Summer Sonic 2008

I woke up early the morning of August 9, 2008, all for the glory of Summer Sonic Festival (I've never done this for work though :P).
I was pretty excited as I went to the Shin-Osaka station and lined up at McDonalds to buy my breakfast. I met Dio at the platform and we headed out to Maishima (Shin-Oska->Osaka, Osaka-Nishikujo, Nishikujo->Sakurajima). We arrived at around 9:00am at the registration area. I saw Shoku-chan at the beginning of the line. She was waiting for Tomo-chan
who was probably still parking their car.
We lined up for the shop because I wanted to buy an official T-shirt.(Last year I wasn't able to so I made it a point to get one this year). I was disappointed with the lack of giveaways this year.
We had lunch together with Tomo-chan, his wife came later. We didn't linger much in the Oasis area and started out to the Sonic Stage. (The alternative bands were placed in the Sonic Stage this year, last year they were in the Sky Stage).
We were able to get a small glimpse of MGMT band in their last performance and they sounded ok. The next performers was MUTEMATH. Technically the band was excellent. Also the song variety and sequence was good, they had fast-beat, heavy beat, and also slow ballad type songs. The vocalist was an epitome of energy as he sometimes stands on top of the piano rocking the crowd. He was also very tall, or maybe he looked tall because he was wearing a suit!

After MUTEMATH we tried to go to the Ocean Stage to catch 311. I didn't like 311 vocalist's body movement. He had a great bod I agree to that, but more than that, his movements are totally uncoordinated. Like what I said to Dio, he's like a body builder trying hard to ballroom dance!And his vocal range is not that great either. We only stuck around for 3 songs because it was suffocatingly hot. We then went back to the Sonic Stage(a closed coliseum type stage) to cool ourselves off. We got to see BIFFY CLYRO for a few seconds in their last song. They were only consist of 3 people but they sounded powerful. They were also very choreographed in their outfit of red leg fit pants with no top!

Next to perform were AGAINST ME! This band is probably the worst one I've heard for the whole day. They got sound balance right, but their performance and song sequence/selection suck! I don't call that music, I call it NOISE. Plain, annoying, no remarkable display of technical skills, no soul NOISE! We stayed a little longer in the Sonic Stage to cool ourselves from the
disappointment we got from the last performers. Next in line were the SUPER FURRY ANIMALS. Although we didn't stay for the whole performance, they were slightly better than the last band. But I think they had some technical problems because there was a lot of extra noise coming out. The songs did not come out clean.
We then got out of the Sonic Stage and went back to Ocean Stage to prepare for ALICIA KEYS. By this time RADWIMPS were still playing. RADWIMPS is a japanese band with a really skinny vocalist (I think he is also in love with Alicia Keys, hehehehe). They sounded really good their performance was remarkable and I think they are all technically excellent. But I think their adlibs are all scripted and not exactly spontaneous. ALICIA KEYS is an angel! She is an embodiment of perfect beauty and excellent physique, endowed with the vocal range of a diva!
For me, she is the best performer! I love her spanish version of Karma. Everytime her face is focused on that big TV near us playing the piano I could have swoon at how beautiful she is, how talented, how graceful! We ended the day with watching the first 3 songs of Fatboy Slim.
I've never seen his face before since it was never shown in any of his famous videos. He is a little older than I thought but he is a very cool old guy. It would probably feel nice to have a grandpa
like him. hehehhe.

Summer Sonic 2008 felt great, ALICIA KEYS made it all WORTH IT!
ALICIA KEYS, I LOVE YOU, my superwoman!
Note: Couldn't take any pictures of the performers because it wasn't allowed.

My First YouTube Video

Probably my last one too. hehehehe :P

Takako's Concert in Namba

Summer Sonic 2007

August 11, 2007 was one of the hottest summer day in Osaka. We, Jet, Mars and I were headed out to watch Summer Sonic in Maishima. We had a little problem getting there since we got a little lost and went out of the station eventhough we weren't supposed to. But it all worked out in the end. We were able to get to the place. There were shuttle buses that took the people to the actual venue. When people were lining up towards the shuttle bus station, I was amazed. I've never seen so many young people in Japan. I thought the country was suffering from the lack of youth, but as I saw the crowd of young people, I thought, THAT IS SO UNTRUE!

This picture was taken inside the shuttle bus heading towards Maishima.

So finally we got to Maishima and started lining up for the wristbands(They give wristbands for you in exchange for the ticket). Then we went out to look for Tomo-chan and his wife. Both of them were already lining up to buy some summer sonic official goods. We lined up for a while also but lost patience and finally gave up and went out of the line and just asked Tomo-chan to buy stuff for us while we went out to look for some food.

This picture was taken after we lined up for the wristbands.

Mars, me, Jet and Shoko-chan (Tomo-chan's wife) after lunch at the parking lot.

The event had many sponsors and most of them were giving away stuff. I got around 3 towels, one from Tower Records, 2 from Docomo then I also bought one official Summer Sonic towel.

Maishima had 5 stages. We mostly stayed at the Sky Stage were most of the alternative bands performed like Hinder, Avenged Sevenfold and The OffSpring.

This is Sky Stage with Hinder performing at the back.

This is the Sky Stage after Hinder's performance.
The most surprising performer for me during that day was Cindy Lauper. I admit that I was pretty curious as to how she will sing in the concert. I knew that she's NOT young anymore. When she came out for the first song she was wearing a black wig. She looked like an older Ashlee Simpson in it but when she sang, it was just AWESOME! Her voice didn't change throughout the years. It was unbelievable that she could carry out all the hight pitch parts of her song, flawlessly! From then on, I have gathered a new profound respect for her. She is one awesome and powerful performer. She might not have the same incredible physique as Madonna, and she dances really weird too...but in overall performance and voice quality, SHE STILL ROCKS!

Minamikata Karaoke!

June 15, 2007, "Thank God it's Friday!" For the rest of my スリマスター colleagues, they are probably saying something different like "Thank God, it's payday!"
We had plans to go to Karaoke later that day and so I was very excited. I've always loved karaoke. Even if I can't carry out a single note properly, it never discouraged me to shout and sing my heart out. I'm quite the boldface one when it comes to the hoarding the microphone. hehehe. :P

At around 8:30 PM we arrived at the Karaoke place which was on top of Mos Burger near Minamikata Station of the Hankyu Line. The party consisted of Taku-chan, Naoki-chan, Tanabe-san and of course, me! The food arrived not long after we sat down and we started munching while browsing the pages for songs to sing.
After stuffing ourselves we started the singing streak. This time I discovered another secret star powered singer! Before it was Yoshi-san when I had an all girl night out in Namba. This time it's Taku-chan. May it be an English or a Japanese song, name it and he can sing it!

And I don't mean just the literal type of singing, I'm talking about a performance level type of singing! Way to go Taku-chan, keep at it! Maybe someday you might even earn more money through singing than tapping the keyboard.

Naoki-chan was another surprise when we sang Mariah Carey's Hero song together. It's refreshing to discover a guy who can sing a Mariah Carey song and a Japanese one at that. He might look a little boyish/girlish because of his hair (I call him a girly boy :P) but he's a really sweet guy. :)



Tanabe-san didn't sing a single song that night. He owes me a whole set of songs. It's probably really hard to convince this guy to sing since sober or drunk, he said he never sings...hmmmmm...
It was another great night of full fun, new discoveries and money consumption. It was worth every cent even if I go poor for the rest of the week. ;)

Shin Osaka Jammin'

I've always wanted to go to a jam session eversince I started listening to band music.
And finally my wish came true on the night of February 17. I went to Shiera and Jet's aparment carrying my case along with me. I got there around 8:00PM. Yuri and Diobert were already there.
It was really nice since Sheira and Jet's apartment was sound proof so even if we made a lot of noice through the wee hours of the morning nobody called the police on us.
We started the session with "Planetarium". This is the one of the songs from "Hana Yori Dango" series which is oftened played during Domyouji's lonesome moments. We also listened to some other songs that we wanted to play which included Goong's OST, Splender and Yellowcard.
People finally got worn out at around 3 am so we slept for a while there and went out early in the morning. I got to the apartment 8am the next day. I kinda' felt like a drunkard coming home at that kind of hour.