Punk rock Nagasaki

So last night I went to my first concert ever...... a punk rock concert in Nagasaki!!! I loved it! As a musican I am always interested in seeing how other musicans performed and i have to say these guys rocked it hard! anyway here is a run down of the day.

So I was talking with my friend at school and when I told her I was a muso she said "oh my brother is the lead guitarist/singer of a band and they do concerts quite alot, you should come along some time". So I took her up on the offer and straight after school we headed for Nagasaki to rock it out all night lol.

We met at the train station, bought our tickets (note: a train ticket in japan is an absolute rip off! for me to go to nagasaki and back cost ￥1450, this is about $16-18 AUD). The train was pretty packed but eventually we got a seat. Sitting across from us were two ladies who were very suprised when they saw a gaijin (foreigner) sitting across from them. They started talking with us e.g. where am I from, where am I staying in Japan, do I like it etc. These two ladies ended up being the funniest people I have come across in public. They were asking my friend wether she had a boyfriend, and then saying "oh you don't have a boyfriend? take jieshi he is a perfect catch" and then they were asking what I am like and if all the girls love me so my friend replies "oh he is a perfect gentleman and he is very popular with all the girls at school lol" so I was going a bit red in the face lol. The ladies had to get off the train, but they exchanged phone numbers with my friend because they are from our town and want to meet for lunch at some point in time.

We then got to trek half way across nagasaki city by tram (its so cool, we don't have trams in Sydney and to think I am catching one in Japan of all places lol). We made it to the concert (10 minutes late... damn) in time to see my friends brothers band, they were excellent. The band is called Original strike. I would have posted a pic of them but there isn't any so here is their website: http://www.tosp.co.jp/i.asp?i=orst
After about 3 songs original strike finished their set and it was time for the main act, CHARCOAL FILTER. http://cfr.jp/

I have to say once again, these guys are way cool! I took tips last night on how they work a crowd and peform because they were really awesome. I was the only gaijin at the concert, so the band thought it was really cool when I started jumping around and doing the actions with everyone ( they all gave me looks and nods of approval). There were a few things I found really funny the bass guitarist kept puckering his lips up while playing and then he would do it to all the girls in the crowd as well lol (you can see it in the photo above) and there were these two music executives from the record company standing next to me up the back. It was really funny because eveyone else was dressed really casually (punk rock style) and these two guys are dressed in expensive business suites, arms crossed, stern faced just watching the band, you could tell it was business for them.

The concert finished and we headed back home. On the way back I saw something that you would never see happen in Australia. We were standing at the carriage door on the train, a guy got on at a station and he dropped his glass down the gap between the platform and the train. He is like "oh no" so he runs to the front of the train and tells the driver and then the driver and him run and get the station master to work out what to do. The train driver goes "oh hold on I will move the train so you can get your glasses", he announces it on the speaker, moves the train and the guy gets his glasses and gets on the train. Our train was delayed by 5 minutes because of this. Not that I am complaining, I was very surprised at the kindness and generosity of of everybody to get one mans glasses.

all in all a fantastic day, would love to do it again,

jieshi