Guitar Wolf at 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (20 May 2024)

Tour Dates

• May 22 Denver – Bluebird
• May 23 Salt Lake City – Aces High Saloon
• May 25 Las Vegas – Punk Rock Bowling
• May 26 San Francisco – Bottom Of The Hill
• May 28 San Diego – Casbah
• May 30 Long Beach – Alexs Bar
• May 31 Phoenix – Rebel Lounge
• Jun 1 Albuquerque – Launch Pad
• Jun 2 Oklahoma City – Grand Royale
• Jun 4 Dallas – Trees
• Jun 5 Austin – Come And Take It
• Jun 6 Houston – Scout Bar
• Jun 7 New Orleans – Poor Boys
• Jun 8 Memphis – Hernando’S Hideaway

 

The World’s coolest band Guitar Wolf is back in the USA, headlining the 7th Street Entry on Monday, May 20th, 2024. The Japanese band is touring in support of LOVE&JETT (Third Man Records), their 13th album.

If you’ve seen Guitar Wolf in the past, forget it, because this is a brand-new Guitar Wolf, featuring new Bass Wolf (IV) Gotz and new Drum Wolf Takuro. The new members brought in a fresh, new, exciting, and energetic frenzy to their show.

 

For example, Bass Wolf is totally crazy!! We got a glimpse of in May 2019, when we wrote, “New bassist Gotz proved as frantic as his predecessors, half swallowing his mic and diving head first into the pit area, to be surfed about…” but this time, since the venue is finite, Bass Wolf did the unthinkable: climbing the 7th Street Entry ceiling by grabbing on the light railings. It was unbelievable to witness as he scales across the room – just like Spider-Man! We thought we’ve seen it all, but this was incredible.

Maybe to outdo Bass Guitar, Seiji would crowd surf, while singing… or playing a guitar solo with his strings broken. It didn’t matter what notes were played; everybody was loving it.

Guitar Wolf is at best when he actually gives his guitar to a fan in the audience. We’ve seen this done before, this is usually to free up guitar duties while Seiji wildly joins the audience or swing his broken mic… or just to look incredibly cool in his jet-black leather jacket.

What about the drummer, you ask? Well, that’s actually the best part. For the finale, a roadie moved the drum kit to the dancefloor and then Drum Wolf would play out to the last song… all while being in the middle of a mosh pit! Can you believe that? What a way to end the set.

The demand was so good that Guitar Wolf rewarded the audience with a double encore… finally ending with his solo cover, almost improvised cover of Eikichi Yazawa’s “I Love You, OK.”

 

Opening the show was Hans Condor, who previously opened up for Guitar Wolf in September 2016, which we previously described as “one of the most energetic live rock & roll set we’ve seen. The trio featured Charles “Chazz” Kaster as the raging main singer / guitarist (and apparently the “Birthday Boy” on Thursday night) with dreadlock Erik Holcombe on bass, and Ryan “Best in the Biz” Sweeney on drums… Near the end, their show went a little chaotic, with Kaster throwing his guitar to a fan in the audience and then started a one-man mosh pit in the front. Hans Condor did impress us, and we can only imagine how insane their show might be if they were playing a massive music festival.”

The Nashville band hasn’t lost their chaotic, energetic live performance, I think they just have to work extra hard to win over the audience, because they were playing with Guitar Wolf. At the end of their set, Chazz let his guitar crowd surf. It’s really funny, but the trio treats their guitar as if it’s a member of the band.

Also worth noting is that Chazz dedicated a song to Peelander-Z, saying that Peelander Yellow was “in the house”! Meaning they were on the road with this tour! Not sure if they were part of a working crew or just happened to tag along. We are big fans of Peelander-Z as well, so it’s great to hear they were in the audience.

Local group Celica opened the show. The two-piece features drummer Charlie Garetz and guitarist, keys, singer Sho Nikaido. Nikaido is a Japanese photographer, who also teaches photography at BlueSky Photo Workshop. Their music was sometime dance, and somewhat experimental. We previously mentioned they played with Quintron and Miss Pussycat in July 2017 … which I felt Celica’s music would have fit in well with Quintron.