Concert Tour 2001


  • Tamaki Koji had about 30 concerts throughout Japan and two mailing list members participated in two concerts of different dates. They are David Lo from Hong Kong and Stuart from the U.S. The following are their reports!!!

    PersonDateCityTime
    David LoMar. 30-31, 2001
    Naeba - Naeba Prince Hotel
    		20:30
    StuartApr. 14, 2001
    Yokohama - Kenritsu Kenmin Hall Dai Hall
    		18:00


    [David Lo's Report Part 1] [David Lo's Report Part 2] [Stuart's Report]

    David Lo's Report Part 1

    March 30th, 2001

  • I went to Naeba with a Japanese friend from Tokyo, along with his family. The distance between Tokyo and Naeba is about 150km. Since there is an open house rehearsal to be held at 5:30pm. My friend drove very fast to get there. By the time we were about 30km from Naeba, I started seeing snow accumulation on the roadside. Although it was beautiful, I thought Anthony told me that the temperature in Tokyo should be warm around this time of the year. Doh! I did not bring any clothes for cold weather condition. All I know was the information board in Naeba indicated the current temperature was 3 degrees Celsius. This will be interesting.

  • When I got to the lobby of the Naeba Prince Hotel, I can hear the music of Tamaki played through the hotel's PA system. Also, I found some flyers of the concert in the lobby area. Naturally, I grabbed whatever I can.

  • The concert hall itself is rather small. By the time we got there, about a hundred or so Star members have already gathered. My seating assignment was all the way to the back (the 10th row). Since the hall is so small, being in the last row was not that bad at all. In fact, I felt I was in the front row.

  • The band is comprised of Tamaki, Takezawa, Yahagi, Ando, Carlos Kanno, Noriyuki Takahashi and Nobuyuki Takahashi. It is the same as the Super-T 2000 tour last year in Japan. They began the rehearsal by jamming a song from "Spade". They also played songs from "Nisenmono" as well. We were asked if we had any requests. "Junkland", "Taiyou San" were also played during the rehearsal. The audience remained seated the whole time, even though everyone was very excited with the performance. The performance during the rehearsal is really good., It was more like a mini-concert than a dress rehearsal.

  • At the end of the rehearsal, the band were told by the crew to be at the backstage by 8pm. Then everyone left, except for Tamaki. It was time for a lucky draw. The three top prizes are: two t-shirts from Tamaki's own collection: one has the image of Elvis Presley and the other has the image of John Lennon. The last top prize is a clock that looks like it came from Tamaki's home (I think I saw in in one of the laserdiscs). Tamaki himself made the draw and presented the top three prizes to the lucky winners. Consolation prize was a copy of the Spade poster for another ten winners. The posters were not presented to the winners by Tamaki.

  • After the prize presentation, Tamaki came up to shake hands with the audience. I rushed up to him. When I got beside him, I called his name, then he turned to me and shook my hand. Turned out I was the last person he shook hands with. After that, he left the concert hall. By the way, his hand was very soft....

  • The concert began at 8:40pm. All band members went to the stage right at the start. The evening's sharp dresser was Takezawa, with a white flipped-collar shirt, jacket and jeans. Tamaki's wardrobe was pretty much like last year's tour. They opened the concert with a song from Spade. If you don't like "Spade" much, you should check out the tour. The live version of the new songs are definitely much better, especially with the addition of Takezawa's guitar parts (*1).

  • Along with acoustic guitars, electric guitars were also used during the concert. Whenever Takezawa played the electric guitar, he would start doing some dance steps, just like the good old days. When the band played "De'en", they used a new arrangement for the intro. The audience could not tell right away what song it was. Therefore, unlike the past, nobody got up and started clapping.

  • Yahagi did not play slide guitar at the concert. However, during "Rookie", he played an ukulele (*2). Prior to the intro of "Melody", they seemed to have some difficulty with it. They tried three or four times and still cannot get into the song. The audience remained very quiet. At that moment, I yelled to the stage "Daijyobu desu ka!" and everyone laughed.

  • They played two more songs during the encore. The show ended at around 10:15pm.

  • Naeba at night was cold. The snow accumulation was three feet high. Anthony, I will not forget this. (*3) After the concert was over, I joined the Japanese mailing list members for karaoke for about 45 minutes. That wrapped up the day.

    31st March, 2001

  • In the morning, I ran into a few Japanese mailing list members at the hotel lobby. A lot of people were going to ski. I wanted to ski, too, but I had no skiwear and no goggles. (*4) I went back to chat with those who stayed in the hotel. Unfortunately, I not everyone introduced themselves, so I don't know their names. We chatted for about half an hour. They went for lunch and I went back to my room. While waiting for my Japanese friend to meet me, I just stared at the newly-acquired concert poster in my room.....

    Footnote

    *1: Don't forget Carlos Kanno and the Takahashi rhythm section were playing, too.

    *2: I did not attend the show, so I wonder if David meant to say a mandolin? I am not sure if an ukulele's volume projection can cut through the rest of the band's instruments.

    *3: Hey David, I came from Canada, remember? 3 degrees Celsius is nothing to me. I am surprised, you could handle October in Asahikawa last year.... You need regular excerise, mate. :p

    So, while I *regret* that you had a hard time adjusting to Naeba's weather conditions, you should have checked for the weather condition yourself prior to your departure. Hence, I will not *apologise* for it. Hmm, this sounds familiar... Alright, I am *very sorry*, OK?

    *4: And possibly no medical insurance, I reckon? Haha!


    [David Lo's Report Part 1] [David Lo's Report Part 2] [Stuart's Report]

    Written by David Lo and translated by Anthony Chan
    Organized by Kelvin Tsang
    Last update: September 24, 2001
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