2023-08-26
i sat around in the days after seeing hail the sun and waited for anyone to ask me how it was or did anything cool happen or for my coworkers to mention my painted nails. nothing!!!!! and so i will tell Myself all about it on my adorable website. for ME. because i need to get donovan melero out of my head.
first, a bit about my beginnings with hail the sun: my spotify discover weekly graced me with a bunch of bangers one month, including omniphobia by sianvar. that song took me apart limb from limb and i had to listen to it in order to go to sleep some nights because my combined mental illnesses were so transfixed with it. two months later, i was handed relax / divide by hail the sun, which i nearly removed from my playlist many times because the very raw expression of anxiety was too visceral to me as someone still in denial about having anxiety myself. just one week later, i got boomerang by nova charisma, the star feature of a playlist i built for my favorite blorbo, and a song i kept feeling was unusual in a very interesting way because of its particular sound genre paired with such bitter self-acknowledging lyrics.
the relation between these songs is that the vocalist of all three bands is the same guy, donovan melero, a fact i would not learn until literally this year. i have been listening to these songs almost daily for two years and never noticed. even worse, i remember briefly thinking sianvar's vocalist sounded like circa survive's vocalist and even checked to see if there was member overlap, none the wiser to the fact that i am far from the first person to compare donovan melero to anthony green, or that this vocalist had already infected my playlist two other times completely undetected.
when i got the email that hail the sun was to headline at the very same venue thank you scientist was performing at, i bought the ticket immediately. this is in spite of the fact that relax / divide was the only hail the sun song i actually knew, and being a slow song it is also wildly misrepresentative of what 99% of their songs sound like lol. spotify reccommended it in the context of my playlist leaning more progressive rock (hail the sun is progressive post-hardcore and math rock) and having listened to it for so long, it was difficult to reconcile this one unique little 3 minute 18 second world with the energetic band i was getting to know. luckily their sound hit just the right spot at the right time and i became infatuated. i hadn't had a true "favorite band" since high school, and now i've spent three digits on hail the sun merch... so far. woo!
so, now i've been to ~TWO~ concerts!!!!!!! it's been a hot minute since i actually went to the show; it took me a while to get around to finishing this journal entry... this concert was a different experience in all sorts of little ways, starting with the fact that i'd decided to go alone this time. having familiarized myself with the vibe of the venue and its surroundings the first go, i felt pretty confident and safe without having to drag my sister along to 4 hours of music she doesn't really like. downside is that my video clips are not as cool as hers and i have no idea how she's always able to use her phone camera like that even though we have the exact same phone.
last time, my sister and i painted our nails together, and i had put on livestream recordings of my japanese bands for background entertainment. i decided to continue this new tradition myself and brought out my blu-rays to play on the tv while i painted all on my lonesome the morning of the concert.
on arrival to the venue, the first difference i noticed was the demographics of my fellow attendees; where last time it was a fair majority of men around 30, this show attracted a more early-20s, slight majority women, more queer and stylish-looking crowd. it dawned on me that the previous concert was in fact a metal concert full of metal fans and i'd only been there for the supporting act with a genre blend that would be an outlier no matter where they went. hail the sun's tour was much more suitable company for this little creature.
i'd decided in advance what spot i wanted— the venue has a raised back section where the merch tables are set up, with a slice of standing room in front of them and a comfortable railing balcony thing dividing the ledge from the front floor area. at my chosen center spot at the railing, i had a perfect view of the stage unobstructed by all the tall people!!!! downside was that it was a bit far away, but after comparison i think i value having a clear view of the entire band much more.
next time i want to grab a spot slightly to the side, as vocalist donovan melero often stood directly in front of the drummer, and i wanna see them both! and it turned out that the center spot i selected was an immediate 3 feet beneath an ac vent, and the venue turned arctic over the course of the show. i already run cold so i was shivering so much (from the cold and the excitement) that some of the videos i took have noticeable shaking, lol.
during the wait time i observed the attendees more and realized there was a huge number of couples. by the time the show started, my balcony railing was full except for one person-sized gap to my right, which felt rather pointed. there was also a weird number of people who were visibly pokemon fans (3 is not a very large number, but i have never seen 3 unrelated pokemon fans at a non-video game related event ever. why at a post-hardcore concert i'll never know).
hail the sun had towed three supporting acts with them, starting with origami button, who have a lovely sense of humor that i first encountered on their twitter while doing pre-show investigation. they played beautifully, though there an atmosphere that, because they were a much smaller presence compared to the other bands and their sound is a touch light for this audience, it was like.... you kinda felt bad for them? at one point the vocalist asked who among the crowd were existing fans, and like maybe 4 people max cheered. the vocalist was like "thank you guys so fucking much" in a tone that sort of laughed at the sadness of it. i liked them though! i might dig around and see if any of their songs grab me enough to add to my playlist.
next was kaonashi, labelmates of hail the sun, who i tried very hard to like but my preferences are just too narrow to get into the unique vocal style. it was their set that opened up the mosh pit, much wider than i'd witnessed at the previous concert, and even some crowdsurfing occurred. the vocalist also sprayed the front half of the floor section with water, making me glad i'd decided not to squeeze up there like last time. the vocalist called the front rows "melero's strongest soldiers", which felt pretty apt lol.
next was being as an ocean, who had an interesting vocal arrangement with one who did rough vocals and spoken word(?) and a guitarist who did clean vocals. the rough vocalist actually got off stage and sang amongst the crowd for the majority of the set, spending time in the mosh pit and even coming by the railing where i was a couple times, trailed by a security guard wherever he went.
finally finally it was hail the sun's turn, and as soon as the set change was done and the lights went dark the crowd finally woke up. where the three previous bands had put up their band names on the stage's large display screen, hail the sun had only the icon version of their logo in glowing white on black.
here's what my view looked like most of the time!
hail the sun is notable for their vocalist, donovan melero, also being their drummer, but some years ago they took on a touring drummer, allen, so donovan can better endure their lengthening sets. i believe this tour marks allen's initiation as an official member of the band— he's apparently been involved in the songwriting for their new album, and he's been touring with them for like seven years or something, so it's really about time. i heard he was surprised he was included on the poster given to vip ticket holders, which made me go awww. he was a treat to watch; for such a polite looking guy he really juiced it up on those drums. he also played like this for half a song.
i haven't really seen a headliner band before— the japanese bands i watch via livestream are part of an idol-adjacent franchise, so their lives are structured a bit differently, and i'd left my previous in-person concert before the headliner came on— so i'd had no idea what to expect here aside from a longer set than the supporting acts. it was really great to be able to hear so many songs, and they managed to hit almost all of my favorites!
while i was writing this part i just found out hail the sun held an AMA on reddit and i fucking missed it by a couple hours. but i did learn that apparently most of the band just got over a cough, so my slight disappointment at donovan's kinda rough performance at my show has been greatly replaced by admiration that he trucked through that well while a little sick.
but being sick did not stop him from dancing around the stage like a goofball, which made me wonder if taking him off drums for the purpose of conserving his stamina had really changed anything after all. i only took a few pics apart from my videos, and not a single one of them has donovan standing still. this one's my favorite.
between a song ending and donovan starting an mc segment, there was an audience member who yelled "FUCK IT UP, DONNY!!!!" and donovan looked a little flustered and flattered, but he sure did fuck it up all over the stage for the whole show.
he also kept doing a silly mic trick where he'd throw it and spin it around by the cord, then yank it back to catch it perfectly in time for the next line. he did this ten million times throughout the show, but somehow i only caught it twice in my video clips.
there was also a time during a more aggressive song that he pretended to be about to throw the mic stand into the audience, and it was so convincing i was bracing for it to actually happen.
while surfing twitter for pics of their shows the day after, i found someone pointing out how fucked up donovan's mic is, and now that i look at it, it really is fucked up. what's up with that. maybe he oughta stop throwing the poor thing around so much. (image from this tweet)
donovan is known to still sit down at the drums for a few songs, and the crowd was super excited when that time came. it was so hype watching his silhouette appear in front of that glowing logo while the lights were off during the brief between-song intermission.
a full drummer-vocalist is such a rarity that it seems hard to imagine, but when you actually see it it's like oh yeah i guess you can just do both. what felt impressive to me was that he was able to seamlessly transition to using a second instrument with high-complexity parts halfway through a show without any sort of warmup, but then again he has been doing this for a number of years already. still really cool! he looked so natural and in his element, and one time i saw him set a drumstick in his lap, fix his hair, and pick the stick back up without missing a beat. the songs they played while donovan drummed were mostly older ones and i didn't recognize a couple of them, so i've gotta study their older songs more!!
i also caught when allen slipped out from seemingly nowhere and launched into the audience for a little crowd surf. it was funny for me because i hadn't noticed it during the show and wondered why the audience cheered at that particular moment, not realizing the guy being passed around was a band member!!
their masterful song switching came into play again as donovan tagged out while the others were still going, creating the briefest lull for allen to swoop back in and donovan to reclaim his fucked up mic, and then they burst back into song with the lights in the most incredible way.
the number one highlight of the show was, as if fated to be, when they played relax / divide. i didn't know it was such a beloved song, and according to the data on setlist.fm, it's their most frequently included song at their shows. eeeeveryone was singing along. i wanted to, myself, but i had a burning need to record it, and didn't want my voice to cover the performance. i'm really sad i didn't catch the first couple lines... but i can always hope for next time, because i'm definitely going to see hail the sun the next time they're within a hundred miles of me, and they're at least very likely to play relax / divide again.
it's now my most precious recording, and watching it still reignites this feeling that i'm hanging on every second. i've decided to include the audio for it in this entry to share a little bit of the feeling. here's also a link to the studio version again if you want the beginning part i missed for the lyrics— listen up til 0:20 and then come back here for the embed below.
the lulls in his singing were when he held out his mic for us to fill in. he knew we knew the words. the roughness in his voice— from the long set or the sickness, i'm not sure— lended an interesting character to the performance that i liked. i also go nuts for when singers improvise or alter the melodies; that bit at the end had my soul going somewhere very high up. if there was one part of the show where donovan was earnestly putting his heart in, it was this one.
after the show was over, i turned around and walked 2 steps to the merch table to see if i liked any of the shirts, but none called to me as much as the ones they were selling online. i tried to pick up a cd of new age filth instead, but they didn't have any, which meant they must've sold out before the show started— no way they didn't bring any stock at all of one of their strongest albums. i left a tip instead and tried to linger to see the band members, since they'd promised they'd hang around the merch table after the show, but venue staff very purposefully announced right next to me that if you're not buying merch you gotta start heading out. WHATEVER! i'll buy a vip ticket next time. i went to the 7-11 across the street, got the second most quenching drink of my life, and went home.
the next day i dropped a hundred bucks on a tshirt, hoodie, and cds for divine inner tension and new age filth. i am deeply regretful i didn't also grab a wake cd (which has relax / divide. what was i thinking!!!) so i might go back and find more things to grab to justify another 10 bucks of shipping. my order came a couple weeks later and i have barely worn the clothes because of how hot it is and how much i don't want to stink these things up with my sweat too soon lol. the gorgeous hoodie is going to be a great piece for the chilly seasons though. i'm surprised how well it fits— the sizing is unisex and only went down to small (i'm petite and usually need extra small) but the width turned out perfect, which is very rare. it's just a little long in the sleeves and body, which is kind of a look in its own right, so i don't mind.
the moon phase design is mirrored on the other sleeve, and the back is a monochrome reendition of the jacket illustration for the new album, divine inner tension. i really love the off-white ink used, and i was sooo close to getting the other color hoodie which is dark red ink on off-white fabric. black is more my color though.
this summer of hail the sun was overall a very fun experience and i'm happy to have a new thing in my life to be recurrently excited about. i hope they tour again soon!!!! i've seen fans post about gifts they've given the band, including art, so i might try my hand at making some pieces to get printed and give to them.
to top it off i'll give a short reccommendation list of some of my favorite hail the sun songs!