Blog - Weekly revue: 2019 week #53 (December 28 to January 3)

Weekly revue: 2019 week #53 (December 28 to January 3)

Happy New Year 2020!!

Hatsumode

Food: The last food of the year was year-end soba :)

Music event: My last show of 2019 was one titled "After Christmas Party" and organized by The Pen Friend Club! It was held at Yamaha Ginza Studio, where I went for the first time. Located downstairs from the classy Yamaha flagship store, it's a full-featured live venue furnished with audio equipment by the musical instrument maker, so of course the sound was great! The event featured avandoned, RYUTist, Tweedees and The Pen Friend Club. Each of the bands had stage time of abourt 45 minnutes, so the event was a good opportunity to see a lot by all of them.

As the title says the event was held after Christmas, on December 28, and it did have a Christmas theme with a few Christmas songs through the show. It started with avandoned, an idol group led by Usakura Beni (who is also active as a DJ and often makes mixtapes or zines). Their songs are a mix of idol songs, some just cute and great pop songs, and then some indie rock too, making for a fun variety. I had seen avandoned as a duo (when single "Lemon Peels" was released) but it was my first time seeing them as a formation of four. They sang "Lemon Peels", "shohōsen" and "chanto koko ni Sign shite" among many others. Their show was fun and dreamy.

Up next was RYUTist, an idol group from Niigata who I had previously seen once in a show with SOLEIL last June. With songs contributed by various artists (including Tweedees, Microstar and many more), not only their music is great but also they sing very well. Their set included "Christmas Delights", "watashi no komichi" (both written by The Pen Friernd Club's Hirakawa Yūichi), "aozora Signal" (written by Tweedees) and "tasogare no Diary" (co-written by Tweedees and Kitagawa Katsutoshi (Round Table)).

Next on stage was Tweedees, who I had also seen recently with SOLEIL, and even more recently just the week before at an acoustic in-store event at CA4LA in Omotesando. This time they were accompanied by keyboardist Inoue Kaoru (of Blue Peppers), guitarist Qurosawa (of Pollyanna) and drummer Hara "Gen" Hideki (who I had recently seen with Dots+Borders and Neil and Iraiza). The other times I saw them bassist/leader Okii Reiji (ex-Cymbals) talked a lot, but this time the show was music almost non-stop. At the end of their show they invited RYUTist back on stage to sing "aozora Signal" together (a song that Tweedees wrote for them).

And last to play was The Pen Friend Club with all of its eight members (vocals, two guitars, bass, saxophone, keyboards, glockenspiel, drums). They played originals such as "hishō suru nichijo" and "hohoende" (watch it below), as well as many covers including ones of Roger Nichols, The Beach Boys, 5th Dimension, The Association, and a moving cover of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" (as heard on their "Merry Christmas From The Pen Friend Club" album). It has been announced that their excellent vocalist Fujimoto Yuka will be quitting the band in February, and she has only two more shows to go (on January 18 at Kichijoji Ichibee and on February 22 at Star Pine's Cafe).

Music release news: Yapoos, YMC, Q.A.S.B., George Cates, Reina Nosa, Way Wave, Do Nothing Productions, Blue Peppers, Pearl Brothers TWO, Venus Peter, Urbangarde, Katori Shingo, Kaede