Blog - Saint yume to Cosme: live report
Saint yume to Cosme: live report
Last night was event "Saint yume to Cosme" (Dreams & Cosmetics), organized by solange et delphine, at Aoi Heya in Shibuya. After a quick dinner with my friend Miwa at nearby café seat mania (located just next to Soft, Aoi Heya just across Roppongi-dōri), we headed to the venue a bit past 18:00. A few people were lining up in the stairway, and when I asked the person in front of me if the place wasn't open yet, that person happened to be friend "parakeet clipshot" who we had met in September at another solange et delphine show. The rehearsals weren't quite over yet to we had to wait outside a few minutes while hearing bits of the bands.
First of all was sono na wa Spade (aka The Lady Spade) who I had seen twice before. They gave a groovy sexy show better than ever. The lovely Secretaries-A-Go-Go wore maid outfits, and singer Ruby first wore a white gown and later a see-through pink babydoll. Mr. SLF (Sh*t Lives Forever) danced and MC'd in the back in his black suit and sunglasses as usual. There were a few new songs, and also a special jazzy cover of "Santa Baby". The show closed with "Tout, tout pour ma chérie" sung in French (her pronunciation wasn't bad at all). I love that this band has live vocals (I'm not being fooled am I?), and the choreography is so professional and tight.
Ok, and I like the girls too!
Next up was Round Table's Kitagawa Katsutoshi, who performed a solo set of covers, alternating between slower and upbeat tracks. He was accompanied by a bassist, and Hase-san on piano, and a beatbox. Although I could tell that I had heard about half of them before, I could only clearly recognize The Tigers' "Seaside Bound" which I love. I'm not too familiar with Round Table, but he had a very good voice and gave a nice show!
3rd on stage was arcorhyme for their first live full set ever! Takanami K-tarō and Nishimura Ikuyo were accompanied by Nakamori Yasuhiro (Hicksville) on guitar, and Kecchan (Takahashi Yūko of Gomes the Hitman). K-tarō wore a red shirt, of which Ikuyo fixed the collar before they began their set, and Ikuyo first wore a black dress, and later a Christmas-ish outfit of a red dress with a white vest, and silver Christmas ornament balls for earrings!
The set list went like this: tsukiyo no hōseki ~Les Bijoutiers du Clair de Lune~ / Strawberry Decadence / Charade / Don't Do you believe in Magic? (cover of Lovin' Spoonful) / You Really Got Me (cover of The Kinks) / Never Fall In Love Again (cover of Southern All Stars) / amai hibi ~la douce vie~
K-tarō played guitar and he sang "Don't Do you believe in Magic?" solo, and Ikuyo sang lead for most of the rest, also playing saxophone and flute bits. Although there were small mistakes (no biggie!), surely due to a bit of nervousness of a first show, it was just great! I was very pleased to hear all of these live, and even sitting at the front row.
Oh, and I saw the album jackets for the first time on a flyer, you'd think they're psychedelic neo-GS, haha! Not surprising since they were designed by Sally Kubota (ex-The Phantom Gift).
Last up were solange et delphine, who this time played a full-band jazz set, with violin, guitar, bass and drums. Hase-san and Yumi-chan both wore warm winter fur hats which must have been very hot under the spotlights. They opened with a Christmas song and played all of their recent regulars plus one or two new songs. I felt there was a bit more of a disco feel to their sound than usual. I picked up their two new CD-Rs "yume to Cosme" (3 new tracks) and "Dream On Hype" (house remixes by Yoshida Tetsuto).
Upon leaving, I had DJ Yoshida Tetsuto show me a 7" of the motoneta of Pizzicato Five's "20th Century Girl". It's actually a Christmas song, Claudine Longet's "I Don't Intend To Spend Christmas Without You". I'll probably have to hunt this down for myself!
Oh, and big thanks to my friends of arcorhyme (and label Vivid Sound) who could get me in! That was a truly wonderful pre-Christmas evening!
Larger size photos and more at Flickr
Posted on December 17, 2007 at 23:21 | Tweet
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Sounds like a great night. Is Keitaro's voice still as clear and warm as in the 80s, early 90s?
And actually, I don't intend to spend Christmas Without you is one of my faforite xmas songs ever :)
And it was the first song on Christmas A Go Go! last year:
http://christmasagogo.blogspot.com/search?q=intend
I like Saint Etienne's version best (not including P5).
I could send you these versions if you like.
Posted by Erik on December 18, 2007 at 02:07
Yes I think that K-taro's voice is still as good as back in the day. :) I really can't wait to hear more on the albums!
And yeah when I searched for that Christmas song, what came up first was your post about it on the Christmas A Go Go blog! :)
Posted by Patrick on December 18, 2007 at 10:29
Here's another K-Taro fan who's excintingly wainting for this arcorhyme CDs!!!
I still think his solo albums were great stuff!! What do you think guys?
Posted by Damian on December 19, 2007 at 03:31