
- 少年
- SAINT
- RUTH
- 煌めいて(with Boris)
I believe a few of these are from the upcoming ETERNAL album.
This set was certainly a difference from Mach Pelican and would provide a stark contrast to Boris’ later set. Several times Kiyoharu made mention of how different the styles of music were, but the audience was pretty receptive and at least a few people were quite passionate about the inclusion of bongos and sax! After all, while not similar to heavy rock in the slightest, it was well-played and Kiyoharu put on a great performance. He was great at initiating and maintaining a call and response and engaging with the audience. I was pleasantly surprised by his vocals, given his recent releases and the hit-and-miss singing, but no, it was decent! The friend I brought along thought he was an excellent singer, so I’d say it was a success.
He got a little flustered trying to communicate in English – he had a script prepared on his phone, but he ended up just getting Mach Pelican’s drummer to translate for him. Despite a few hecklers, the audience was patient and enthusiastically responsive.
I wasn’t expecting ‘忘却の空’ to be played, so that was also a surprise! It seemed to be an impulse decision and they only played the first half of the song, but it was still nice. For the final song, Boris was invited on stage with Atsuo on drums, ending the set with a soulful ballad about love, I believe.
Finally, the main event of the night – Boris! Atsuo was fronting for the event, with MUCHIO as drum support. Boris’ set started strong with ‘She is burning’ off their latest solo album.
They played other songs from Heavy Rocks (2022), including ‘My name is blank’ and 'Question 1’. They’re insanely good live!
For most of the night there was plenty of moshing and crowd surfing, and enough smoke to sting the throat (they did kinda go overboard with the smoke machines). Other songs they played from memory included Anti-Gone and Heavy Friends.
They also covered DEAD END’s ‘冥合’ with Kiyoharu joining in on vocals. It was certainly a very passionate performance.
At the end of the set they played ‘Serial Tear’, their latest single, which produced such a dark, heavy atmosphere to end on. Thankfully, after a brief encore call, they performed Farewell with Atsuo on drums again, providing a calming mood before people left.
In my opinion, Boris’ music translates so much better in a live context compared to studio, and I’d definitely love to see them again!
*photos taken by me and my friend and posted with permission
