Asakasa Blitz [Livehouse] Wherever We Will Go, Whatever We Will Do.

One day left before we leave this beautifull land.

Well I've always said I wanted to visit a Livehouse here in Japan. After some missed chance, today I had my chance. Initially I thought of going to livehouses to see some indies-bands. But the thing is, I don't got much info on which bands are good. So I don't want to waste my time and money seeing some band I don't like. So I head out on the net to search for the LIVE-performance-dates of the bands I like. I checked Asian Kung-Fu Generations site, and it appears they will perform in a rock festival called ROCK ROCK Sendai, in Sendai. Lucky me! I thought, but this happy feeling soon faded away once I discovered the tickets were all sold out.

So too bad, zannen desu. I continued to search for some live performances. I did all of these yesterday, so I really really had to be lucky to find something within the 3 days I was still here.

So a few days I ago I bought the AKFG albums along with Stereopony's debut album, so I decided to check their site. And guess what, they were gonna give a last final perfomance of their Tour on 22 August today!

After the usuall internet info-babelfish-translator hassle, I finally managed to find my way to this Livehouse/Venue called Asakasa Blitz located in...Asakasa. Some place near Harajuku, where I transfered to the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line. (From our main transport line, the Yamanote Line)

And I got my ticket!
And today also, I had my portion of Japanese conversation! Once again the Livehouse-staff didn't knew English, so there goes my badly Japanese again. Using keywords and short sentences I once again succeeded in managing to get (the most) things understood.

I got my ticket at 15.00 We were supposed to line up at 16.00, but everyone was already lining up at 15.30 At first I was lining up in the wrong que "-___- I had a B-rank ticket, but I lined up in the A-rank line. Yeah stupid, but it doesn't matter since I still needed to wait anyways, cause mine ticket was bought late, so I was one of the few last to go in. That's no problem really, cause I still managed to get a good place.
So I got in, and photos were not allowed. So I'm sorry. No photos.
But it was a splendid Live!
It was their last concert in their whole tour, and since this was their first tour (they just started out, just released debut album a while ago) it got a bit emotional at the end. AIMI the vocalist + guitarist started to have watery eyes at the ending speech. At one moment she paused, and some people from the crowd were shouting: Ganbatte! Ganbatte! =P

So yeah, it was a nice day. Bought some Tour Goods as well, The T-shirt and Towel. I also got the poster (but you needed to buy the new single to get the poster, so I was in shopping spree anyways, so I got that one as well) (Below left are some free flyers, then you got the towel and shirt, and the poster + new single. The album I already bought it a few days ago)

Okay one of the last posts of Japan. We might get emotional too tomorrow haha. I still have a lot of blog material, food photos! etc.

Wherever we will go, whatever we will do, we've all posted in our blogs.
(Still a lot of photos not posted, but maybe that will be bonus material after Japan. If anyone still comes here, but I guess not, so I'll post everything tomorrow!)

Bye! Ja mate! Tomorrow last day!

Bonus photos:

This shrine is just around our corner, and tonight they seemed to have a sort of festival.

Wonder how we iron our clothes? Well with this small iron-set! We actually just used it once. (you got to asked to borrow it at the frontdesk of the appartment)

Zushi Fes'09 [Summer Days!!]

Wednesday 12 August [Zushi Live Festival 2009 @ Kamakura, Zushi]

It had always been a plan of me to visit some live music festivals (or live houses) when I'm in Japan. The perfect festival was RockInJapan Festival. Which is a pretty big festival with a lot of japanese bands and artist. And most importantly, YUI performs there too. But unfortunately the festival was held on 31/7, 1/8 and 2/8. Whereas we already got our flight tickets for 3/8. So that was a real pity. Anyway, decided to go to this Zushi Festival. Which was a rather small one with only 2 stages (or actually 1.5 stage"-__-) . But still, it had some great artists peforming like Ai Otsuka (photo below)

And Do As Infinity! The tickets were bought at Family Mart (Combini,Convience Store). With help from the storeguy. Buying tickets seems to be pretty easy in Japan, they got a machine where you can select the events from and insert money to buy it.

Now having the ticket, the next step was to actually get there. The description was written on the site asto how to go there, but the site itself was in Japanese. So at times like these, BabelFish is your best friend, for some raw translation.

It was pretty far. All the way at Kamamura, which was near Yokohoma (near Tokyo). Lucky they got shuttle busses taking you there. These shuttle busses would be picking you up at Kamakura station. So knowing that, All I needed to do was to go to Kamakura station. (Which took like more than 4 hours! From Osaka to Shin Osaka = 15 min. Shin Osaka to Shin Yokohama = 2 hours 45 min Shin Yokohama to Yokohama = 15 min. Yokohama to Kamakura = 40 Min. Kamakura to Zushi = 10 min.

Kamakura itself is a pretty old-styled small town. Zushi however, located at the seaside, is a pretty upclass place. Reminds me of Monaco or Miami (sort off)(Or maybe it's because of the palmtrees)

At last I got there!

It was time to go in, but a slightly little problem occured. When you go in you'll get the usuall wristbands. There were 2 colors, Blue and Red. With red you'll get acces to the front-row-area. Whereas Blue wristbands holders couldn't get as close to the stage. I was supposed to get a red one. But they didn't got any anymore (such bad organisation). So they gave out these to everyone. A sticker which you must stick to your shirt or somewhere. This wasn't a big problem untill I lost the sticker that is..."-__- (even though they weren't really checking that much)

There were already some artists performing, So I missed those. But it didn't matter, cause the most anticipated band for me was Do As Infinity.

I got to the Palmtree Stage which was right next to the sea.

The back-row-area.

The band of Do As Infinity tuning the instruments

After a while, the Guitarist of D.A.I appeared first, Ryo Owatari.
Then after him came Van Tomiko. Everyone was excited. Right from the first song, which was SUMMER DAYS, everyone was enthousiasticly jamming along. ,
I didn't took any photos of it, since I was enjoying the music myself =P

They ended with 本日ハ晴天ナリ.

Well after this, I went to check out the other "stage" as you can call it that. Which was actually a stage at the swimming pool. With all the crowd in the water.

So like a lot of people were swimming, sunning and stuff.

Also a place to eat. Everyone sitting under cover for the sun, enjoying the day.

They also got Turkish food in Japan. (Durum)

PE'Z, a Jazz band perfoming. Pretty upbeat.

After PE'Z was done, people started to come in again, To get a nice place to see the next big artist. Do you know who it is?
It's.............Ai Otsuka!! There she is. When she came upstage you heared the usuall screaming:"Ai-Chaaaan!!"

It's really her!

More photos. I must say, the crowd wasn't as excited as with Do As Infinity. But Otsuka herself was stunning though. Great live singing!

The crowd did became enthousisiastic afterwards though.

After Ai Otsuka, it was already kind of late. I still needed to go all the way back to.

But I decided that once I'm here, I might as well stay a bit longer.

Here's at that other stage with カラーボトル. (Me not really interested...)

I actually wanted to wait for J-Min, I don't know her but wanted to check it out. So I chilled a bit and waited. (In the end didn't seen her)

People resting/chilling.

So relaxfull at the seaside.

With palmtrees.

Sitting on the grass watching the sea.

Resting from the world.

The sun is shining.

Back to music! Triceratops performing. Look at the videos I posted below to get a feel of it.

Or check here Zushi Fes '09 & Zushi Fes '09 (Yeah)

Time to go back again.

Small Town.

Back at the station, look how crowded it is. So many people.

When I got to Shin-Yokohama, I needed to wait 1 hour for my next train to arrive. So I walked a bit in this 'Cubicplaza' which has 'Bic Camera', a 7 floor electronics store! (it even rhymes...)

So well, it was a nice day. Nice live music. Great live perfomances. Nice place. I enjoyed it.

I think the best performance was D.A.I's .

"Summer days, they have never been the same"

(Do As Infinity, Summer Days)