Chapter 8: Watching the Sunday gang in Harajuku (6/5/6)

Seems like I bought the ticket ages ago, but last night I finally saw Belle & Sebastian in Tokyo. I’ve been looking forward to this gig more than anything. When it comes to music here, I’m seriously in my own universe. Some people may know some bands here and there, but in general when we talk music, I’m talking to myself. So I was hoping this gig would be a bit of a relief.

And it was! It was like taking a pilgrimage to my Mecca. I was finally surrounded by people like me. The gig was held at Shinagawa Prince Stellar Hall, which is well, in Shinagawa. There is this whole “prince” area of Shinagawa, so I figured the venue must be around there. So I went down there at about 1pm to find the venue, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I asked several people, and they had no idea what I was talking about. I was about to call a friend to come help me, but then I saw a Japanese guy with a shirt that said “Scotland’s for me!” So I went and asked him. Sure enough, he told me exactly where it was, and we actually had a good chat in Japanese. Funny enough, the venue was actually in the aquarium. Walking in there were fish tanks all over, but sadly none in the actual concert area. How cool would that have been?

At that point, I decided to go to Harajuku. It just seemed appropriate. It was Sunday, it was the day of a Belle & Sebastian gig, and plus Harajuku just plain rules. So I went and watched the Sunday gang in Harajuku, hoping that I would see Belle & Sebastian, but alas, no luck. The gig was scheduled to start at 6pm, so I headed back to Shinagawa around 5ish to get in line. I got back, and there were a a few people lined up, but nothing too serious. But at 5:30 they started letting people in, and Belle & Sebastian took the stage at the strike of 6pm. No opening acts or anything. Quite strange, really.

While waiting in line, I met a great little girl named Naoko. She is 21, originally from Fukushima prefecture up north but now goes to school at Waseda in Tokyo. She was there by herself, and I was there by myself, so we decided to watch the show together. For having never left Japan, she spoke quite good English. There was this like, sudden rush of calling numbers of tickets, and I thought I almost lost her for a second. Everyone had to get into order by letter and ticket number. We had like, a rush to try to swap phone numbers so we could find each other inside, but then we looked at our tickets, and realized that she was B16, and I was B17. There were some 6000 people there, what are the odds of us being right next to each other...kinda crazy. So we decided to swap numbers after the gig.

So we go in, and were in there for no more than 15 minutes before the band took the stage. And as expected, they were wonderful. The band came out with Japanese World Cup scarves on, and started a little “NIPPON!” chant. They started off with a few songs from the new album, then a few from “Sinister.” The highlight of the gig was definitely about 10 songs in, when Stuart Murdoch started playing the opening piano part to “Mornington Cresent,” and stopped and said “Oh come on Stevie, lets give it a try.” Stevie and Stuart argued for a bit, and Stuart finally said something like “OK, if you want to go out and have a cigarette, or get some whiskey, now would be the time, we’re about to butcher the shit out of this one.” The band scrambled a bit, and swapped instruments a few times. They seemed really confused, and then Stuart said “Someone requested it, we haven’t played it in a while but I’m in the mood to sing it. This is called ‘This is Just a Modern Rock Song.’” It was absolutely wonderful. Other highlights of the gig were “Judy & the Dream of Horses,” “Sukie in the Graveyard,” the “Legalman” teaser, and of course the encored “I’m a Cuckoo.” Stuart came out and said “How could we come all the way here and not play it?” Of course Stuart’s commentary throughout the gig was great. I liked it when he pointed out all the foreigners. Turns out about 20% of the audience was from overseas.

Wow, this is by far my longest entry. Anyways, getting out was an absolute mess. The venue is up this little hill from Shinagawa station. And in this mess, I managed to lose Naoko. She simply got swept off in a sea of people. I just thought, “Oh, I’ll find her at the bottom of the hill before the station.” HA! Yes, let’s find a 5’ Japanese girl in this swarm of people. I was out in front of the venue for about 30 minutes, hoping that I got out in front of her and I’d somehow catch her. It was impossible, I knew it. And if you recall from earlier, I never got her phone number. All I had was Naoko, and that she lives somewhere in the general Tokyo area. So in otherwords, she’s gone forever. I thought maybe she ditched me, I mean, it was definitely easier for her to spot me than me to her. There was nobody else coming out of the venue, and I was rather sad. So I start to walk over to the station, to catch the train back to Tsukuba, when someone pokes me in the back. I turn around, and it was Naoko. She was doing the samething I was doing, but more near the station. She thought I ditched her like I thought she did me. Anyways, it was a pretty close call, so we decided to immediately swap phone numbers in case anything like that happens again. But yes, as I also told you, the gig started early, so it ended early as well. It ended about 7:45pm. I asked Naoko if she wanted to get something to eat. She said yes, so we walked around Shinagawa a bit, until we found a Chinese restaraunt . We sat down, ate, and got to know each other a bit more. We spoke a split of English and Japanese. She is pretty cool. She has learned most of her English from listening to music. Her favorites are Belle & Sebastian, Radiohead and Teenage Fanclub. She has a thing for music from Scotland, and likes the fact that my name is Scott.