Some time around 1997, I was invited by some friends to accompany them to a Flaming Lips show. The Soft Bulletin had been blaring out of my boombox for an indie summer’s length and I was jubilated over the concert ticket. When the night finally arrived, I combed my bowl cut to look as though I never combed it, and slid on my Dr. Martens and waited impatiently for my friend’s mom to pick me up and drive us to the show. It was a loud influential night for a hungry teenager.

Much to my surprise though, I went home being more impressed by one of the opening acts.

A Japanese man, calling himself Cornelius, and his band went on playing all sorts of odd instruments and showing wild videos synched to the music and managed to steal the show. I went home and bought Cornelius’s Fantasma, becoming an instant fan.

Ten years later, Cornelius has continued making some of the most unique and boggling music out there. Ten years later, my friends and I have turned our concert-going into concert-playing as musicians in a rock band of our own. When our booking agent emailed us telling us we had a chance to open for the Japanese rocker, we figured it would be worth driving half way across the country to be a small part of what we figured to be the wildest show to come through town this winter.

Upon arriving in Chicago, we loaded in and surveyed the scene. The stage was bustling with about ten Asian stagehands and a shaggy haired British guy smoking a cigarette. They were overflowing the stage with enough instruments and effects to write a Dr. Seuss story. Seeing all the doo-dads and wee-hoos set up, I came to appreciate the thoughtfulness and effort that must go into one of Cornelius’s shows. Having played a bunch of shows in a bunch of places with a bunch of bands over the years, it seems as though the audience doesn’t desire much more than a few tight rock and roll numbers in order to blog a positive blog. We have never given much attention to lighting or gizmodgery over the years, being perfectly happy bouncing around on stage with the confidence that our show is worth the cost of admission. If that’s the case, Cornelius’s show is a steal.

Upon plodding through our thirty minutes and sensing that it was time to hand over the stage to the night’s true entertainment, we quickly loaded out our gear and found an adequate vantage point for the rest of the show.

The first thing I noticed upon joining the audience was the music playing while the stage was being prepared. It was a playlist of all sorts of tranquil classical music. Vivaldi is not the most common music to hear at a rock club, and it had an odd effect on me. I grabbed a nearby friend, telling him we may not make it out of the Metro alive tonight.

The show began behind a giant white sheet curtaining the front of the stage. As the band played behind, messages were projected onto the sheet. “thank you for coming.” “This is The Cornelius Group’s Sensuous Synchronized Show.” “Enjoy.” As the music boiled over the white sheet dropped and we were off.

The show carried songs from Cornelius’s whole repertoire. I am a big fan of Point, and was pretty happy to see how it was translated to the stage. It seems as though a lot of musicians who create electronic, sampled music may not have the desire or talent to attempt the music in a live setting. The Cornelius Group destroyed this notion, playing songs with less samples than some three-piece rock acts use. It gave the music quite a bit more impact to hear live harmonies and synthesizers, rather than sampled ones. While many a sample shone through, the overall effect was a live band, which was special to me.

Perhaps the greatest spectacle on stage was the 10-foot tall video screen behind the band. While the band commanded quite a bit of attention in their matching plaid ties and white jeans, for a bunch of the songs I found myself mesmerized by the synchronized videos being projected behind them. Below the screen was some sort of fancy LED light setup that managed to compliment the videos magically. If this show were to take place in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts we would all be drowned for practicing witchcraft as there was undoubtedly a bit of magic being performed on stage. At one point the band was performing a song from the new album, Sensuous, while the videos were racing us through a nighttime drive in downtown metropolis. The LED lights below the screen sped back and forth as taillights fled and headlights sped past. The stage pulsed with different colors as the group passed harmonies from stage left to stage right then back again. This occurred in different hues again and again as the group played through their set. With spectacular videos taking the audience on a geese’s migration to up close with the mouth of a thousand Japanese faces to a luau from the 50s to a levitating sugar cube, the videos complimented each song so perfectly they became another player stimulating another sense in the audience.

One of the highlights of the set was two minutes into one of the songs when Cornelius grabbed an audience member from the crowd and placed him in front of his theremin. Holding the young man’s hand, the musician guided him through a theremin solo that was point on. The audience member soaked it all in, and by the end of it was gyrating as if holding hands with Cornelius was sending an electric current through his whole body. The whole solo was about 45 seconds, then without missing the beat, the band congratulated the young man for his taming of the theremin and leaped into the final chorus of the song. It was so well timed, yet so effortless. The video, the lights, and the four musicians manhandled a bit of off the cuff theatrics with the audience member through a cymbal crash, a hi-five, and a small thank you gift then were right back on beat as the video changed to the loop that had been playing with the chorus of the song. It is as if they had rehearsed the whole situation by flying a dude from Chicago out to Japan so he could practice acting loony and playing seizured theremin with them.

Another spectacle on stage was the presence of wind chimes. As one of my band mates said, “Who would have thought wind chimes would be so effective?” Each band member in the Cornelius Group carried his or her own line of chimes which were filling every vacant gap of stage time, turning the Metro into the back porch at my grandparent’s summer home in Maine. With four musicians all striking their chimes whenever they seemed idle, it morphed the show from rock n roll into something that belongs alongside a pumpkin-headed cowboy riding a bleeding mechanical bull in a David Lynch film. It was just profoundly aural.

Another warming point took place as the show came to a close. During the finale, the front row of the audience was handed a sampler and asked to play along with the music. As samples from Planet of the Apes and Chicago were struck over and over the band gathered at the front of the stage and thanked the audience. A huge applause struck from the crowd and the band applauded back, gesturing to the audience that they truly appreciated their presence. Perhaps it was a bit of Japanese culture spilling over, but it was so much more effective than exiting the stage with your electric guitar feeding back into your amp that I wished more bands took the cue. It was a nice cap to place on a flawless show.

Backstage, the band all laughed and celebrated the birthday of a member of Cornelius’s entourage. I snagged a piece of cake and listened in as everyone recapped his or her favorite parts of the show. Everywhere people were taking pictures, apologizing to us saying, “Please don’t feel weird that we take so many photos, we are just so excited to be here.” One of my band mates declared The Cornelius Group “World Class Entertainers,” and we all shook our heads. I asked Thax Douglas, a local poet, what he thought of the show. Thax told me that the command of the stage witnessed that night reminded him of Frank Zappa. The way the group turned the stage into an object and crafted it into a whole new form was not too common and that made it special. I agree with Thax, and dare anyone to see Cornelius and say otherwise. It is a rare event that will welcome people of all musical tastes and leave them with a blissful bubble of culture, rare enough to be called “the good kind of migraine,” by a semi-epileptic audience member.

Jon Eaton plays with the Spinto Band, whom will be playing around the country over the next few months. Check out Spinto Band Official Site and Spinto Band’s MySpace Page for details on upcoming shows and the band’s forthcoming album due out this spring.

Everloving Records