the Rock and Baseball weekend

And quite a heavy weekend it was. A few months ago we met a couple, who were in a rockband in a small bar in Shinjuku. We promised them to once see one of their performances and we decided it was time to do so. They were one of the two acts of that evening in the Shibuya O-Crest. Ignorant as I am, I was unfamiliar with the obvious theme of the evening: ‘motor disco’. Not having heard their cd yet, I was curious what kind of pieces of musical art a band called “Boogie the machmohtaaz” would make.The answer was: very loud music. It was indeed a strangely interesting stream of music. The band played a genre somewhere between hardrock, boogie, disco and Daft Punk. Simultaneously, the leadsinger entertained us by doing funny dances in his golden suit and shouting boogie number one, while the girl in leather was the more serious type, to busy to smile as she was concentrating on striking the right chords on her keyboard. The third member of the band, the drummer, suddenly left his drum kit for what it was and frantically ran a few laps through the audience in order to knock over some tables, in effect victimizing several innocent beer bottles. The underlying meaning of this little outburst was a bit lost on me (and the rest of the audience for that matter).

It was fun, and I do think there was a moment that the crowd seemed to be on the verge of trying to go wild (although I could’t tell for sure, taking account of the fact of it being Japan and all: the audience didn’t dance a single step, shout a single word or do any other of those kinds of unacceptable things, only clapping when absolutely necessary in response to the band’s polite “arigato gozaimasu” after every hardrock song)Anyway, it was a fun evening, and the band was really nice to us. They happened to have been standing near the entrance of the club the show begun, and after recognizing Evelien and me, they let us in for free by putting us on the guest list. Afterwards we had another chat and she said she was relieved it was over because she had been very nervous for this gig. It was a great evening nevertheless. So, being happier and deafer than before, Sjors, Evelien and I left the club and after one more drink somewhere in Shibuya we headed on home.

Saturday afternoon was spent quietly at a photography museum and reading a Murakami book at Amber café. Fulfilled my craving for steak at Outback Steakhouse, (a favorite chain-restaurant for which my mother and I should deserve some kind of gold card as we have eaten there at many different locations across the world). We then left for Daikanyama, a neighbourhood closeby. After a drink in a wannabe-trendy yet merely depressingly sterile white bar, Koos, Rene, Sjors and I went to the samurai.fm party in club Unit were we stayed until 6 in the morning. I wasn’t too drunk, which was useful, as a certain neighbour of mine needed a bit of additional navigation to get home…:)

Next day we had a ball at the Tokyo dome. The drinks were taken care of by "beer-girls" wo were competing against each other for customers, running up and down the stairs with a complete beer tank strapped on their back....respect!
The Tokyo Yomiuri Giants baseball team beat the Hokkaido Nippon-ham Fighters. Go Giants!