Amu Plaza Christmas Market, Dec. 24

I wasn't able to get to Amu Plaza on Monday until 4:30 PM. Nothing was going on then, so I read manga to kill time until Bon DX started their set at 5 PM. As they were finishing their set-up, I approached Bon to find out how much of the set was going to be different material from Sunday. My initial plan was to assume that it was going to be all repeats, and then just concentrate on taking lots of stills to cherry-pick from. But, he answered back that most of the set would be new songs, with only 2 or 3 repeats. So, I took my photos during the first 2 songs, and recorded the rest (see below).



After everything was over, I went home to process the shots and upload the videos to both Facebook and youtube. Oddly, when I was checking Facebook a little later, I got a notice that Bon was hosting a streaming video watching party. Clicking on the link, I discovered that it was one of my videos, and he'd added a note saying "Thank you, Mr. Curtis." That was cool. Only 11 people were watching it at the time, but it was still cool.









Overall, it was a great set. Not as energy-filled, or crowded as Sunday's, but it did have my favorite Bon DX song - Higashi-e, Nishi-e (To the East, To the West), so that was good.



Yoko was working the CD sales table, trying to get people to buy the Christmas Market compilation CD, "Gift." Bon DX had one or two songs on it, and I would have considered buying a copy if it wasn't going for 2,000 yen ($19 USD).



Another reason for not buying the CD when I had the chance was that the mime dance group that had performed before Bon's Sunday set suddenly started up a new performance as Bon was tearing down their gear on Monday. I recognized the woman on the right as the Charlie Chaplin-inspired mime, and ran to get the best seat in the house at the front of the tree. It was a different storyline and greatly scaled-down, with just the 5 dancers pictured here. Shoji, the guy, played a wind-up toy that suddenly gets a chance to move like a human, but when the music ends, he turns into the toy again. That was followed by the rest of the group doing a happier "let's give everyone presents" dance. At the end of that, they handed out candies to the children, and one woman in the audience got some kind of a gift certificate (although, she may have been a stooge). When everything was over, I tried talking to one of the female dancers, and it turns out that the group is made up of members of something like 3 different dance studios, and they regularly perform at various events like this. I talked to Shoji, too (he'd just come back from spending time in L.A.), and he commented along the lines of possibly contacting me if they decide to re-record the Nutcracker remake they'd performed the day before. Nothing may come from this offer, but who knows. Unfortunately, both Facebook and youtube flagged the copyrighted music in the video I uploaded, and the audio is muted in the third file below. Sigh.

Direct video link 1


Direct video link 2


Direct video link 3