Adventures in Japan

Two Bands, a Birthday and a Wedding (Kinda)

We have to get better at this. Just plain have to. Otherwise it gets all backed up and we forget to mention stuff and then, years from now, when we try to remember what we did we'll look at this blog and go... we saw Aka Inu a bunch of times and that's about it.

We saw Aka Inu again recently. This time at an all day music type thingee. At Festival Gate. I do believe we have mentioned festival gate before. It's a shopping mall, a quite funky one, one with a roller coaster and a boat. But it's in a scuzzy area of town. The plan, I suppose, was that it would be the start of a reclamation kind of thing. Or the backers wanted to lose money. Cuz it never all that busy. It's a good site to see music at, tho.

There was a tonne of bands playing there that day. We did not see a tonne of bands that day. We saw a couple handfuls of bands, and of them I can only remember one as being good that wasn't Aka Inu. There were a fair few Aka Inu-ish bands: lots of members, lots of varied instruments, lots of yelling, lots of energy, not a lot of fun. Except for the one three piece. They played surf funk and played it well. Don't remember their names.

Aka Inu were fantastic as always, and the venue was real interesting. A bridge. A bridge between two towers of the shopping complex had been converted into a space for bands to play in. Lots of big windows so you could see the roller coaster whip by from time to time.

The roller coaster costs seven bucks and lasts for seven minutes. At no point that day were we drunk enough to think that a good deal.

As I've mentioned a couple o' times, there were a lot of bands that day. Bands being bands, they all went a bit long so by the end of the day, Aka Inu took to the stage long after they were scheduled to. They were great as always. The highlight this time? Two of the members got into a wrestling match in the middle of the audience.

The people wanted an encore. Verily, they demanded one. The management wanted everyone to clear out. So Aka Inu took to the stage, but they didn't play. One of the lead singers had a small bottle of something. He invited one of the fans up on stage, opened up the bottle... and... it stunk. It really, really stunk. He, the lead singer, jumped into the audience, dared anyone to take a good whiff. The place cleared out pretty quick.

Or it would have if the exit policy made any sense. All of the stairwells were blocked off. As were all the elevators but one. That elevator was backstage, with all the bands and their equipment. Not sure whose idea that was, but it was a bad one.

Another band that rocks is K maru ichi. You might be able to find some of their stuff on the intrawebs, just search for k 106 in whatever completely legal music finding doohickey you use.

Ben and I saw them a few weeks back at a place called Shangri-la. Great space. Not overly big, but well layed out. And packed to the gills. Ben and I were the only white folk there and nearly the only males there. Good times. k 106 are a nice brassy rock instrumental band. They took to the stage at 7 and didn't leave for good till 9:30. That's a lot of playing. And not a lot of talking. But I was quite happy that I understood most of the banter.

I especially understood the part where, betwixt a couple songs, the lead non singer singled Ben out of the audience and thanked him for being so energetic and into their groove. Ben was a bit gobsmacked. It was a good scene.

We talked to some of the band afterwards and it seems they play weekly in Kobe. If anyone comes to visit us, we may have to make a trip out there.

Oh yeah, if anyone wants to come visit us, don't do it around Xmas time. Our place is all booked up.

What else? *looks at title* Right, Carla had a birthday. She got some Animal Crossing toys, a black DS light and a video ipod. She was pretty happy.

The same night that we celebrated Carla's birthday we also had a small wedding party. We ate and drank and sang karaoke.

If I remember anything else, I may post it.