The Gig

Ok, sorry for this blog being a bit late again, but I have been busy as usual.

Nothing really happened during the week until Thursday where me and Ayae went for a meal with 2 of her friends. We went to a nearby curry restaurant where they offer all you can eat on naan bread, every Thursday. This was obviously awesome for me, as I demolished 4 naan breads. Then I went home and felt sick.

On Friday I was called in to work, to replace a sick teacher. This went ok although I timed it a bit wrong and got there with 3 minutes to prepare. Somehow, on my blagging skills I managed to get through the day but in 1 lesson, I literally didn’t know what I was meant to do. I managed to find some Christmas related flash cards to play a game with, but the rest of the lesson was just made up on the spot.

Luckily my last lesson, which was a 1 hour adult lesson cancelled and so I was able to go home early.

On Saturday I went to work as usual, and came straight home to prepare for the party. Last week I had met this American, Raul at the Izakaya who invited me to his end of year party at the school he ran. I was going to go with Ayae, my friend Callie, and her friend Eri.

To find where the school was I checked out his website, which had pictures of previous parties. All seemed to have a heavy emphasis on the food, so I was really looking forward to it. I was not disappointed. They had a turkey, as well as loads of other dishes such as meatballs, tandoori chicken, salads, tofu dishes, oysters and pizza. There was a pretty expensive entrance fee to get into the party, but given the amount and quality of food, it was definitely worth it.

After the first and main courses they brought out the cakes which were really amazing. There was like 8 of them! There were chocolate logs, Victoria logs, strawberry tart, cream puffs, fruit tart and loads of cakes I don’t know the names of. Anyway it was proper sweet.

The party itself for me mainly consisted of me and Callie trying to speak Japanese to these guys, and trying to explain the principle of the `Big fish, little fish, cardboard box` dance. Which was pretty difficult.

Before leaving for the party, I had picked up some Chu-Hi which is kind of like a Japanese alco-pop, except it’s a lot stronger. After finishing them off, Raul came round with shots of Shochu, a Japanese liquer, which was tasty but in retrospect not a great move.

Everyone at the party was really cool, and for the most part, Japanese. I think the idea of the party is that students at Rauls school get a chance to practice their English on genuine gaijin. As a result, gaijin had a half price entry (Which was still pretty expensive mind!). I think this is a great idea as alcohol is a great social lubricant, so the students can get a lot of practice for their English skills, but still have fun.

After the party, we went our separate ways although many of the teachers and students lived quite near us. Callies friend Eri, had driven to the party and very kindly gave us a lift home, which was awesome cos the taxis are so expensive in Japan.

The next day I somehow avoided a hangover, and went shopping with Ayae in Nagoya for my Christmas present. On Monday I had gone to a jewellery store to buy hers, a pinky ring which she had carefully decided upon the week before. It was a little expensive tho so Ayae agreed to buy something of the same value for me. I had decided a while ago that I was gonna buy a Nintendo DS at some point, as they had a special Japanese teaching program that I thought would be really helpful (and also Im still a kid really and love video games!).

After buying the DS and a couple of accessories, we went to a book shop so that Ayae could do some shopping. I was getting a bit bored, so Ayae gave me a magazine with a list of the bands that would be playing Japan soon. To my surprise I saw that Rage Against The Machine were playing Osaka in February. I figured the tickets must be sold out, but upon ringing found that there were some left. After checking that it definitely was THE Rage Against The Machine, I immediately booked one, then bought one for my friend Sam as well.

Rage are one of those bands I never thought Id be able to see live (they broke up 7 years ago), and although I heard they reformed for a couple of festivals I thought they were just special occasions, as had heard no news of any dates in the UK. I have since found out they are only touring Japan and Australia so feel very privileged to have this opportunity to see them. They are probably top of my list of bands I want to see live, so I have had a spring in my step all week.

On Monday it was back to school, although this was my last Monday before Christmas which was a relief as Mondays are my hardest day.

On Tuesday I went to school again although it was just for an hour to observe one of the classes I would be taking on from next year. After work, I headed to Nagoya city to buy a game for my newly purchased DS. After much deliberation, I eventually decided on a `Bleach` game, taken from the popular anime series. After that I headed to Imaike to meet my friend Callie. She`s been wanting to find some live music for a while, and I had found out about a band called Hawaiian 6 who were gonna be playing in Nagoya, and arranged sometime ago to meet and go to the gig with her.

I had also found out that unfortunately all the advance tickets had sold out. When we got there we queued for about half an hour in a queue that turned out to be for merchandise. We eventually managed to get in just after the first support band started. It seems they wait until the bands start then if theres room let more people in (at a far more expensive price mind!).

Unfortunately, in this case there wasn’t really enough room but we were let in anyway. As we tried to push open the door to the floor area there was a huge resistance. Eventually I got my head round the corner, and found that it was so packed, people were crushed against the entrance door making it nearly impossible to open. After some heavy pushing we (and the rest of the latecomers) got in and then ourselves were crushed against the door. To make matters worse, because me and Callie had both just come from work we both had backpacks, and being as there were no cloakrooms, found ourselves in a bit of a squeeze.

The underground room was tiny, about the size of 2 living rooms, but there must have been more than a hundred people there. The surprising thing for me was that it wasn’t just packed with people at the front, it was like that all the way to the back (although the back was only about 10 rows back to be fair). Ive taken pictures from where I stood both in front of me and behind me to highlight this (although I should say the one of the people behind me was taken between bands and thats why everyone looks a bit bored). In the UK a place like this would be shut down as a health and safety nightmare, but everyone was really safe so it wasn’t really a problem. Dread to think what would happen if there was a fire though….

The first band was pretty good, slightly cheesy Stones-esque rock n roll that you could nod ur head to (well you couldn’t do much else given the crush). After that some bloke called Ganja came on and everyone went mental. He was like the MC of the evening and people loved him. I couldn’t really work out what he was saying, but at the end of it, the audience cheered for him to down a pint of Guiness.

After that a band called No Rebound came on, and there was a massive surge to the front. No Rebound were a really awesome punk band, and the crowd went absolutely nuts. As soon as they started, the room started moshing and there were people crowd surfing everywhere. The club seemed to actively encourage moshing, and within about 5 minutes I had sweat out my body weight. I was holding my bag by one strap, and bouncing round the whole room. Since I had run out of money earlier, I had withdrew like all my savings from my Japanese account (it’s a real chore to find an ATM for my bank and didn’t want to have to find another one again). So all my savings were in my bag, as well as my new DS game, and my suit for work. As a result I was rather concerned with losing it and so couldn’t really stash it.

After No Rebound finished, Ganja came on and downed another pint of Guiness. Then, Hawaiian 6 came on stage to Dancing Queen by Abba, which was a bit weird as they were a speed punk band. Anyway as soon as they started the place went even more crazy and everyone was crowd surfing again. On several occasions people tried to put me up there, but given my backpack situation, I figured it wasn’t a good idea. It broke my heart, but unfortunately I couldn’t join in with those crazy Japanese kids.

Despite this I had a really awesome night. Hawaiian 6 are one of those bands I wouldn’t listen to at home, but live they are amazing, and such good fun. As I left, my shirt was absolutely soaked with sweat, and covered in footprints from the numerous crowd surfers. In fact even after washing it, the stains are still there.

Unfortunately I missed the train I needed to get as the band went on about 3 minutes longer than I wanted them to, so I had to walk home. Luckily I could change into my work clothes to get home, as my T-shirt was well rank. Eventually I got home, took a shower and went to sleep.

Ok, that’s about it for this week. Next week is Christmas, and me and Ayae are jetting off to Okinawa on Christmas day. We come back on the 27th, so look out for a blog around the 29th or 30th.

Until then, Peace.

Jack

P.S The organizers of the gig made an announcement that we couldn’t take pictures shortly after I had taken a couple. As a result I don’t have many to show. Please enjoy this movie of No Rebound though, as evidence of how mental it was. Look out for the pair of vertical legs that crop up now and then!