Ginger Root at the Crocodile
Fronted by Cameron Lew, Ginger Root’s aesthetic checks all my boxes. Old school Japanese anime meets city pop meets visual creativity. While they already made the Seattle round not too long ago by opening for Japanese Breakfast at the annual ZooTunes, Ginger Root’s headline tour focused on their full-length music video of the Shinbangumi album but also included another fun surprise.
To start the show, Ginger Root arrived on-stage right-on cue at 8pm. Cameron addressed the crowd to inform us of what was about to happen that was different from your typical concert experience.
He asked a few questions beforehand:
– How many people were here the night before?
– A surprisingly large amount.
– How many people have never seen Ginger Root live?
– Also, a surprisingly large amount.
– How many people have seen Shinbangumi music videos?
– A very small portion of the audience.
To start the first half of the show, Ginger Root would play the whole SHINBANGUMI: A Music Movie but play and sing their songs live throughout. This movie isn’t only for the songs; Cameron included a theme throughout with short clips that tie the whole movie together. Cameron encouraged the crowd to cheer, boo, and react in any way necessary during the live performance of the movie. To tie into the old school anime style, SHINBANGUMI: A Music Movie even originally aired on a late-night hour of Adult Swim. This concluded the first section of the show.
As the tour poster suggested, the second half of the show focused on a theme of “Back 2 Back Sets”, “The Wheel Picks the Songs”, and “Different!! Every Night.” The band had your typical spinning color wheel with dry erase marked names of Ginger Root songs, a ??? Cover section, and even a “David Picks”. These options were even different from the night before. Speaking of David, as a sort of band member of his own, David carries a camera around the stage which feeds video onto the projection screens on each side of the stage. This includes unique video effects that it looked like David was adding and removing on the fly as he bounced between Cameron, the drummer, the bassist, and even fun shots of the crowd. Between each spin, the wheel is brought back out front and center for another chant of “Spin. That. Wheel!”
After about 45 minutes worth of high-pressure spins, Cameron brought out the tiny wheel that only included variations of Loretta. As Cameron points out, playing the same song, every time can get a little old. This wheel included Loretta (Japanese Lyrics), Loretta (Karaoke Version), Loretta (You Sing), Loretta (David mouth saxophone), and Loretta (NO). I’m pretty sure the crowd cheered “David” during the whole spin. After we ended up landing on Loretta (You Sing), there was one more final audience participation, Cameron asked the crowd to vote by cheering for the song “Weather” or another spin on the wheel.
He even mentioned to the crowd that the crowd chose to spin the wheel the night before, and it really felt like the crowd was disappointed in what they ended up landing on over “Weather.” This whole show was a wonderful culmination of Cameron’s typical creativity that you can see sprinkled into everything he does. With a sense of randomness and audience participation, this type of show really gives you the opportunity to experience a once in a lifetime event multiple times through the joy of Ginger Root.
