Blog - Weekly revue: 2019 week #18 (April 27 to May 3)

Weekly revue: 2019 week #18 (April 27 to May 3)

The Japanese era of Heisei ended, and then new era Reiwa started on May 1st with the change of Emperor.

Music event: On Saturday April 27, I suddenly found some free time and rushed to Daikanyama Unice to attend event "Sabrina, Forever". Sabrina was one of the two singers of band Masakosan, the other being Mayutan who organized the event. Sabrina was also Mayutan's elder sister, and sadly she passed away 25 years ago to that day (at the young age of 25). I didn't know so much about the band or Sabrina, but I did love Masakosan's music ever since randomly buying the "Nagomu Collection" album. In parallel, I also love pretty much everything I've seen Mayutan in (starting with Herumeso in Watts Towers or as Applehead), and even further recently with her Mint-Lee noka and ammakasie noka releases. However it's only very recently that I put all pieces together, realizing that Mayutan sang in Masakosan, and then learning about her dear sister Sabrina.

w/ Sabrina

The event started with a talk show with Mayutan, taking for topic some very rare video footage of Masakosan, teaching me all what I needed to know about the band and Sabrina. Then there were short performances by 3MEN, Swimmers and Velvet Knife, all bands that were apparently close to Masakosan back in the day. While being very new to me they were all very good and entertaining!

That was followed by a special set fronted by Mayutan, starting with a special guest appearance by Kera (boss of Nagomu Records, label which released some Masakosan) who sang a cover of "Get Out And Get Under The Moon" backed by the full band, followed by a karaoke performance of "Silly Walker" (from his new album "Landscape"), a song he dedicated to his Nagomu friends. After singing he stared for a while at the almost-life-size panel of Sabrina, and lovingly patted her on the head before leaving the stage.

The rest of the show starred Mayutan backed by Velvet Knife's pianist. She sang a few Masakosan songs ("kuruma kara mite ne", "ikoku ni te" (one of my favorites!) and "10cm no kujira") followed by a cover of Godiego's "Happiness" (being that Sabrina was a huge fan of Godiego). Last, all musicians from the other bands joined again for Masakosan's iconic "ame ni nurete mo iiya" (a cover of "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head").

I knew little about Masakosan and Sabrina before going to this show, but thanks to Mayutan for sharing all those precious memories now it feels like all the puzzle pieces are in place. It's really too bad that Sabrina went away while still so young, but their band's great music and memories remain.

Music release news: RYUTist, Popuri, KERA, Magic, Drums & Love, Mom