Tuesday, February 14, 2006

A ROCK CONCERT

It was a big event in a small venue.(for me)
Last saturday, I went to Meguro in Tokyo to see the event at "LIVE STATION".
The event had 2 parts, the first part was a jam session of clasical rock music (to be exact, the jam session was not improvised. Most are covers of Japanese or overseas rock music, like WHITESNAKE, IRON MAIDEN, CREAM, LOUDNESS, BOW WOW(VOW WOW), etc.)
If you were interested in signing up to join the session, you would need to apply in advance with information about your name, the musical instruments you play and the tunes you wanted to play.
Within the deadline, if each song had been able to line up the players: a singer(s), guitar player(s), bass player, drummer, and in some songs keyboard players, the song could be put on the timetable and you could play the song.

The second part is a performance time for permanent and temporary bands. Actually, I saw only the 2nd part, because I took a long time picking out chocolates to give to my boss and colleagues, and after that my friend and I chatted in a cafe for too long. We entered the venue just when the curtain for the first part had been dropped.

However, the purpose for going there was the first band of the 2nd part: "KOZMIC RIDE". I have taken the band singer to my heart for over ten years, and I went to his concert without fail for the last three years, except when a typhoon struck Tokyo or I was in hospital.
The singer looked nice in a black shirt with silver decorative buttons and a pinstripe jacket. Every time he flung up his arm, his bare and flat(it means lean frame)
midriff appeared...it was hot but I thought I wanted to be slimmer.

Time flies. My favorite singer's performance had finished as quickly as a flash. I wanted to listen to his voice all day, so I always had a kind of void feeling when his performance ended, but it is different on this day because of the follow-on bands.
The next band was temporary but the singer, who was an ikon of Japanese progressive rock in the 80s, covered rock classics. His distinctive vocals effected a chemical change in the songs, and he dragged the audience into his music world, including me.
The last was also a temporary session band, and I gasped at the handsome drummer in it. I was suprised not that he was handsome but I might have wanted to see him(his ex-band).
He used to be the drummer of the Japanese Metal band BLIZARD, and in the 80's one of my music clubmates gave me some copy tapes of the records of BLIZARD, because he said I might have fancied the band. Actually 10 years after, because the tapes were under siege, I bought their CDs as much as possible (then the band was disbanded and some records were discontinued.)
. I had never seen how the band had played, so I was very interested in it.
But today's band was for a tribute session of LAZY which was a famous hard rock band in the 70's (actually I didn't know). The singer sung very nicely and his MC was funny. He also told the MC that he was considerate about where he stood on the stage, because he didn't want to receive complaints from the audience that they couldn't see the drummer.
The drummer surely looked cool, didn't look over 40 and had a very attractive smile.
Only a short while later I remembered he had a twin brother who was a guitar player, and the stage took on an added, bonus jam session time. Then the brother got on the stage with a guitar and they played a song of BLIZARD and he made his performance cracking and smiled just like his twin.
I was so excited but I had started a kind of challenge.

I had a plan to hand a Valentine's chocolate box to my favorite singer. Most of his audience were old and they always had a few words with him and left the venue after his concert, and I was getting to be a frequent concert goer, but to tell the truth, I had never said good-bye to him because I was shy and liked him so much. However, at that rate I would be a sort of creep or rude, because I was wanting him to get a lot more chocolates for Valentine's than anyone else, so I tried to give him a small gift.
After the exciting show, while everybody was getting ready to go, I looked around for him through the many performers in the hall, but I couldn't find him there. I thought his performance had finished early and he might have gone to the drinking party place ahead, while it was so crowded there. There was the bass player of his band, the only member of his band who was there, so I asked her to deliver the gift to him and she said she would do it with pleasure.

After that it's all done, I thought.

Watching my step, I dashed up the narrow stairs of the below ground venue. A minute after my head snapped up, I caught his eye. He was sellng their CDs with his band members.
I never imagined it would happen, so I went by them with a slight nod and guided by the law of inertia went outside.
I could return to the venue and hand the gift to him, and then I could say something to him, but I didn't.

At home, I told my husband the whole story and he laughed at me and teased me, "She gets to eat the chocolates! Ha-ha!".

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