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b'z concert and stuff
I really do want to write about it, but I'm also totally zonked out tired. Despite the ticket saying the show was at 7pm and doors were at 4:45pm, what really happened is that when I got there a little after 5pm, tons of people were still waiting outside in huge lines, and other huge lines to get concert goods, and so on. So I waited in line until almost 7pm itself just to get into the stadium (the concert was at the Tokyo Dome). Nobody had seat assignments beforehand, just ticket numbers, when you got there they scanned your tickets and gave you seat assignments, which was kinda funky, but I guess prevents scalping to some extent, but also made the line take that much longer I'm sure. The good part about having waited so long and gotten in relatively early was that I could buy a concert T-shirt INSIDE the stadium without having to wait at all.
Anyway, the show finally started a little before 8pm and went for 2.5 hours or so total. My seat turned out to be right behind "home plate" if it was a baseball game, though WAY up at the top of the seating in the nosebleeds, and the stage was set up basically in center field, so far away. But they had big screens so you could see what was going on anyway, and thus I can say that damn, Koshi Inaba is still the sexiest rock star in Japan, even if now he's like 45 years old and last time I said that he was pushing 40. Tak Matsumoto, on the other hand, still looks like a freakish dude who's had a few too many beers in his lifetime. (It's always funny how Inaba talks the entire show because any time Matsumoto opens his mouth he says something stupid, however the minute he starts playing guitar you'd think he was a genius). Oh yeah, and Shane and Barry are STILL playing with the B'z, which is nuts -- I saw them in 2003 when the B'z toured in the US! When Inaba introduced the band, Barry just said something in Japanese like "happy to be back in Tokyo", but Shane rambled on in Japanese for like a minute about how "today rocks! I was just watching the olympics and well, I'm Canadian you know and we KICKED THE BUTT out of those American hockey players, I'm super-happy!" and Inaba's like "Say what?"
One thing I had forgotten about Japanese rock concerts is that even if you have an assigned seat and you are at the top of the Tokyo Dome, you're still required to stand up for the entire concert and rock out with everyone else. Unfortunately for me, I don't have the latest album or two by the B'z so it was a little hard to keep up with some of the stuff, but when they played things like Ultra Soul I was doing all of the hand motions and jumps, so I guess I get points for that. And yeah, I couldn't tell you 2/3 of what they played because I either didn't know it because it was new, or I knew it but forgot the titles. (It's kinda sad because last time when I saw them in concert I pretty much inhaled Big Machine and the other album Green so that I'd know what was up, but this time I was too lazy.)
They had a detachable stage on tracks that went from centerfield to home plate -- so they did that, I forget what song they played when it was on its way, but AT home plate they played Love Me, I Love You, which was awesome, and Ultra Soul was the song while it travelled back, which was also awesome. They had fireworks for It's Showtime, I remember that, and Ai no mama ni wagamama ni was the first song of the encore, and other than that the songs are mostly a blur. OH, one cool thing was that they played a whole lot of ballads for the most part to start off the show, or at least slower rock stuff. I was even sitting down for a while like "Dammit, is this just because Tak is almost 50 years old that they're only playing this slow shit? When are they gonna rock out?" and then they played Love Phantom, and I didn't really sit down again for the rest of the show. Thank god for that. I don't know what they were thinking putting so many ballads together and then a whole ton of rock and not mixing it up, but whatever.
But yeah, it did rock. I'm a little sad I didn't hear any of my favorite songs of theirs, but given they've been making music for like 22 years it's not all that likely to hear anything in particular at a concert anymore, there's just too much of it.
Spitz tickets go on sale this Saturday for some various locations; I should probably get off my ass and figure that out too, because dammit I would cry if I missed seeing them. (But it sucks since Pau isn't here anymore I don't know who I'd go with -- maybe just alone again like I did for the B'z...)
Anyway, the show finally started a little before 8pm and went for 2.5 hours or so total. My seat turned out to be right behind "home plate" if it was a baseball game, though WAY up at the top of the seating in the nosebleeds, and the stage was set up basically in center field, so far away. But they had big screens so you could see what was going on anyway, and thus I can say that damn, Koshi Inaba is still the sexiest rock star in Japan, even if now he's like 45 years old and last time I said that he was pushing 40. Tak Matsumoto, on the other hand, still looks like a freakish dude who's had a few too many beers in his lifetime. (It's always funny how Inaba talks the entire show because any time Matsumoto opens his mouth he says something stupid, however the minute he starts playing guitar you'd think he was a genius). Oh yeah, and Shane and Barry are STILL playing with the B'z, which is nuts -- I saw them in 2003 when the B'z toured in the US! When Inaba introduced the band, Barry just said something in Japanese like "happy to be back in Tokyo", but Shane rambled on in Japanese for like a minute about how "today rocks! I was just watching the olympics and well, I'm Canadian you know and we KICKED THE BUTT out of those American hockey players, I'm super-happy!" and Inaba's like "Say what?"
One thing I had forgotten about Japanese rock concerts is that even if you have an assigned seat and you are at the top of the Tokyo Dome, you're still required to stand up for the entire concert and rock out with everyone else. Unfortunately for me, I don't have the latest album or two by the B'z so it was a little hard to keep up with some of the stuff, but when they played things like Ultra Soul I was doing all of the hand motions and jumps, so I guess I get points for that. And yeah, I couldn't tell you 2/3 of what they played because I either didn't know it because it was new, or I knew it but forgot the titles. (It's kinda sad because last time when I saw them in concert I pretty much inhaled Big Machine and the other album Green so that I'd know what was up, but this time I was too lazy.)
They had a detachable stage on tracks that went from centerfield to home plate -- so they did that, I forget what song they played when it was on its way, but AT home plate they played Love Me, I Love You, which was awesome, and Ultra Soul was the song while it travelled back, which was also awesome. They had fireworks for It's Showtime, I remember that, and Ai no mama ni wagamama ni was the first song of the encore, and other than that the songs are mostly a blur. OH, one cool thing was that they played a whole lot of ballads for the most part to start off the show, or at least slower rock stuff. I was even sitting down for a while like "Dammit, is this just because Tak is almost 50 years old that they're only playing this slow shit? When are they gonna rock out?" and then they played Love Phantom, and I didn't really sit down again for the rest of the show. Thank god for that. I don't know what they were thinking putting so many ballads together and then a whole ton of rock and not mixing it up, but whatever.
But yeah, it did rock. I'm a little sad I didn't hear any of my favorite songs of theirs, but given they've been making music for like 22 years it's not all that likely to hear anything in particular at a concert anymore, there's just too much of it.
Spitz tickets go on sale this Saturday for some various locations; I should probably get off my ass and figure that out too, because dammit I would cry if I missed seeing them. (But it sucks since Pau isn't here anymore I don't know who I'd go with -- maybe just alone again like I did for the B'z...)
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We didn't do the camping out all day thing due to jobs and all, but were fairly early and fairly far up in line, and the crowd was almost entirely Japanese, like at most of the Japanese concerts in Seattle. Not that it's a bad thing -- it's kind of neat to get the opportunity to see the bands so close up. I have a CD signed by everyone in HY from when they came to Seattle too, which I could never ever have accomplished here.