Here’s a list of the concerts I’ve been to since 2003 (or at least the ones I can remember 8D). The links lead to live reports I’ve written for JaME, 3voor12 Friesland (Dutch) or my blog.

I’m afraid my list of bands I want to see live is even longer…

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I first got introduced to Japanese music in 2001 and for the first few years of my ‘obsession’, I happily indulged myself in as many as visual kei bands as I could. Later, my taste fortunately improved a bit, heh heh. Since then, many of these bands I used to listen to, have disbanded. I can’t really bring myself to care much to be honest, I haven’t listened to most in ages and stopped following them when I started to dislike their new releases more and more, and drifted away from the visual scene. Though, when D’espairsRay, a band I haven’t listened to in the last three, four years, announced this week that they were going to call it quits and all the messages popping up on Facebook about it, I realized that I might have some memories of them after all.

In 2004 I went to see the first Japanese bands as they slowly started coming over Europe. One of the first ‘bigger’ visual bands to come to Europe, was D’espairsRay in October 2004. My friends and I bought a ticket to the gig and a train ticket to Berlin, Germany. It took ages but it was cheap, so that was good. I remember my parents being a little angsty about it, us 17-year-olds travelling to Berlin for a gig, until then I had only been to Munster, which is really close to the Dutch border.We stayed with a friend of mine whom I had met at Livejournal. Which was rather weird because that friend just locked herself up in her sister’s bedroom while the three of us piled up in her double bed.

The gig was awesome, I remember thinking it had been the best gig ever. Everyone tried to get as close to the stage as possible, and I had a hard time breathing because I was rather small and everyone was pushing forward like crazy. It wasn’t like I cared though, I managed to worm my way to the front anyway, being a crazy fangirl and trying to peek under Zero’s skirt. It was damn hot and I remember being totally happy as Zero sprayed/spit water over us, I was such a gross girl back then, ewww.  Ecstatic,  we all chanted/yelled “I WANNA DIE” along with Hizumi in Garnet. Man, those were the times (when we all fangirled without realizing how dumb we looked)! Afterwards, I came out with my skirt on backwards and had been having the best time of my life.

Two years later, I interviewed them for JaME before their show in Utrecht. The subject of this particular gig came up:

Throughout your whole career, what was the most memorable concert you’ve ever played?

Tsukasa: All of them. (He says ‘all’ in English a few times, to empathize this and is quiet for a moment before he continues) The first time we came to Germany, I don’t remember where that was.
In Berlin. (SERIOUSLY HOW CAN YOU FORGET, IT’S THE CAPITAL OF GERMANY FFS)
Tsukasa: That was very memorable for me because the audience was something we had never experienced before; it was different from Japan. So it was something that left an impact on me.

It was also where my fellow interviewer and I had first met (and later started a company together), which we mentioned because it seemed like we had some history with the band, a story to share. They weren’t impressed.

Another thing that was brought up in the interview:

D’espairsRay is still together after seven years, with exactly the same line-up. How does this make you feel when a lot of other bands around you disband, such as Kagerou who will disband in January?

Zero: Every beginning has an ending and of course it’s sad and regrettable but those are just our personal feelings. The visual scene won’t stop or disappear when disbandings happen; this scene is fascinating and full of surprises.

Well, wise words from Zero there. Let’s see what the four men of D’espairsRay will come up with next.

Today I was reminded by my friend that the new hosting year is coming up and realized that I haven’t posted anything in my blog for ages. Oops!

So let me tell you about a gig I went to recently. This March, British singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt performed an acoustic show at the Leeuwenbergh church in Utrecht. It was part of a series of acoustic themed concerts organized by Dutch actress Carice van Houten. It’s funny, she’s been acting in Hollywood movies together with celebrities such as Tom Cruise, but she kindly helped us to find our seats.

During that week my friend from the UK was staying with me. We have basically zero in common when it comes to music, but surprisingly we both like him so we went together. The concert was really awesome, Ed played a mix of new songs from his Lustre album and also older ones. After the gig my friend was cheeky enough to go and ask Ed Harcourt for an autograph, so I got my ticket signed as well.

Here’s a song from one of his older albums, hadn’t heard it until the concert but it has turned into a favourite:

Originally I was supposed to meet my friend on Saturday evening, but when those plans fell through, I had a free Saturday evening. Only a few days before I had read on an ad that the Rootsriders with their Tribute2BobMarley show would be in a town nearby, so I decided to attend the show.

At first I was planning to go by myself, but when I was about to leave, I spoke to my friend on MSN and he was interested in joining me. So, I drove to Sneek, picked up my friend and we went to the venue, Het Bolwerk.

I saw Rootsriders live in 2007, when they did their Tribute2BobMarley theatre tour. It was a really great concert, though what surprised me was the amount of older people. Sure, Bob Marley’s music attracts people from all sorts of backgrounds and ages, plus the man himself would have been 65 by now if he had still been alive. I just hadn’t expected to see people of 80 years old there. Also on this night was the audience older than at an average night at the Bolwerk (or so I think). There were more 40+ than 30- people so to speak. I realized later that this is probably the same crowd that shows up at a concert of UB40, but not a random underground reggae artist. Oh well…

Anyway, the show started with the opening act by Laurrhie Brouns. She played about four shows, must say I have regained my faith in opening acts again, hehe. Ashwin Jaydee also did a few songs and then several band members from Rootsriders covered Bob Marley songs before the Rootsriders started for real with front man Junior.

I had seen them before so I knew what to expect, and they did not disappoint. Other than his long dreads and outfit, vocalist Junior doesn’t really look like Mr. Marley much, but he definitely sounds like him. I think cover acts are always a little tricky because you’re always going to be compared to the real thing, but I’m pretty sure that everyone present (around 300 people?) were convinced that he did a damn good job. Also his movements and dancing resembled Mr. Marley’s dancing without looking faked or forced at all. The other members of Rootsriders did a great job as well; they’re a bunch of really skilful musicians.

They played various well-known Mr. Marley songs, such as Who The Cap Fit, Give Thanks and Praises, Punky Reggae Party, Kinky Reggae, Concrete Jungle, Exodus, Three Little Birds, Mellow Mood, and of course No Woman No Cry. For the encore, Junior and the guitarist performed Redemption Song together and ended with Could You be Loved.

Above is their remix of Bob Marley’s “Is This Love.” Live they play the songs as close as possible to the originals but I really like this remix.

After the gig I bought their album, So Much More – Songs of Redemption, Part 2, which contains their owns songs and one cover of Is This Love. I’ve been listening to it all day and it’s a great album. So, I’m hoping they’ll be doing some shows with their own songs as well, I’ll definitely attend one of those though I’m afraid people care more for Bob Marley covers than the band behind it.

To be honest, I’m a bit of a racist when it comes to French things. I blame it on my experiences in France and my French classes in high school. A big exception (next to my friend Reyep :p) to this is the French composer Yann Tiersen. He’s far from a mainstream artist but somehow music fanatics that enjoy listening out of the box tend to know him because of his unique music.

He’s mostly known for the music he composed for the Amelie soundtrack, which is a true piece of art if you ask me. I like his choice of instruments and also how it’s rather minimalistic but with very intriguing melodies at the same time. Here’s a song from YouTube, the video is also from the Amelie movie:

So, when he came to my country I decided to buy tickets to see him live. I had heard that his previous concert in the Netherlands had been in a rock style, post-rock to be more specific so while I was hoping we’d get to hear his semi-classical songs, I was a little prepared for his other side… Unfortunately not everyone was.

On December 16 we went to Tivoli Oudegracht in Utrecht to see him live there. The concert was sold out and there were people at the venue’s door asking if we had any left-over tickets. Which we didn’t, of course.

The concert finally started with a horrible opening act, Christine Ott, whose music was pretty much… a huge amount of noise lacking anything vaguely resembling a melody. While she and her cellist played, the audience was talking continuously, obviously not impressed.

Then, it was finally time for Yann Tiersen’s show. Soon, it became clear that we wouldn’t be treated to a show in Amelie-style (or Le Phare, Les Retrouvailles, Good Bye Lenin! Soundtrack or C’était ici style) but we were in for a rock show. A post rock show even, because some tracks were rather monotone save for some very subtle rhythm and melody changes. Unfortunately, the sound of Tivoli Oudegracht wasn’t adjusted very well so this got lost in a sea of sound. The one thing which could be heard very clearly during the songs was the Ondes Martenot, an instrument that sounds like it’s screaming its guts out and resonated badly and it got on my nerves very quickly, unfortunately. Most of the songs were instrumental but when Yann or any of the band members would sing, their voices got lost in the music and you couldn’t even hear which language the song was in.

I heard that quite a lot of people left after a few songs because they came for his Amelie-sound only… I don’t blame them for having the wrong expectations, as far as I know he never released anything in his post-rock style on CD, so they were simply expecting to hear the same as the CDs they bought.

Anyway, despite the problems with the sound and the expected unexpected type of show, I enjoyed listening to most of the songs and I danced some on the heavier ones. A highlight of the evening was definitely the song Sur le fil, which is a solo piece for violin. Yann Tiersen really has some awesome violin skills, somehow I had always assumed that that it was a piece played by two violins instead of one! Here’s a video of it:

In the end, the concert was pretty great. I had been hoping for his Amelie style as well and whereas this was certainly not a bad concert, I think I rather be sure he’s going to do his usual style before going to one of his concerts again.

As you might know already, I’m quite into Japanese music ;) After a while I grow a little bored of my old favourites and move on to other artists. So once in a while I get some new stuff, and sometimes it’s good, at other times it’s bad. By chance, I stumbled across the singer-songwriter Naotaro Moriyama and I really like his music. I found some songs on YouTube, and this one, Natsu no Owari (the end of summer) is my favourite song of his so far.

Another song of his that I really like and actually got me interested in his music, is Namida (tears). I also reviewed it for JaME, you can find it here. Unfortunately the other two songs on the single aren’t too great, but Namida is simply fantastic.

(a better version, sound quality wise can be found here. Embedding is disabled unfortunately.)