Ayaya concert あややのコンサート

On the 3rd of October, I went to Tokyo with my friend Raul to see a concert by Aya Matsuura (松浦 亜弥), also known as Ayaya.

He has been her fan since before coming to Japan. As he belongs to her fan club, he got some special tickets near the stage.

Ayaya is a very famous Japanese singer (J-pop) originally from Himeji, as she mentioned during the concert. Before going I was expecting lots of young noisy Japanese teenagers at the concert, but it was completely different. In reality the average fan was a man of around 35 years old completely equipped with lights, Ayaya t-shirts and bracelets!! The concert was full of Otakus that knew all the movements and dances, and when to use the lights!And most of the concert was actually based on this interaction between the idol and the fans. She talked to them quite a few times and listened to their requests about songs to perform.

The concert was held in the Sun plaza hotel at Nakano (around 10 minutes from Shinjuku), which includes a very good hall for this kind of events.

The trip was quite tiring because I used night buses for going and returning. Still it was worth it, because it was a very unique Japanese experience :).

Spring Sakae 2009

During the last weekend of May, I went with my friend Cesar (Panama) to a live music festival in Nagoya called Spring Sakae. Sakae (栄) is the name of the downtown district in Nagoya. It is full of stores (for example, Lachic, which organized the event), people, high buildings and some famous tourist spots like the TV tower or the Oasis 21 complex.

The festival lasted two days but I only went the first day. There were lots of artists performing in different live houses around Sakae. Basically, people could make their own schedule according to their taste and attend the concerts they were more interested in. Also for me it was a great opportunity to see a lot of locals in Sakae within a record time and without needing to pay extra! The groups were all Japanese and most of them were on their beginnings, although some of them were already quite famous.

This is the list of artist/local that I saw:

• 小泉ニロ (Koizumi Nilo) / Nagoya Blue Note: the local was great and the music was not bad (Brazilian music).
• 城南海 (Kizuki Minami) / CIPHER the underground: my favorite of the festival, I really liked her voice. She had the ability to sing with a very high-pitched voice like in traditional Japanese Enka songs. Last weekend I was in HMV (a music shop) and I saw a leaflet of her saying that her 3rd single, 白い月　(shiroi tsuki = white moon), was going to be released on the 22th of July 2009, and her 1st album will be on sale on August 19th!
  
  
• UPLIFT SPICE / PLUS PARK: this group was a bit more heavy compared to the previous ones and I really like the singer's voice, I think it is very special. The guitarist was also good and i loved his haircut, which covered his face completely. And the guy on the drums was also great. It seemed to be a popular group by judging the public behavior.
  
  
• Sonomi / Spiral: not worth it
• AFNICA / Nagoya Blue Note: it was a very cool performance and the music was kind of Jazz. The best were the drums.
• 瓜生明希葉 (Uryu Akiha) / CIPHER the underground: nice voice and violin, the style was like in an animation movies
• Platinum / CIPHER the underground: funny but not worth it
• Ayuse Kozue / Ozon: this was one of the stars of the night I think, she reminded me of the singers from the eighties. Good performance.
• Metis / Club Quattro: I don't remember liking it especially.

It was a very nice day and I am glad I went because it was a very Japanese experience and I felt integrated with them. Everything was very well organized and after each performance you had time to go out and walk to the next local or to drink or eat something.

Songs I like

Probably it's the same with you. During a period of time there is a song that you listen to all the time and never get bored of it. In the next list, I will be updating all these songs that cross my life.

• Joe Hisaishi - The Legend of Ashitaka
  
• Phoenix - Too Young (Lost in Translation)
  
• Basil Poledouris - Anvil of Crom (Conan)
  
• Basil Poledouris - Theology/Civilization (Conan)
  
• Basil Poledouris - The Search (Conan)
  
• Basil Poledouris - Battle of the Mounds (Conan)
  
• Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train
• Dire Straits - Down to the waterline
• The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
• John Denver - Country Roads
• Amanda Palmer - Guitar Hero
• Black Sabbath - Paranoid
• Dire Straits - Telegraph Road

Note: If any link doesn't work, search the song for yourself :P

Mum, I want to be an artist!

This is not about a new trip or something like that. It's about the year 2007 coming to an end, and me wanting to start doing new things. So I tidyed up my room and converted it into my new art studio!!


I have new ambitious plans to be a comic artist and also to be able to create my own songs. First I need a lot of practice of course. I put here some links of the first songs I have made with the help of my harmonica, my voice and some software:

deb_is_coming_to_spain.mp3
a_message_from_the_sky.mp3
on_the_train_to_chicago_city.mp3

I will get better, promise!

Bilbao BBK Live Festival 2007 - Day 2

We headed for the Metallica's day of the festival with a bit of fear because we thought they were going to play songs from the newest albums, which we don't like as much as the classic ones. When we arrived at Kobetamendi, there was a noticeable higher amount of crowd than in Maiden's concert.

Metallica's opening with the song of the western "the good, the bad and the ugly" was exciting! Check it out in YouTube! Wow! Although the Iron Maiden concert was good, Metallica's one was superb!!

The played their best songs and offered a great show. Here you can find the list of songs that they performed:

Creeping Death
For Whom The Bell Tolls
The Four Horsemen
The Memory Remians
The Unforgiven
Battery
Master of Puppets
The Thing That Should Not Be
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
Disposable Heroes
Leper Messiah
Orion
Damage, Inc.
Sad But True
Nothing Else Matters
One
Enter Sandman
The Other New Song
Seek and Destroy

The Unforgiven was my favourite song and I enjoyed it a lot!.

We had some problems to come back home because the buses where full and we went to have a little rest to a nearby park, hehe. The following guy is not rocky but me ;D

Bilbao BBK Live Festival 2007 - Day 1

I went to two of the four days duration of this music festival that took place in Bilbao, Spain. The main bands of these two days were Iron Maiden and Metallica, respectively.

I arrived at Bilbao by bus, with my friend Alvaro and, after some time in a queue, a urban bus took us to the festival area, in a nearby hill.


The first group we saw was Lauren Harris, the daughter of the Iron Maiden bassist, Steve Harris. I didn't like her music and she ended up being a bit dissapointing.

Then we saw Stone Sour. I was impressed by the vocalist of the group, Corey Taylor, when he moved his neck at such an amazing speed. Unfortunately, there were some electrical problems that ruined the concert. While the technicians were trying to solve them, Corey tried to do some funny movements to entertain the public.

After this group, we went to see, in the second stage, Juliette Lewis (the famous actress). She moved very good in the stage, the music was not bad and I liked a lot when in the end of the concert she jumped into the crowd.

After these preliminaries, the great Iron Maiden appeared!! They played some songs that I wasn't familiar with from the new album but also some others that I knew very well and I enjoyed a lot, like The Trooper, The Number Of The Beast, ... It was a great show, with Great Britain Flags, a giant walking in the stage (Eddie), a tank, and the vocalist jumping from one place to another.

But there was one more concert, and it was very good. The band was Within Temptation and I was astonished by the beautiful voice of the vocalist. She was wearing a white dress that made a great contrast with the strong sound of the electric guitars.