On October 1st, Japanese post-hardcore/shoegaze masters Mass of the Fermenting Dregs played Chicago for the first time in their twenty-two-year existence. The show was originally set to take place at Bottom Lounge, but tickets sold out fast enough to warrant a venue upgrade to The Vic Theatre. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a Chicago crowd line up around the block, and seeing it for a band’s first time playing in the city on only their second North American tour was fantastic. According to setlist.fm, this was the 25th North American show that the band had ever played, and Chicago came with their best energy.
To start the evening, we got a short and sweet set from Chicago locals, Sleepwalk. In their own words: “We are Sleepwalk. We’re from here.” While the four-piece’s stage presence is as shoegaze as shoegaze can be, their unique blend of shoegaze, punk, and post-punk got the crowd invested early. We’re excited to check out their records, and I need to shout out their drummer. Chicago drummers are a different breed with a crazy lineage across genres (see: Gene Krupa, Ryan Person, and Wesley Toledo of Post Animal), and we can add another one to the list. Check out Sleepwalk’s Instagram, and see if their brand of “heavy music for the light hearted [sic]” lands for you the same way it did for us.
Following Sleepwalk was Toronto’s own Cam Kahin. The singer/songwriter/guitarist took the stage with a band of three of his friends, and for the next forty minutes or so, they brought their modern brand of alt-rock/pop-punk to the amassed crowd. The lighting engineer was working overtime for these guys, syncing up light shifts with the drummer’s snare hits, setting up multiple spots for the never-stationary lead guitarist, and making sure that all interactions between band members were visible if not the focus. I must also give a massive shoutout to the aforementioned lead guitarist. Cam mentioned his name, but I couldn’t discern it over the crowd’s adoration. His stage presence is immaculate. I already followed Cam Kahin to keep an eye out, and you should, too (here’s his Instagram).
And then the time came. The moment we had all been waiting for. Some of us for two or three years, some of us a full twenty: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs were on a Chicago stage, playing music for a Chicago crowd. Though lead vocalist and bassist Natsuko Miyamoto is the only remaining original member, “newcomers” Naoya Ogura on guitar and Isao Yoshino on drums carry the torch well for original members Chiemi Ishimoti and Reiko Gotoh. Miyamoto, after the band torched through “Dramatic” from their 2022 album, Awakening:Sleeping, greeted the crowd saying, “We have finally come to Chicago, so: nice to meet you!”
And this is when the Chicago pit took it to another level. I’ve only seen a Chicago pit go that crazy once before, and that was for Chicago’s own Post Animal at their Sleeping Village Lollapalooza Aftershow in 2021. When only four songs in, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs played “Aoi, Koi, Daidaiiro No Hi” from their breakthrough 2009 EP, World Is Yours, I didn’t intend on recording the whole performance. I try my best not to do that very frequently, cause I’m a pretty tall guy and I already block people’s views enough. But there was something special in those five minutes that I can’t explain, even when writing the next day. It was a moment in Chicago music history.
The rest of the set maintained the high energy unleashed by that song. Breezing through tracks like “1960,” “End Roll,” and “Asahinagu,” all representing different moments of their career, the band reveled in this moment they created. The exchange that best exemplifies the whole night came around the time of “End Roll.”
Ogura: Thank you for being here. Thank you for waiting.
Miyamoto: Dream come true, really. Dream come true.
Random audience voice: Please come back!
What a special night in a city filled with them. Thank you, Mass of the Fermenting Dregs. Thank you, Chicago. Check out the band’s socials here, and listen to the World Is Yours EP here.