Osaka - Tokyo

Randy sort of woke us up eary in the morning when he returned from a long Saturday night out on one of the first Sunday morning trains. We eventually got up and ready to head to the train. After a while of trying to shake our host awake to say goodbye, we left a note and headed on our way. We boarded the 10am train to Tokyo and arrived early afternoon.

Tokyo Station was amost as busy as a weekday rush hour, though instead of OLs and salarymen with briefcases it was full f folks dressed up with picnic paraphenalia on their way to a park for hanami. Sitting on a tarp in a park eating and drinking under the cherry blossoms sounded great, but instead of heading to the freak park (Harajuku) to partake we went to Nakano to eat and drop our stuff off at Daraghs.

I decided I was sure I could find Miso Ichi for lunch and hoped I could remember what Yuki had ordered for us. After I purchased the beer and soup tickets from the machine and handed them over to the cook he didn't seem sure we wanted the amount of spice in it, we nodded our heads yes and tried to indicate that spicy was what we wanted. The soup was great again, tho I think they skimped on the spice a bit. Sitting next to us were two 8 year olds really enjoying their noodles, slurping every bite. They also were sweating profusely, it looked like they had just run a marathon. I think they were suffering from the effects of the spiciest noodles.



We dropped our bags at Daragh's and headed to Nishi Ogikubo station, hoping we could remember where Watts was from 2 years previous. We did okay, eventually catching half a glimpse of someone with a mohawk from a block away. As it turned out the club hadn't even let the bands in yet, and so we hung out all afternoon drinking outside. The show actually started pretty late for Tokyo standards, 7pm or so, but as we were early in line there were no hassles getting inside, and it wasn't actually too crowded inside.

APRIL 10 NishiOgikubo Watts, Tokyo

HAZARD
Aloha from HAZARDous microphone stand. Would be a great fit with Kensington Market bands and were altogether good. The Mr. T clone singer managed to wipe me out when he barrelled into the crowd near the end of the set and then hit Craig in the head with his microphone at the sets conclusion. I pity the fool….indeed! The drummer from Vivisick helped extricate me from the microphone stand and asked 'Are you safe?', I thought I was but maybe not.
GOUKA
Great kinetic energy as they looked ready to explode at any moment. The faces made by the drummer and singer as they rocked their amazing japcore set were equally entertaining.



GAUZE
This band went off like an explosion. I had been up front for the start of it but ran out of film, hence the photos I took being crap. With the amount of energy the band could maintain through a solid and long set it was great to see the crowd keep up, even if some of us had asthmatic interruptions. At one point they blew a fuse and the drums continued in the dark, with the crowd singing along. Their US tour shows can’t compare as this crowd was screaming every word of every song and some people had very tasteful and visible band tattoos. GAUZE attracted the most even male to female ratio and the women dominated the upfront chaotic stage area. It was wild to see them in a venue about triple the size of Planet Kensington.



COLORED RICE MEN
Great set but why the fuck would you play after GAUZE? We probably would have left for some much needed fresh air but part of our camera was missing. It smelled terrible when we peeled it off the floor.

We headed back to Nakano to get ready for our early morning trek to the Shinkansen.