A while ago the punk of the university, Daizo told us about a gig to come, mostly organized by him, with a few punk bands performing, including his. The date was yesterday, and it was a quite good gig, and a definitely great night. Four bands performed, none of which i knew, and we were also a bit late on the first. Yet, the party started up soon, and it was quite fun. There were classic punks with mohawks as well as “otaku punks”. The latter played the highest quality music there, but i just couldn’t get the crowd to move. Daizo’s band is him, another japanese guy and two foreign students. They played last, and least. Lots of chatting, and very few good tunes (and lots and lots of mistakes). Not the best ending after the previous bands, leaving a bad taste. After that we (Kang, Rado, Thiwanka and me, out of which i think it’s safe to say i’m the only “punk”) had a still not-that-great dinner at Matsuya (the best don is still Sukiya), but then came the change with discovering another Aladdin shisha bar there. Stayed there till the last train. Just when we arrived back i met Paul who called me to play dota. We won, but in a lame way (zero kills, 26 death). Yet the evening ended up great, and i get the feeling that today might be just as good.

I had high hopes. AC/DC is not one of my favourite bands, because most of their songs are the same, but i still know all of their old albums, and even listened to Black Ice—once, and that was more than enough. Still, as old school rock’n’rollers, i expected them to deliver a frenetic show, making me want to jump all the way to the stage and sing full power. Tremendous fail.

First, there was no show. At all. Hardly any visual effects, the lights were way too simple and/or not matching to provide any real experience, most of the projected effects were simply lame, the stage equipment, such as the intro train, the sickly disgusting Rosie doll, with the exception of the cannons for the finishing song For those about to rock (which, in my sense, should’ve come first), looked totally low quality and off. Bassist Cliff Williams and rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young were standing all the time beside the drumset, playing, only going in front to their mics when they had to for backing vocals.

Today after an afternoon of pretending to practice the songs (it wasn’t going nowhere as well as i wanted to, though i can play most of it, just mess up the rhythm all the time, and considering i’d be the rhythm guitar, that’s quite troublesome), having a really filling lunch and watching the seventh episode of the fourth Skins season, which i must tell you all, is very shocking, like very, but i’m not ms Scoledario (i was surprised that she dated O’Connell irl as well) to spoil everyone, you should just watch it, so after all this, i hurried off for Shibuya. I didn’t know where that Club Quattro was, but after finding it, i realised i’ve been in that building (although in the bookstore of the first floors) earlier.

This was my second High and Mighty Color concert. Since the last time, i got to know more of their songs, so in the roughly ninety minutes they played tonight, there was hardly a song i didn’t know. The show was great, the setlist was very powerful with a bunch of new songs, according to band members some songs having been written just for this gig. Of course they played their greatest hits (Pride, Ichirin no hana), and some that are not so much of popular hits, but are closer to me. The atmosphere was good as well, lots of jokes and laughs, which with the music, made this show what it was: great.

One thing that surprised me a lot was that both guitarists played on seven-stringed guitars. I hope they have transcribed for six-strings as well.

Yesterday i made the last class finish a bit earlier, but still i could only hear two or three songs from Each of the days, a japanese band (Tokyo Zepp is quite far from the university). It wasn’t that outstanding, and it was funny that the guitarist used the guitar i wanted to buy (very cheap) (at least it looked the same). They had two drummers, and one of them was a girl, quite unusual. Actully, i didn’t even know there were this many bands, this made the event kind of a festival, i thought it’ll only be CKY, Atreyu and In Flames. Not quite…

Then came the first break, and i met a couple of american navy people, they were long into drinking, but still really nice people. From then on i appear on a couple of photos i guess, as a “random hungarian guy”. I also got to know a japanese girl, whom i helped out when she couldn’t understand what the drunk americans were saying anymore.

Endless Hallway played really nice catchy music, sometimes with quite amazing riffs, and they all look the favourite of teenage girls way. They played for roughly half an hour, just like Each of the days before, it was just how it had to be before the bands coming after. I guess this was the time when beers started to fly.

That break i met new people again, more and more from the navy (of various countries) and japanese as well, two girls and two guys, talking away the whole break. And realised that Asahi draft is more water than beer.

On the 27th of november i went to a concert in Shibuya O-EAST, again. (Same place as the Opeth gig.) This time it was Sex Machineguns, and it was great as expected.

To start with the only bad point in the whole night, it was extremely overamplified, as usual, so i ended up stuffing tissues in my ear. (After the other Machineguns gig in may, i couldn’t hear with my left ear for three days…)

And that’s all the bad points: in every other aspect, the concert The 冠 (Kanmuri) and Sex Machineguns did was simply great.

Tuesday, the seventeenth of november in year 2009, from evening seven o’clock Opeth played a fantastic concert in Shibuya O-East, Tokyo. They played for two great hours. I can’t list all the songs in the setlist, but they mostly played songs i knew, with a few from the older records i’m not so familiar with.

Not only the music was great, as expected from (in my opinion) one of the best active progressive bands, but between songs Åkerfeldt’s hilarious comments made everyone laugh too. (It turned out Opeth renamed themselves Swedish manboobs, i’ll have to re-tag my mp3 library.)

October 9, 2009 brought my first punk concert in Japan. And it was great. The first band, SA were, are and will be the first and self-proclaimed best punk band in Japan (agreed). They did a huge show (especially considering that they’re not exactly youngsters), and i had my first moshpit experience in Japan, and it was the same as for example on Die Ärzte on last year’s Sziget. To be honest, i don’t know SA much but they made a great gig. And they were very open, Naoki, the guitarist was shaking hands and talking with fans after the end of the concert.

Rancid did great as well. They played a lot of songs that i didn’t know, which supports what i read about them somewhere on the net, that Indestructible was really just some “deviation” for them—the problem is, i loved it much… I was hoping for David Courtney or Out of control (which was on the soundtrack of NFSU) to come, but no… Whatever. They made a very professional and long concert, they even had a standing bass, which surprised even hardcore fans. I can’t tell the tracklist, but they played nice songs, there was a nice moshpit (with me in there for most of the time), and loads of bodysurfers. Of course since this was my last gig as a teenager, i had to try it out as well and it’s huge fun.

This evening with two such great punk bands worth the money and time definitely. You should regret it if you weren’t there…

Now i have a bit of time to blog the events of the past (last?) week. On tuesday, a concert, a great one of that for sure. High and mighty color in the Liquidroom of Ebisu.

I was a bit sceptical about how the gig will turn out before because, to be honest, i only knew one song of them, the former Bleach opening and hit single Ichirin no Hana. Well, i regret that now. This band is no longer a small garage-rock band with a great girl vocalist and nice ideas, but they really gave the impression of being real professionals by now. Really surprised me.

Same, the volume of the gig surprised me as well – although a totally japanese concert, it was not overamplified. It was loud, but just as loud where it’s simply just loud, and not painful. Not to mention, roaring sound power matches this music. Since then i listened to a lot of their songs, and decided that if they happen to have such cheap gigs around here any time soon, i’ll sure to be there.

I don’t know the exact tracklist of the concert, but they played all of their great hits, as far as i remember, and for my great joy, Ichirin no hana as well. Turned out to be an unexpectedly great gig.