Love Song For You From Tokyo

Some moments in your life, you're so impressed, awestruck by something so much you wish the rest of the world got a chance to witness what you just did. Those are special moments, and usually pretty fun.

It's Sunday morning 3a.m. and I'm quite sure I just returned from one of the most amazing things I'll ever have the fortune of enjoying. Alex (The Tall & Handsome One) and me returned from our first Explanade concert by a Japanese Jazz Band called Soil and "Pimp" Sessions. From my sizeable English vocabulary, I found almost no words could describe the experience. 

It was in the newspapers a few years ago when they came down to perform where I first read about them. I was very intrigued by their look really cos this is what they look like.

Back than I went on youtube and didn't seem to enjoy their music, and than recently I checked out the Mosaic website and saw them Back by Popular Demand. Which if you understand Singapore and our music festivals, it REALLY doesn't happen alot, if at all. So off I went to their myspace page and it was only after listening to them in the background for a long while before it started growing on me.

After asking something like 1500 boring people I was extremely surprised that Alex actually (already heard and liked their music and) WANTED to go to their gig. So we literally spent the last bit of $$ in our banks on the $58 ticket to see them.

So we reached Esplanade about 10:45, it was an awesome place very well designed, 

the concert hall itself was BEAUTIFUL. Wasn't as big as i thought it would be, but after a while I thought any bigger and the audience might be too far to see/feel the action and energy.

Than the lights dimmed, they all came out together, The Agitator said "ARE YOU READY TO PARTY" the music blasted, in 5 seconds most everyone was up on their feet dancing/cheering, Alex included (if you haven't seen me dance you don't want to).  Within 15 seconds I came to the conclusion that the Double Bassist is the best I've ever seen, same for the Drummer, Trumpeteer, Saxophonist, Pianist, and of course the Agitator (he agitates the crowd. MAD cool).

Weirdly it didn't feel all that foreign to me being in their concert because it looked alot like a punk rock concert that traded Guitars for a Double Bass, Brass and Keyboards .

It's really difficult to describe, but what ensued, was really 70 mins of crazy music. At times it's a cacophony of blazing music almost like it's a carnival, at times it's very dancey, at times slow, at times purposefully silent, and than roaring into life again. Crazy and definitely alot of fun. The energy was ALWAYS HIGH, I was permanently in awe (still am) of their skills, their amazing synergy and their courage to ALWAYS push the envelope, both in terms of music, and Live performance.

A very memorable example would be on one of Josei's (Piano) many jaw dropping solos, he was finger dancing ultra fast towards the highest notes on the right side of the piano. When he reached the left-most note, and there were no more notes to strike, he struck his finger on the wood just left of the left-most note instead, (producing a loud dull TOK! sound if that makes any sense) as if cursing the piano for not having a higher note for him to carry on. This created a very interesting kind of punctuation mark to the solo, plus it was super funny. And they had so many moments like those.

Throughout the concert me and Alex kept shouting YABAI!! Pretending they could hear us over the other cheering fans. :p

Motoharu (Saxophone) had the coolest outfit on that night, a ULTRA COOL Tshirt, with jarring coloured camo printed baggy pants, and ultra hi-top fisherman's hat cocked sideways. He would always be dancing, sweating, at one point standing on top of the bass drum, another point going into the stands, climbing on top of an empty seat and playing it up for the crowd, all while cranking out super music AT THE SAME TIME. Probably the most fun, free spirited performer I've seen in a very long while, with the technical chops to back it up.

Akita Goldman (Double Bass) was the least prominent one but even he stood out with his LOOONG flowing hair untied. I always wished he got maybe a good chance to solo or something. But still, he had some pretty aggressive bass lines to play, and really held the whole band together very very very well.

Midorin (Drums) looks alot like Kohta Watanabe from Duncan Crew Japan. Extremely consistent drummer, very interesting drumlines, super solid double freaking pedals. Just before he launches into the super fast parts he would take a split second to lick his thumb before murderously destroying his drum set. Freakin Killer soaked his overalls through and through by the end of the concert.

Tabu Zombie (Trumpet) proved that if you're a Rockstar, you can wear anything and still look cool. Case in point, Leopard print newspaper boy cap. Playing your music with every last ounce of energy your neck muscles can produce helps alot too. So does long curly hair and Gold & Black Hi-top sneakers (I THINK they were Supras).

President aka Shacho (Agitator). Where do I start. He looks like the Yakuza. Maybe that's why everyone listens to him. You have to give it up to anyone who can make a local crowd cheer and clap for every solo, pump fists in air, chant, sing, and basically go crazy. Never hogging the limelight, he instead draws it onto his band members. When crowd cheers for said band member, he tends to play even better and even harder, which makes crowd go even crazier which makes him play even better and it goes on and on. Beautiful really.

And when you put this few pieces together, it's really crazy. and I was just telling myself this is going to be a really difficult article to write because REALLY, no matter what I say, no words will do their music justice. 

When they finished, the crowd wasn't done and the Esplanade whole place cheered non-stop for an Encore before the Agitator walks out again. Best gig ever!

A stellar encore later (where everyone got to sing along), it was the After Party a.k.a AUTOGRAPH TIME. Saw me become No.1 fanboy. Got book signed, pictures. They all laughed when we kept telling them they were Maji Yabai. Turned out to be very nice people to talk to.

I passed Midorin (Drums) a lot of things to sign so I jokingly pointed to random parts of my body and said "and (sign) here, and here and here" and he said "Really?" and than we looked at the back of my Tshirt and I said ok sign there and he did.

After the first signing, I realised I only got 2 signatures Tshirt and it looked retarded when there's only 2 when there's supposed to be 6 so I queued up once more. This made me the last person to get autographs that night. Which turned out to be awesome cool, cos Sarah (I think) who was the one who broguht them down came to talk to us and was nice enough to offer to lend us $10 when I told her we spent our last $58 on the tickets and we didn't have anymore money to go home LOL. Got to talk to the band more, got Tshirt signed (lucky Alex didn't take from the side would've looked pretty gay).

Super Awesome Night, really opened my eyes and blew me away on so many levels.

In music you can have chaos, you don't have to follow the rules all the time and it can still be beautiful. 

Once again they reaffirmed the fact seeing a band Live and on video/CD, completely different. I think the most evident thing that transfixed me to their music thoughout even though most of the time I couldn't grasp the technical intricacies of it all was the heart and soul that was pouring out from them. They really really played with love. 

Soil and "Pimp" Sessions on MySpace

Push the envelope. Just cos you can.

Yabai!