Tour Report: Going to Japan with Shizune
Here are some stories from the nine shows Shizune did in Japan in December 2015
Going to play in Japan was an incredible surprise and a huge opportunity for us. It all came together in a truly DIY way: no booking agency, just friendship, passion, and a lot of hard work from everyone involved.
One day, the mighty Hiro-san, drummer of Infro, with whom we had released a split, sent a message to our vocalist asking, “Would you like to play in Japan?”
“Fuck yes! Why not?” was our answer.
A couple of months later, Hiro wrote back: “Book your tickets. You’re going to play nine shows in Japan.”
We arrived in Tokyo on December 17, 2015. Jet-lagged as hell, we met Sho, a genuinely great person who helped organize the tour and plays in the excellent band Blue Friend.
As expected, we spent our first night out drinking quite a lot. We met other people from Tokyo’s DIY scene, all of them deeply committed to keeping it alive.
Our first show, at Nine Spices in Tokyo, was amazing. The venue was great, and the audience was incredibly passionate. People sang along even to the songs in Italian. It was a blast.
Every venue had its own character, and the dedication of the organizers was incredible. We played clubs such as Nine Spices and Warp in Tokyo, Gattaca in Kyoto, Pepperland in Okayama, and the legendary Hokage in Osaka, where we were part of a festival in an incredible squat-like space.
We also played Too Nice, a small DIY record shop connected to Impulse Records in Takamatsu; a huge rehearsal center in Nagoya; and Megahertz, a very cool bar in Kitakyushu on the western island of Kyushu. We were told that the last foreign band to play Megahertz had been Daïtro from France.
We traveled across three Japanese islands, covering around 3,000 km. We slept in all kinds of strange places, from the living room of an old Japanese-style house to a supposedly haunted hotel and a manga kissaten, or manga café. We played pachinko and ’90s coin-op games in a three-story arcade, took purikura photos, and ate a lot of incredible Japanese food.
Every night, we met new people and had the best time with them. We shared experiences and talked about every aspect of this strange thing we call the DIY scene. We talked about how different, and how beautiful, things were there, while also sharing stories about our lives in Italy. We even had the chance to discuss Japanese and European politics, including the reorganization of the Japanese military and the so-called refugee crisis in Europe.
Outside Tokyo and Osaka, very few people we met spoke English. Fortunately, Shizune has two Japanese-speaking members, so we were able to handle every situation. People were genuinely interested in us and wanted to ask us many things, which meant we could communicate, interact with the crowd, and joke around.
None of this would have happened without the help of incredible people such as Hiro, Sho, Ikawa, Naoto, Kenji, and Akira. They supported us in every possible way.
The bands we played with were amazing. Everyone was passionate, focused, and completely committed to the music. That dedication left a huge impression on us.
Bands we played with: Infro, Blue Friend, Forget Me Not, Cyberne, Flesco, Kain, SlydingMan, Asthenia, Nengu, NOTIIBELIKESOMEONE, Segwei, Vacant, Dead Pudding, Alt of the Society, QuiQui, Ilil, Kmkms, As If to Imply, Matou, Look at the Moment, Aoitori, Universe Last a Ward, Sans Visage, sassya, Shut Your Mouth, Storm of Void, Terrible Joke, Scrotal Vice, Palm, Scottish Fold, ACBOY, WDLK, Narr, The Noup, Hue, Friendship, Rebel One Excalibur, Sequence, By the End of Summer, Voodolian Trio, Nuff, VNR, and many more.
What else?
Daijōbu!
