Photography – rain contreras

Tokyo (II)

With a headache that was spoiling my third day in Tokyo, I went with Akiko to the Ghibli Museum on a Friday morning. It was her first time going there, too. Before I even set foot in Japan, I had to ask her to book tickets for us, since there was an admission schedule we had to follow. The scene replicas from the anime was a treat, among all else. I wonder why this wasn’t the sort of place I see people on my social media rave about.

Later that day, I was in line for another show at Zepp Diver City. Akiko went with me, and thankfully so, since it looked like navigation from where we were to the venue wasn’t easy to manage. Once I settled, I was by myself, along with a hundreds of idol fans, and not the sort with capes and light sticks, but in the trendy, streetwear inspired garb peddled by management, often with puzzling, sometimes crude text on it.

My entry number was 232, which did cost me more when I was liaising with a specialized for-foreigners service, that will join ticket lotteries for you. This time, I had them get me a ticket for a sold-out concert from auction sites. The lower the ticket number, the sooner you enter, the nearer you are the stage.

As before, I looked for an obvious foreigner, to find out if they knew more about the event than me. Found one, and despite being a white, blonde dude, when I told him where I was from, he started conversing with me in Tagalog.

Ending 2016

December’s birthday trip was spent at Anhui Province, a few hours from Shanghai. Boarded a fast train, and the last 1/3 of the ride was done backwards, like we lost our way. I spent a day at Xidi Ancient Town, where I was lead to based on the premise that it was a nice place to take photographs, and that it was the second most touristy ancient town in the area, and therein strikes a good-enough balance for me. Worth going to? Good side-trip, good for an afternoon, but the place is dead after sunset, and I didn’t sense any promise of shooting at night.

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Big Four, Part 2

Part 1 here.

World’s End Girlfriend
November 5, 2016
QSW Culture Center

When news of World’s End Girlfriend playing here got around, there wasn’t any hint of hesitation that I just had to go, though, sure, I’ve only seen a handful of music videos, maybe played a song or two, but there was no legitimate big fan tag to pin with legitimacy on me. Should it matter, though? There’s that admission, and there was this opportunity that this -to put it bluntly- will be just like any other weekend gig I go to, except that it was a Japanese band that has appealed to the discerning music fans outside of their country for some time.

Continue reading Big Four, Part 2

Big Four, Part 1

There were too many gigs to specify and put on the post title, hence a “big four” reference came to mind. There was no intent to be definitive at all using it, and sure, it is a slight overreach, but, see, I just saw these giants of Japanese modern instrumental rock for the last quarter of 2016, in my immediate neighbourhood: Mono, World’s End Girlfriend, te’, and toe.

I’ll start with Mono -a band I’ve already seen twice- and toe, another band I’ve seen once before, and they also chose a Shanghai show that falls on my birthday.

toe
December 1, 2016
Mao Livehouse

Continue reading Big Four, Part 1

Yuck

As seen here -and I think I have a ticket stub somewhere in my stash- I had definite plans to watch Yuck last year, but couldn’t. I was surprised to see their name again in my Chinese gig schedule source recently (if you must ask), as the event was nowhere to be found in the expat-centric English lifestyle sites.

I knew of Yuck from their first album, but had not actively followed them after that release. Personnel changes happened with the band, I was made known, but I’ve already been on that road that time I saw Sepultura sans Max Cavalera. Admission price reasonable? Event venue accessible? The songs made me excited even just once-before? Then there’s barely any reason to miss this gig.

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