Four years ago, at the urging of a friend, I found myself at Jensen’s Rec during F Yeah Fest waiting for a band I’d never heard of called Envy. His description of them was basically, “They’re from Japan and they’re awesome.” Others seemed to agree as usually the bands relegated to Jensen’s Rec drew a smaller crowd than those given stage time at The Echo but the room was packed in anticipation for Envy. People were literally hanging from the rafters, taking up all the space on the staircase and if I hadn’t sat through the previous band (who I don’t remember) I probably wouldn’t even have gotten in. The reception Envy received upon walking into the room was the most energetic of the night. 45 minutes later I was walking along Sunset Blvd., ears ringing and completely blown away.
That was the last time Envy played on American soil until last week. Talking to Envy fans while waiting near the stage at The Troubadour it seems like for Envy’s American fan base, this tour was their Halley’s Comet – you might be fortunate enough to see them once, you might live long enough to see them twice, but every time you see them it’s always special. The kid standing in front of me couldn’t have been older than 20. I asked him if he had seen Envy before and he went off on how he hadn’t and that Envy was the only band that mattered to him. A slightly older Japanese fan next to him mentioned that seeing Envy in Japan was on the verge of impossible since tickets sell out so fast.
Opening bands And So I Watch You From Afar, La Dispute and Touché Amoré all took time to talk about how Envy influenced them before and during this current tour. Despite that a good amount of La Dispute and Touché Amoré fans left after their respective sets. Although I had walked into a capacity Troubadou,r the crowd had thinned a bit to about 2/3 what it was when I first arrived. The crowd seemed even smaller as the fans crowded the front of the stage, packing themselves in so tight that the backside of my shirt had become a collection area for my sweat and the sweat of others and my lens began to fog up.
Then, a photographer’s nightmare, the stage was bathed in an intense red glow. Immediately the energy in the room picked up and stayed up for the duration of Envy’s set. Cheers and fists in the air greeted song after song. The demeanor of the band in between songs was almost comical as lead singer Tetsuya Fukagawa softly, calmly thanked those in attendance before launching into five minutes of screamo chaos. During their encore guitarists Nobukata Kawai and Masahiro Tobita climbed the lighting rigs capping off the night with even more chaos.
Envy’s been around since 1992 and their influence is heard throughout the American screamo/hardcore/post-rock scene yet there were plenty of younger fans who were still eating their boogers in pre-school when the band first formed. When I asked that 20-year-old kid what he thought of the show he emphatically replied, “I don’t need to see another show again. That was it. Greatest. Show. Ever.”
