Live on Nanikore

Southern All Stars Live 3

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 11:15:16 +0000

It seems every other post here is about the Southern All Stars. Well, on December 30th (2005), we went to see them again at the Yokohama Arena, and again, they were absolutely fantastic. So, from having never seen them before, in the the second half of 2005, we saw them three times, each time in different settings: Rock in Japan Festival, the Tokyo Dome, and now at the Yokohama Arena.

Whilst the songs for the latter two were pretty similar, it was great (again) seeing them in a smaller venue, and from a different angle, to really appreciate the live show, and really, there aren’t many bands nowadays who can keep a place moving for three hours solid.

The question then might be why we saw two stadium gigs in a months, and the answer is because we applied for both dates in a kind of raffle, and their tickets sell out within a day usually, and so we were really pleased we actually got allotted two sets of tickets. Also, as I understand it, they often do their live shows at the end of the year.

Southern All Stars Live

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 21:35:29 +0000

OK, I admit this is a bit late, but last week (Dec. 1st), we went to the Tokyo Dome to see Southern All Stars live, and really, it was probably the best live gig I’ve seen - ever.

Almost three hours of continuous music, by probably Japan’s best band. Complete with an amazing light show, screens, dancers, fireworks and balloons big enough to be out of ’ The Prisoner’, the whole night was just amazing.

For me, it was great that they included a lot of my favourite songs, including the single ‘Bohbo No.5’, complete with hilarious animations running around the back screens, ‘Rock and Roll Superman’, and ‘Yellow Man’, which is the first time I’d seen that live, and it really is a great live track. That made up for a lack of ‘Manpi no G-spot’ in the set though!

Compared to the previous live show at ‘Rock in Japan’, and despite it’s length and the size of the hall, this seemed a little bit more ‘for the fans’, with Kuwata, the lead singer, showing why he’s not only a good vocalist, but also a consumate showman, chatting with the crowd and generally setting the mood. It also let the band put some stunning visuals on some moving video walls, from patterns, to animations to photos, illustrating each song, and doing some of their slower, more melodic songs.

Fortunately for us, we’ll see them *again* on Dec. 30th in Yokohama, but it seems that generally, it’s really hard to get tickets, because they don’t tour that often anymore - indeed Kuwata lamented that at 49 and a smoker, he’s not sure how much longer he can do it (Though as he runs around the stage dressed as a schoolboy, you’d never guess his age!).

For those who have no idea who these people are, I really recommend buying or renting the new double CD “Killer Street”, which is a combination of some reworked old songs, and a lot of new tracks.

Personally, I’ve been really impressed with them, and it’s great to see a band who can put tens of thousands of fans in an arena and do a long, fantastic show. Roll on Dec. 30th!

Tokyo Game Show 2005

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 07:14:03 +0000

Yesterday I went down to Makuhari Messe to check out the last day of the Tokyo Game Show 2005. The big events this year were the XBox 360 as it ramps to launch in a couple of months, and a preview of the PS3, due out in about 6 months.

Overall, I think the Xbox outflanked Sony on the home console side. It was obvious that Sony had virtually no games ready to preview and relied heavily on CG rendered movies, especially for Metal Gear Solid 4, which ran to nearly 10 minutes, but which featured virtually no in game footage, though Sony claimed the movie used the game engine.

Despite it’s revelation of the Revolution controller on Friday (Press Day), Nintendo didn’t really have a presence, leaving Sony a clear run on the handhelds, which they took, offering ‘shared versions’ of some upcoming games, providing you had the 2.0 firmware in, and if you didn’t you could download that there and then too. I’m still yet to be impressed with a lot of PSP titles - many are badly shoe-horned PS2 titles, and often don’t take account or advantage of the mobile form factor. However, Metal Gear Acid 2 looked interesting, as did Puposaru Academy 2. DS owners can at least look forward to ‘Akachan wa doko kara kuru no?’ (literally, ‘where do babies come from?’. To be honest, It looked more like a variant of the dating games which are getting more and more popular.

Of course, the booth girls were there, and provided a good distraction to their legions of fans, whilst others tried to squeeze past to actually check the games out. Of course there were the amateur cosplay people there too, as usual holding court between the two halls, and as usual they ranked from amazingly authentic to wacky, to just downright odd (the girl in the junior high school swimsuit - I’m talking to you).

Anyway, I’ll stick a full review up on Brightblack.net at some point. Needless to say, it’s always worth going and all the more so as it’s only 1000yen if you get a ticket before hand, so it’s quite a cheap day out.

2005 Tokyo Game Show

Blast!

Sat, 14 Aug 2004 02:12:04 +0000

Last night we decided to have a more civilised Friday night and went down to the Bunkamura Orchard Hall in Shibuya and checked out Blast!.

Blast! is a brass band/percussion dance ensemble meaning people are dancing with their instruments, doing ballet inspired dance and all manner of things on the stage (and if you remember to look) in the boxes at the back of the stage. It was all very impressive, with some great snare drum pieces, and a lot of colour. It was hard to watch all the movement at once - one minute there would be two people on stage, next there would be ten, all moving around, as all the players quietly come on, perform, and then leave the stage again. It was definitely a great night out for some live music - especially if you’re a brass or percussion fan. Musical styles went from Ravel’s Bolero (amazing) to Jazz to taiko-esque drumming and the musicians not only play the instruments and dance, but could really draw the crowd in. It certainly wasn’t cheap (our tickets cost 9,800 yen each I think) but I must say that I actually thought it was worth it for for about 110 minutes of performace over two acts.

I think all the Shibuya shows for August are sold out, but there may be tickets left for the week’s worth of shows at the Kokusai Forum next month. Go on, treat yourself!