Peelander-Z at Santos Party House (9/23/10)

Recently the staff, and friends, of Vitamin C4 attended the Guitar Wolf/Peelander-Z show at the Santos Party House. A show that was so epic and awesome we decided to cover it in two articles. Taking point, I present to you Peelander-Z!

Peelander-Red carried by the crowd - photo taken by Shayda Milani

Upon entering the venue we could hear the band finishing their first song and I rushed to find out who was playing. Instantly my eyes went into shock as I saw Peelander-Z upon the stage. A four (technically five) piece band all dressed head-to-toe in a different color and was reminiscent of something out of an Japanese anime. The lead singer/guitar was Peelander-Yellow, the bass player Peelander-Red, the lead guitarist Peelander-Blue and the female drummer was Peelander-Green. They claim, as noted on their website that they come from Planet Peelander in the Z-area. Who doesn’t like extraterrestrial punk rock?

There goes one eye-brow...

I’ll be honest by saying that I’m generally always skeptical of bands that are so theatric (especially those who rely more on being animated/theatric then they do the music their playing). But, after listening and watching this band play less than two songs, I was sold. Such energy oozed off the stage and into the audience. The guitar and bass players moved in sync during certain riffs of some songs, the drummer (an adorable, tattoo adorned punk girl) swayed her head to-and-fro as she hit the various crash symbols around her kit.
Barley able to understand the lead-singer because of his heavy Japanese accent and the roaring of the crowd, the band was polite enough to hold-up signs at the beginning of the song displaying the name, which was also often the chant-able chorus. It was about the third song in that the band elevated their awesomeness.

Peelander-Red is rock'n'roll!

Peelander-Red moved into the crowd and disappeared for a moment, but quickly reappeared as he was raised in the middle of the venue while being held up by members of the audience. He looked around for a brief second, while most gazed in amazement at what he had just achieved. Quickly, once he was sure of his balance and support, the song kicked back in and P-Red began to rock out. The song ended and he fell backwards and was caught by a different section of the crowd. Adrenaline hit the crowd and while Red was carried back to the stage I, quickly in the tow of his wake, made for a closer spot.

They played another song, stopped, and got even crazier. Peelander-Yellow told everyone to take out their cameras and ‘put on youtube.’ Confused, a swarm of lights from cameras and phones were held in the air as he pulled a shy and scared girl onto the stage. With an unknown device in his hand, he gave it to her and instructed the girl to shave one of his eyebrows off. Whoa. She totally did it in one clean movement across his sweaty brow. She returned to the audience. Seconds later, a guy was pulled onto stage and instructed to do the same but to the other side – which at first resulted in a failed attempt, but was ultimately achieved.

With songs like “So Many Mike”, “What a Health – Super Health”, “Ninja High School” and a punk rock rendition of “E-I-E-I-O”, each song was filled with fun, personality and a whole lot of energy. Still, the band upped the energy when they started to replace themselves and their instruments with members of the audience. One-by-one Peelander-Z became a bunch of random people that were following the instructions given by the band. Once the strums and hits were steady, the band got dressed up as a giant bowling pin, an alien, a large wigged-character and more. They went into the audience, cleared a space and set-up for a game of bowling. With no ball in site, Peelander-Yellow (dressed as the bowling pin) began to charge at the actual pins head first, leaped into the air and landed making for a ‘perfect’ strike.

After the game, the band re-armed themselves with their respected instruments and played a few more songs while Peelander-Pink joined them on stage in what looked like a Japanese anime character and costume – too cute!

It was a sad moment when the band finished, because it was such a spectacular rock-n-roll show that was more fun then most I had gone to in quite some time. While, listening to their record goes for a good time, this is a band I would recommend keeping tabs on and their tour dates so you might truly be able to experience the magic.

Also, after Peelander-Z we all took to the street for a cigarette break. Outside, Samuel Saarni was being interview by a reporter from Time Out New York and was asked if he was at the show to pick-up chicks. Apparently, it was for a dating survey they are doing. Either way, here is a picture of what Ethan dubbed as ‘meta-journalism’. What now, Time Out NY?!?!

Tags: dating survey, Guitar Wolf, human bowling, Japanese animation, Peelander-Z, punk rock, Santos Party House, shaving eyebrows, time out new york

This entry was posted on Monday, September 27th, 2010 at 3:03 pm by Austin and is filed under Events, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.