that foreign music blog🌎

In the middle of a fairly hot Japanese summer, I was pleased by the convenience of attending an indoor festival.

Yes, you read that correctly. AN INDOOR. MUSIC. FESTIVAL. Now, how this was organized was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. To start, it was held right smack in the middle of Shibuya, in an area that was sort of…in the back of an alleyway. There were five venues lined up against one another with signs pointing in each direction. There were even some guides on the way to the venue, which made it easier to find than I anticipated.  It wasn’t in the most obvious location and looked like somewhere that you’d stumble onto by accident on a drunken walk home.

I thoroughly enjoyed the energy each act put out, especially with 2 this time around. They always put on a great show, but they could really improve with their stage work. I was sort of ranting to my friend about it after the concert: while it’s important to play well doing live shows, the entertainment aspect also must be there. I mean, if I just wanted to hear the song, I would’ve stayed home. I’m not a musician, but as an audience member, the reason I go to so many concerts is to experience the band’s energy. That’s also why I prefer seeing a band live for the first time, rather than hearing the CD.

There are three performances that left an impression, each for different reasons. I’ll start with オメでたい頭でなにより. With such a unique band name, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I headed into the fairly empty venue, the sparse amount of fans all donning band t-shirts. There was still a half-hour, but because their set was during the earlier half, I didn’t expect there to be many people. It wasn’t until I noticed the stage prop, a Daruma-san that’d been placed so discretely near the drums, that I had a better idea of what might appear on that stage. Generally, bands that use props are more theatrical and I expected that during the show, I’d be following some elaborate choreography that only the cult of fans will have memorized.

I wasn’t disappointed, to say the least. When the band walked out in their modernized traditional Japanese clothing, glimmering with gold and glitter, I picked up my bag in the fear that a mosh pit would break out in any moment. I flinched back as the fans rushed to the front of the stage and watched with curiosity. I reacted to the band’s dance cues accordingly and clapped, but it wasn’t until towards the end that I found myself headbanging along during their heavy metal breakdowns in the midst of their sugary Visual Kei appeal.  “Visual Kei” is a style in Japan that’s kind of like an extreme costume of bright makeup, voluminous hair, and memorable outfits. Such bands tend to have a theme; sometimes it’s light and cute, other times it’s really dark. The vocalists also tend to use vibrato, though I’m not sure if that’s just a coincidence. While I wouldn’t say this band is Visual Kei, I feel that they were likely influenced by it.  They feel a little bit like a toned-down SuG.

For the last song, the fans welcomed me in to dance in the giant circle we’d formed, bringing everyone in the venue together. Paired with the elaborate choreography we performed and the acrobatic fan that’d started flipping around during a breakdown, I felt extremely satisfied by the end of the performance. I’m not sure I’ll get their album to be honest, but I figure that I should at least learn a few of their songs for their next concert.

The next band in mind played towards the end of the setlist: Humpback. The venue was so packed that I braced myself to be pushed and squeezed for the entirety of the performance. In a sense, I was looking forward to it, especially after seeing so many Humpback t-shirts and towels in the audience. We all waited through the performance before Humpback, and then the half-hour transition. As the three-man-band set up their instruments, occasionally waving to the anxious audience, I was beginning to feel apprehensive about being so close to the stage. I thought maybe it’d be best to move towards the back, but I also didn’t want to lose my spot, so I endured the ever-growing number of people. Once the band entered for their official start, I held my backpack close but found that it was unnecessary.

Despite the excellent show these girls put on, they were met by an entirely unresponsive audience. Even during their crowd favorites like “星丘公園“, which I feel was the song that really put them on the charts, the energy of the three girls quickly dissipated across the quieted crowd. However, after experiencing the riled up teto fans, pushing and slamming into each other a few artists later, I realized that it may not be the fans who are completely to blame.

teto is a band that has always excelled at working the crowd. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that they have faster songs, but there’s just something really different about the atmosphere these four guys give off, and I think that’s ultimately what allows the audience to go wild.

Take the video for “暖かい都会から“; between the clips of the band standing still, there are small bursts of energy that lend a genuine sense of freedom. This is true for all their songs, and it could simply boil down to how the band expresses themselves through their music. There is something that’s very raw and honest about them, which may be what makes connecting to the audience a bit easier. While I can’t catch most of the lyrics, I can definitely feel what is being conveyed. teto is a band that thrives on strong emotion, and that’s likely what makes their performances so energetic. One example of this is their song “Pain Pain Pain“. When performed live, no one can really follow or even sing along so well, yet it’s guaranteed that a moshpit will break out. I suppose the point that the band is trying to make with these fast-lyric-songs is that what is being said isn’t as important to them as HOW it’s being said. I suppose that’s why Humpback fans were as quiet as they were; they were listening to the story of the song, whereas teto’s fans are encouraged to feel it. And while I realize that wanting to listen to a song without being beaten to a bloody pulp is a reasonable request, I was still extremely disappointed in the stark difference between how the bands were received. In a sense, it seemed a little unfair, but this is my Western bias. Ultimately I’m living in a foreign country and I can’t judge how a culture enjoys their music. STILL…..BIAS OR NOT, its something that will probably always annoy me.