As I've mentioned before, the live music events at the Amu Plaza Christmas Market this year have been scaled way back from what they were just last year. There's nothing during the week, and only a few performances on Saturdays and Sundays, each. I had to work pretty much all Saturday, but there wasn't really anything on the schedule that I had any interest in. I did want to visit Tenmonkan on Sunday, on my way up to Amu Plaza for the Bon DX live stage at 5 PM. So, I spent a couple hours in Tenmonkan, from 2 PM to a little before 4 PM. When I got to Amu, Bon was setting up, and then doing a bit of rehearsal before the main set.
I expected to record the entire main set, so I took a bunch of photos during the rehearsal to have something to use for the blog.
Sado, the sax player, was particularly campy at this point, which was unusual for him.
One thing worth commenting on was that the sound engineer had an eye patch. I'm hoping it's not for something more serious than just getting some ash in her eye.
After they finished rehearsing, the band disappeared somewhere. I was planning on staking out a spot and holding it until 5 PM, because people had kept getting between me and the band just now. To kill the time, I was leaning against the artifical "tree," reading the latest volume of Attack on Titan, when a guy with a webcam suddenly ran past me, followed by a woman in full mime makeup.
I moved to get out of the webcam guy's field of vision, then took a couple shots of the mime. She had the Charlie Chaplin walk down pat, and she'd go around, trying to mess with the shoppers (standing behind them and pretending to look at the goods in the carts). It was fun watching her, but she moved too fast for the camera.
A few minutes later, another 10 women came out in blond wigs and heavy makeup. They took up positions around the tree, and then put on a short musical play that was a twist on the Nutcracker Suite (a young boy living alone is visited by the spirit of Christmas - the mime - and he gets to watch a bunch of dolls wake up and dance for him). I did take video, but there were so many people between me and the dancers that most of the action was blocked off. I'm hoping that they might perform tomorrow, too.
The dancers were pretty good. Unfortunately, at least one of the key songs struck me as being something copyrighted from the U.S., and it'd probably get blocked if I uploaded the video to youtube or facebook.
It was one of the best sets I've seen Bon do so far. It was a bit unusual in that he mixed his "hobby" band members with his more "professional" backing guys from ARTS (the drummer, and the trumpet player). Sado, the sax man, plays in both groups. The place was packed, and I had a lot of fun recording it. Check out the videos below. After the set ended, I tried talking to the trumpet player to say that I liked seeing him in ARTS about a year ago, then I asked for a photo with him. I had to give the camera to a bystander, and she kind of messed up the shots. The two here are the best of when she took.
The next group up was the JSB orchestra again, at 6 PM. My original plan had been to have dinner at a restaurant, so I went home to prepare for that. We'd had heavy rain earlier in the afternoon, but that cleared off by 4 PM, helping make it look like we'd have dinner out. But, after I got home, my plans changed, and I had to have dinner inside. Instead, I spent the rest of the evening processing all the photos (120+) and video (30 minutes) I'd taken, and typing up these blog entries.
Bon has another live set at Amu on Monday at 5 PM, and I'm really hoping to be able to get to that. In general, Bon plays the same songs all the time, but he may change things up a little with one or two other songs that I like. I'll record those, but otherwise I'm just going to try taking lots of stills to see if I can get a couple I like.
Direct link 1
Direct link 2
Direct link 3
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