When I got up on Sunday, pretty much the first thing I did was check the Amu Plaza Christmas Market schedule to see what music acts were supposed to be playing for the day. There was nothing listed. Lots of music on Saturday, which I missed because of work, but nothing I cared at all about. And a lot for the 25th. But, nothing for Sunday or Monday. By 4 PM, I had to get out to do some shopping, but it was starting to rain. The sky was gray and dreary. I got to Amu, and some "music club" I didn't know was just starting up. They introduced themselves as the Kagoshima version of Kouhaku (the annual music Red and White TV singing contest on NHK on New Year's Eve). Nothing all that special.
For some reason, the photos seem to be coming out grainy recently, and I don't know why. Maybe it's the lack of strong sunlight.
I went in to Seattle's Best and had a snack while reading a Japanese book on cryptography. After about 50 minutes, I came back out and discovered Bon (from Bon DX and ARTS) in the audience, and a couple of the other ARTS members standing around. I was pretty sure they were going to be up next, but instead Yoko went on stage with a young duet partner and a guitarist backup. Yoko does a good jazz and pops set, but it's usually copyrighted covers, which would be blocked by youtube, so I didn't record her set. Also, the camera had a really hard time dealing with any kind of movement, so most of the shots I took were even more blurry than normal.
I talked to the ARTS lead guitarist, and he said that they'd be going up at 6 PM. That gave me just under 50 minutes to do my shopping, get home, drop stuff off, grab an umbrella, and then get back to Amu.
I returned to the stage a few minutes before the start time, and the area was kind of packed. I had to hunt around until I found a relatively decent place to stand and take photos. The thing is, the spot was right in front of the table for selling music CDs and DVDs for the bands playing that day, and the person running it was Yoko.
Because most acts tend to play the same things over and over, I was just planning on taking a few photos and then enjoying the music. But, I didn't recognize the name of the second song, so I whipped out the camera and set it to record. The piece is very bouncy, and a lot of the audience members were bopping along to it. I noticed Yoko dancing out of the corner of my eye, and indicated if she wanted me to aim the camera at her. She nodded ok, and that's what I did. At the end of the set, I told her I'd be uploading the videos to facebook, and she gave me her card so she could see them as well. Bon also ended up introducing me to her formally, so that was cool.
As I was standing around, the lead singer of Kafka came up behind me and asked if I remembered her. We ended up talking for a few minutes as well, and again after the show ended and the stage was prepared for someone else. I needed to go home for dinner at that point, but overall, it was a much better day than I ever would have expected.
Direct youtube link to part 1
Direct youtube link to part 2
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