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Right, so. I think I went to work today, but it's not worth talking about in respect to what I did after work...
...I met up with James outside the Showbox around 7:30 and we went to the B'z concert!
So we waited in line for like 45 mins, then went in. It was already pretty crowded in the stage area; we talked to another non-Japanese guy (I think there were like 20 non-Japanese people total at the concert), and then we bought t-shirts (They only had them in small and medium, and they were $25, but I bought one anyway. It fits me about as well as my Tsuboi shirt fits me. Speaking of which, did you know that Tsuboi and Ogasawara finished with the highest Fighters batting averages at .330 and .360 and Ogasawara took the Pacific League batting title? But I digress). And after that I figured I should look for Ryan and Becky... which wasn't hard. They were about 15 feet to our left. So James and I came and stood with them.
And the show started like 20 mins later. And oh, the show...
Wait, there is one thing I have to say. For anyone who doesn't know who the B'z are, they're like a Japanese version of... hmm. Nothing really quite compares, but I would say something like Metallica. The B'z have been around for 15+ years, and have been making kickass rock music for that entire time.
Tak Matsumoto is 42. He looks it. I hate to say that. On the other hand, Koshi Inaba is 39, and uhh... to put it mildly, he has to be the goddamn best-looking 39-year-old asian man on the planet :) I'm thinking I need to find a B'z poster to compliment my L'arc poster that's been up for years. I guess I'd seen pictures of the B'z many times before, but for some reason it just doesn't come out in photos as well as in real life... I mean, I don't usually even notice people being good looking, and I just stared at him for the entire concert. Man. He's just beautiful, with a beautiful voice. And he's a math genius at that :)
Ok, so anyway, there were songs. (No, they did not play Liar Liar, nor did they play Calling. Yar.) I may not remember every song they played but I'll try to cover highlights so I'll remember them:
They opened with Arakure (off the new album). VERY cool, very intense. They went right from it into Blowin'. Yay, that's been one of my favorite B'z songs for ages and ages. It was cool to be able to sing along to stuff. And we were dancing, and waving our arms, and everything. It was great. I think the song after that was Yasei no Energy but I'm not positive. It was something slower, I remember.
Then they played Wake up Right now... no na-nas but it was still fun to yell along, and a great song. Not sure what the next song was, it was something else slow. if I'm remembering the lyrics correctly, I'm pretty sure it was Motel. Very pretty :)
Yeah, so somewhere around there Koshi starts talking to the crowd... in English! And good English at that! Better than Miwa-san's last year at DCT! So he's all like "HELLO SEATTLE! YEAH! HOW ARE YOU GUYS DOIN'? YOU READY TO ROCK? HOW ABOUT... ARE YOU READY TO CLAP?" And so he started getting people to clap in a really goofy way, funny patterns, and eventually into the latin dance pattern that starts off... ***TAIYOU NO KOMACHI ANGEL***. Dude, I was SO glad they played that song :) Hahaha. Yeah, so Komachi Angel was fucking fantastic. And of course we were all bouncing and waving and singing along.
Some other songs happened after that that I don't know. I think one was "Love is Dead". And I know one was Brotherhood. It was cool too :) "We'll be all right." Even Barry Sparks or whatever the gaijin guitar dude's name is could sing along to that one. Haha.
Anyway, at some point Koshi starts saying stuff like "Hey, so how about you guys sing. You wanna sing too, right?" And he says "We're gonna do a song so you can sing." And I'm just thinking "YEAH! EASY COME EASY GO!" And sure enough... he starts leading people through the "nanananana" stuff :) Heh. So I sang along very very loudly, I was so happy they were playing that song. I love that song. It was really really really really fun.
After that there were several other songs. I recognized a couple of them ("Love Me, I Love You", and of course "Zero" because of the cool keyboards... and I wouldn't have noticed "Juice" except that they sang the chorus a bunch of extra times since Koshi introduced the band during that. Oh yeah, and how can I forget "ULTRA SOUL! HEY! *jump*") James and I managed to move up a bit after several people left the floor either of their own choice or a few people seemed to have to be carried out. Ugh, poor them.
Yeah, so they came out for one encore. They played Hakanai Diamond from the new album, which was decent, lots of good guitar in it, and then for their final song of the night they did Giri Giri Chop. I know Oren will be happy to hear that, if he actually reads this whole fucking entry. It was really good and very charged with energy and everyone was singing along. I thought it was a really good closing song (just as Arakure was a GREAT opening song).
After that Koshi says "We're going to do a Banzai, ok?" And he explained Banzai, and the audience did three banzais with the band, and then they were done.
Ryan and Becky and James and I hung out for a bit afterwards shouting at each other in Japanese, it was kinda funny. "KIKOENAI!" "NANI?" "ZENZEN KIKOENAI!" or whatever. Becky and Ryan went to buy t-shirts and I went to catch a bus home.
Played PP when I got home because I am an addict, anyway. Went on a pillage trip with Alie; we had pretty good jobbers. Russel gave us a lecture on swords, and Oro and Silverstar gave us a lecture on polyamory. No, I'm really not making this up. Anyway, the pillage trip itself went REALLY well. I feel all officer-like. And now I should sleep before I get yelled at.
...I met up with James outside the Showbox around 7:30 and we went to the B'z concert!
So we waited in line for like 45 mins, then went in. It was already pretty crowded in the stage area; we talked to another non-Japanese guy (I think there were like 20 non-Japanese people total at the concert), and then we bought t-shirts (They only had them in small and medium, and they were $25, but I bought one anyway. It fits me about as well as my Tsuboi shirt fits me. Speaking of which, did you know that Tsuboi and Ogasawara finished with the highest Fighters batting averages at .330 and .360 and Ogasawara took the Pacific League batting title? But I digress). And after that I figured I should look for Ryan and Becky... which wasn't hard. They were about 15 feet to our left. So James and I came and stood with them.
And the show started like 20 mins later. And oh, the show...
Wait, there is one thing I have to say. For anyone who doesn't know who the B'z are, they're like a Japanese version of... hmm. Nothing really quite compares, but I would say something like Metallica. The B'z have been around for 15+ years, and have been making kickass rock music for that entire time.
Tak Matsumoto is 42. He looks it. I hate to say that. On the other hand, Koshi Inaba is 39, and uhh... to put it mildly, he has to be the goddamn best-looking 39-year-old asian man on the planet :) I'm thinking I need to find a B'z poster to compliment my L'arc poster that's been up for years. I guess I'd seen pictures of the B'z many times before, but for some reason it just doesn't come out in photos as well as in real life... I mean, I don't usually even notice people being good looking, and I just stared at him for the entire concert. Man. He's just beautiful, with a beautiful voice. And he's a math genius at that :)
Ok, so anyway, there were songs. (No, they did not play Liar Liar, nor did they play Calling. Yar.) I may not remember every song they played but I'll try to cover highlights so I'll remember them:
They opened with Arakure (off the new album). VERY cool, very intense. They went right from it into Blowin'. Yay, that's been one of my favorite B'z songs for ages and ages. It was cool to be able to sing along to stuff. And we were dancing, and waving our arms, and everything. It was great. I think the song after that was Yasei no Energy but I'm not positive. It was something slower, I remember.
Then they played Wake up Right now... no na-nas but it was still fun to yell along, and a great song. Not sure what the next song was, it was something else slow. if I'm remembering the lyrics correctly, I'm pretty sure it was Motel. Very pretty :)
Yeah, so somewhere around there Koshi starts talking to the crowd... in English! And good English at that! Better than Miwa-san's last year at DCT! So he's all like "HELLO SEATTLE! YEAH! HOW ARE YOU GUYS DOIN'? YOU READY TO ROCK? HOW ABOUT... ARE YOU READY TO CLAP?" And so he started getting people to clap in a really goofy way, funny patterns, and eventually into the latin dance pattern that starts off... ***TAIYOU NO KOMACHI ANGEL***. Dude, I was SO glad they played that song :) Hahaha. Yeah, so Komachi Angel was fucking fantastic. And of course we were all bouncing and waving and singing along.
Some other songs happened after that that I don't know. I think one was "Love is Dead". And I know one was Brotherhood. It was cool too :) "We'll be all right." Even Barry Sparks or whatever the gaijin guitar dude's name is could sing along to that one. Haha.
Anyway, at some point Koshi starts saying stuff like "Hey, so how about you guys sing. You wanna sing too, right?" And he says "We're gonna do a song so you can sing." And I'm just thinking "YEAH! EASY COME EASY GO!" And sure enough... he starts leading people through the "nanananana" stuff :) Heh. So I sang along very very loudly, I was so happy they were playing that song. I love that song. It was really really really really fun.
After that there were several other songs. I recognized a couple of them ("Love Me, I Love You", and of course "Zero" because of the cool keyboards... and I wouldn't have noticed "Juice" except that they sang the chorus a bunch of extra times since Koshi introduced the band during that. Oh yeah, and how can I forget "ULTRA SOUL! HEY! *jump*") James and I managed to move up a bit after several people left the floor either of their own choice or a few people seemed to have to be carried out. Ugh, poor them.
Yeah, so they came out for one encore. They played Hakanai Diamond from the new album, which was decent, lots of good guitar in it, and then for their final song of the night they did Giri Giri Chop. I know Oren will be happy to hear that, if he actually reads this whole fucking entry. It was really good and very charged with energy and everyone was singing along. I thought it was a really good closing song (just as Arakure was a GREAT opening song).
After that Koshi says "We're going to do a Banzai, ok?" And he explained Banzai, and the audience did three banzais with the band, and then they were done.
Ryan and Becky and James and I hung out for a bit afterwards shouting at each other in Japanese, it was kinda funny. "KIKOENAI!" "NANI?" "ZENZEN KIKOENAI!" or whatever. Becky and Ryan went to buy t-shirts and I went to catch a bus home.
Played PP when I got home because I am an addict, anyway. Went on a pillage trip with Alie; we had pretty good jobbers. Russel gave us a lecture on swords, and Oro and Silverstar gave us a lecture on polyamory. No, I'm really not making this up. Anyway, the pillage trip itself went REALLY well. I feel all officer-like. And now I should sleep before I get yelled at.
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