The Instigation @ YYT

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The Instigation at YYT

“I spent most of my money on cars, booze, and women – but the rest I wasted”, said a noble British sportsman whose apocalyptic epiphanies and messiah-like physicality has been more or less 100% reincarnated in the dulcet harmonies and rhythmic rush of The Instigation.

Most accurately, The Instigation is a multicultural, diverse garage punk rock band with melodic overtones and a fidelity to the Boss PH-3 Phaser pedal that will carry expatriots back to the unbeatable smell of moldy furniture and gasoline-stained socks that are as ubiquitous in the garages of North American suburbia as Hennessey is in North Korea.

At the newly reopened Yuyintang last Saturday, 19^th of Feb 2011, a mere 671 days before the end of the world as we know it, the eloquent Simon Cochrane made it ‘chrane all over the crowd with a golden shower of near-Biblical iambs and satanic pentameters with crowdtastic classics such as ‘Misery Guts’ and anti-anti-sexist anthems from the band’s revered “earlier stuff”. No topic was off limits in the sweeping lyrical journeys revisiting Donne, and probably Faust, and let’s says Hamlet.

Misuzu’s merciless guitar-slaying evoked the bellows from the depths of a tortured city’s broken, long-prostituted soul, yet despite the overwhelming feel-good nature of the music, the looming departure of Drummer Nick for Beijing added a bittersweet dimension to the gig. Perhaps The Instigation needs a new drummer; perhaps they’ll just form a new band like last time.

The godlike bassist Toshi K and demigodlike guitarist Misuzu have multiple bands and are in fact liars when it comes to their true identities. Are they Beat Bandits or Instigators? Are they criminals, or even mild offenders? We don’t know. But as Yoshi dashed from the stage of YYT for LUNE to perform a second gig under a different superhero name and wearing a different pair of superhero underpants he munificently lent a few sagacious sentences to Shanghai 24/7: “My girlfriend does not look like Mary Tyler Moore. I hope your taxi crashes. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to return some videotapes.”