My first concert in Japan was just 5 days after I arrived! (Btw: if you ever want to go to concerts in Japan, it pays to have a few good friends here to help out with getting tickets!) After years of waiting, and kicking myself for not being able to see them when they played in Europe, I was finally going to see Merry live at their BATTLE TRIANGLE concert in Nagoya on September 15th.
Not ones to waste the day, the three Brits who were attending the concert all decided to head out to Sakae, the main shopping district, early in the day to have a quick look around before heading to the concert. It turned out to be a very musical day! When leaving Sakae station, we were greeted with a street live at the station front. The performance was by SPYAIR, a nu-metal/emo band promoting their new album. There was a small group of dedicated fans gathered around and they sang along happily when the band started performing. The band were very amiable and even took the time to thank every member of the audience who had waited around to see them (yes, that included us random foreigners).
Then we headed off to the main event! When we arrived at the venue (which we successfully managed after following some Merry-looking people), we did the only thing that British people do well: queuing! We learned a valuable lesson though: if you see a queue, don’t just randomly join it without knowing what it’s for. The queue was moving, and eventually we worked out that this was the queue for merchandise, not the concert. It took a while, but we slowly and surely made it to the front of the queue…just in time for them to close the merchandise stall! Demotivated, we made our way back down the three flights of stairs into the rain…
I’d heard about the Japanese concert ticket system before, but seeing it in action was something completely different. Basically, at Japanese concerts it generally goes by your ticket number rather than when you arrive at the venue. After much confusion we were ushered into a entrance way and told to wait there for our numbers to be called. So we waited. And waited. And waited some more. After some time, and many stares for being the only obvious foreigners there, we were finally let into the venue. Luckily (for me anyway), merchandise was available when we were let in as well!
The concert itself was fantastic! It was strange seeing Japanese fans do their choreography to songs in person though. How do they all know to do the same thing, and to which song? (Answers are on a postcard!) On a personal note, I was so happy to see Gekisei make it onto the set list. It’s a fantastic single and it was brilliant live!
Whilst trying to leave the venue, we were harassed by the members of the VK indie band Fuzylog. After having a chuckle at the name, we read the flyers they gave to us promoting their new single Out to lunch time. That flyer now resides proudly on my wall.
Despite the experience being slightly overwhelming, it hasn’t put me off going to more concerts, so I hope to see some more soon! Next up is Slipknot, which is scary because I have to go to that one on my own. Wish me luck!
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