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.

Today was simply fantastic. Even though we were late for the Stratovarius concert, it was so far the best concert i’ve been to for a very long time. Songs like Rest in peace or Higher we go (just to mention the first two that came to my mind now) made me shout at the top of my voice (i was actually surprised i could keep up with Kotipelto’s range), so after a gig it was pretty hard to talk, but it definitely worth it, this concert would’ve worth quite much anything! My first really good metal concert for a year, and this one was simply ecstatic. Because we were late (so sorry about that) i don’t know if they played Dreamweaver or Hunting high and low, my two favourite songs, i can only hope not—i could hardly forgive myself for being late then. The concert was for short: perfect. It was finally not overamplified like most of the gigs i’ve been to in Japan. And i had a great experience… After the last song, Kotipelto asked if we could count to four in Finnish, for them to bow after that. Naturally silence among the japanese, when i realised that i could count to four in Finnish! “Yksi, kaksi, kolme, neljä!” I went shouting out, visibly surprising the band, but then they saw that i was “apparently a westerner”. So fun! I want to learn Finnish! (And i think that’s the only language i ever wrote with a capital letter here in the blog.) (If anyone interested, i learnt the numbers from my father and the Nils Holgersson book, where the geese were named with Finnish numerals if i remember right.)

In Kichijoji’s Silver Elephant there’s a series of concerts every year, titled Progressive live. In may i went to a concert there, which headlined the same band as yesteday’s: TEE (The Earth Explorer), a japanese flute-fronted progressive rock band. Yesterday the other two bands were the japanese Baraka and their friends from France, Eclat.

TEE was as good as expected, they played a new song as well, and they had the only vocals on the whole evening, in Col de l’Iseran (though not much of lyrics, but vocals anyway). Baraka was a surprise for me, i expected something louder and wilder than TEE, but instead got a really quiet, more jazzish, more Pink Floydish music. Eclat were really as pro as Yoneda Katsumi, the guitarist of TEE said they would be. They had a lot of fun on stage, they played great and longer than i’d have guessed from the japanese standards.

Naturally the whole evening was just as over-amplified as expected in this country, but after stuffing half a tissue in my ears i could avoid permanent hearing impairment (?). This evening definitely worth the money and the time – great concerts.