The tail end of January, and it's been a real task to dig deep enough to scrape up anything like enough enthusiasm or drive to put together even a short blog installment. Part of this could be attributed to my standard mid-winter, post holiday season funk, while another part is undoubtably due to the over-all sense of distraction I've been feeling, particularly since the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. over a week ago. I guess this 'new era' isn't really sitting well with me. I have this nagging feeling of dread; every time I flip on the T.V. , or get on to FB, it's another barrage of horrible news. While I was certainly no big supporter of the previous U.S. administration, their honing of the surveillance state, and resultant deterioration of individual rights to privacy, or the endless illegal wars and terrorist-style drone bombing campaigns, there is nothing that I don't find deeply disturbing about a Donald Trump White House. Bad mojo. The feeling that things are going to get a lot worse for all of us, before they can start to get better - no matter where we live. I think the American people have gone from the frying pan into the fire...and it looks likely that their administration will try to drag the world at large in with them. I'm filled with dread and anxiety over what's coming next. After all... geographical location means little, and this new, more vindictive, angrier U.S. administration has as long an economic and military reach as they want. Even 70 years ago, the neighbourhood that I live in here in Nagoya was subject to near annihilation through punitive saturation bombing by American Forces...though the war was basically, for all intents and purposes, already over. I am also unfortunate enough (through a misfortune of birth) to hold a U.S. passport and citizenship. It's a disadvantage, a liability, and ultimately, an albatross. It's also increasingly become the source of a great deal of anxiety. This will be a very long, and painful four years.
Moving on, it's been a pretty standard January here in Olde Nagoyaland. It's the height of flu season here in Japan, with Aichi Prefecture (of which Nagoya is the capital), coming in second place nationwide, in the reported number of cases. On the menu this year, flu type 'A'. Fatigue, aches and severe joint pains, a fever and a hacking cough. My mission, therefore, is to try my utmost to dodge this viral bullet as best I can...which can prove tricky when one teaches at a kindergarten, and hospital. Last year's relatively mild December weather also caved and gave way to some real winter cold into the second week of the new year, with sub-zero temperatures, and even a spot of snow for a few days. Good times.
This year's post-Shogatsu holiday malaise was punctuated by a rare but welcome opportunity to hit the road for a couple of days, this time to take in the big Guns 'n' Roses concert over in Osaka. As is typical with these kinds of 'event' shows over here, we have to enter an online lottery to get our first shot at buying tickets. As soon as one of these events is announced online, my wife and I both enter for every day available at the closest venue (to increase our chances), wait for the drawing date and subsequent e-mail notifications as to whether or not we qualified, and assuming at least one of us managed, head off to lay down a pile of cash, and get our tickets (or advance vouchers) before the 'option' expires. Concert seats over here are always divided into price/quality groupings. Typically 'S', and 'A', 'S' being (on average) $15-$20 more, and supposedly 'better situated' (though sometimes that's highly debatable - there are some pretty shitty 'S' seats). Then there are the VIP tickets and 'Meet and Greets'. These will cost anywhere from $100 to $1000 extra (or even more) depending on who the act is, and what they think they can get away with charging. An audience with The Rolling Stones or old man McCartney will put you in the poor house. We always go for 'S'...and since seating assignments are random, the chips fall where they may. This time around, we were extremely lucky. Due to some shortsightedness on the part of the event planner at Osaka's Kyocera Dome, our initially assigned rear arena seats were deemed 'unacceptable', as a lighting and tech tower had been situated directly in our line of sight...effectively blocking the stage. We were lucky enough to be upgraded and moved up to one of the forward blocks, and vastly better seats. After having spent a frigid hour outside in the merchandise line, waiting to buy the ubiquitous shirts, towels and programs, the relatively warmer climes of the cavernous dome arena was welcome enough. With good proximity to both the bathrooms, and beer vendor, things were looking good. I have to admit that I was a bit less excited with the prospect of standing through a half hour set from the Japanese opening act BabyMetal. Their hybrid presentation of teen girl/ idol group 'cheerleader'-style preening and posturing, juxtaposed with a backdrop of soul-less, generic thrash metal did nothing for me, but give me an excuse to buy more beer to kill the pain. They did, however, seem to be a big hit with the fairly well represented spotty, slightly over-weight middle-aged male demographic in the crowd, who appeared to know all of the trio's dances moves and hand gestures...and fist pumped and danced around like 14 year old girls in time to the routines on stage. Peppered throughout the mostly middle-aged arena crowd, it was a very strange, albeit kind of sad spectacle to behold.
While I had seen one of the later incarnations of Axl's Guns & Roses in Nagoya about ten years ago (when bands still bothered coming to town), I had never seen the original Axl-Slash-Duff line-up back in their late 80's/early 90's heyday. Despite the absence of any other founding members, the band was tight, and turned in a good performance to an almost full house. As I recall, they hit the stage about half an hour later than scheduled...but back in those days, that could be considered a 'win', as Axl was notorious for hitting the stage up to three hours late...or not at all, depending on his prevailing mood. To be honest, back during the band's peak, I didn't have much time for the commercial radio-friendly, mainstream beast that G&R had evolved in to. I recall picking up their debut album, 'Appetite For Destruction', back in August of 1987, shortly after it came out, on the back of some good reviews and positive buzz I had read surrounding the band. Comparisons were being thrown around to bands like the Sex Pistols, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Hanoi Rocks, and even The New York Dolls. That was enough to intrigue me. As I recall, while I wasn't blown away, I liked it well enough not to trade it in immediately, and actually played it regularly for awhile. Glammy, trashy, sneering hard rock, that sounded like a bastard child of Aerosmith and the Sex Pistols. Commercially, the record didn't really do anything until it rather inexplicably 'exploded' on the Billboard charts almost exactly a year later, in late summer of '88. It's an odd thing for a record to just kind of float around in limbo for a year before igniting. By that time, it was old hat, and I had moved on...and the more intensely popular they became, the less they interested me.
As sometimes happens, the passage of time can affect the way we view things like popular music. Perhaps it's a sense of nostalgia for days gone by? Who knows. While I would never have gone out of my way to see the band at their apex, somehow over the years I did manage to pick up each of their successive albums in one form or another...and even went to see Slash and Duff play live with the late Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland in the (rather good) short-lived G&R splinter band, Velvet Revolver, back in the early 2000's. I also actually liked the maligned 2008 release of the infamously stalled and delayed Chinese Democracy album...Axl's ambitious attempt to revive the brand's fortunes that took 15 years to hit the shelves, and reportedly cost more than any album in history to put together. It could be argued that Mr. Rose's egocentricities and antics, along with the band's frequently revolving door of players, and legendary unreliability finally compounded into a credibility issue that even the most inventive, brilliant album could not surmount. By the end of 2014, the 'brand' had taken up it's second extended residency at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas...a town that's widely acknowledged as the place musical acts go to 'pasture' after having exceeded their 'best before' dates. As far as artistic integrity is concerned, taking up a residency in Vegas is almost like ordering a tombstone, and hiring an engraver. That being said, with the sands of time draining away, there was really nothing left for Axl and company to do, except throw in the towel...or start booking cruise ships, a-la-KISS (another 'brand' that, in the absence of any remaining integrity, or motivating factor outside of cash, regularly pulls off Las Vegas residencies and cruise ship 'tours'). While rumours had been knocking around for almost a year before the 'Not In This Lifetime' reunion tour announcement was made, there was still a high degree of skepticism that the legendary animosities harboured between lead guitarist Slash and Rose could be put to rest. Axl's principled refusal to bury the hatchet and appear with his former cohorts for the band's 2012 induction in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seemed to cement the impossibility of any type of imminent reproach. Even the smell of huge stacks of cash wasn't temptation enough for any kind of bridge mending to be undertaken.
Fast forward to January 21st, 2017, Kyocera Dome, Osaka, Japan. After an underwhelming opening set by Japanese pop-metal novelty/idol act, Baby Metal, the lights go down just a couple of minutes shy of 7pm, and the screens light up with a clever animation of the G&R bullet logo spinning around, the opposing guns morphing into crossed samurai swords, then machine guns, then pistols, then back into swords. The night's arena bgm, a flavourful mix of Ramones tunes, fades out, and as the lights go down, and the logos continue spinning and morphing, the old time Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies overture kicks in. Very amusing. Reminiscent of a KISS show, an unseen emcee shouts, "Good evening Osaka! There's a lot of bands in the world...and this is one of them...from Los Angeles California, Guns...and...Roses!!". The stage lights go up, the video walls come to life, and as the lead in bass line from the Duff McKagan penned 'Appetite For Destruction' track, 'It's So Easy' skids into the drums and Slash guitar riff, Axl screeches to life, running to center stage, sporting swept back shoulder length hair (minus his trademark bandana or hat), in aviator sunglasses, ripped jeans, cowboy boots, a t-shirt and a studded punk biker jacket, with the requisite flannel shirt tied around his waste. He grabs the mike stand and away they go. First impressions count, and everything came together beautifully. Slash, striding in confidently in his top hat and sleeveless t-shirt (minus the cigarette dangling from his mouth), Duff McKagan, legs spread and firmly planted, slinging what appeared to be a Fender Precision Bass, emblazoned with a Prince ankh, and local anti-hero Axl, looking a few pounds heavier than 30 years ago, and short on his trademark gyrating snake dance, but in surprisingly good voice. The Sex Pistols-like rush of the opening salvo set everything in motion perfectly - this is exactly how you want a concert to start - a seamlessly timed intro from which the band emerges to take charge of the stage on cue, roaring to life, and firing on all cylinders. It was a beautiful thing. The real challenge any band faces is maintaining that through a two hour- plus set, and about five songs in, Axl's voice started sounding a bit spent...like maybe the nearly two months off, and those few extra holiday kilos might be proving to present even more of an obstacle than the broken foot he suffered at the L.A. club gig, that threatened to derail the tour earlier last year. Through some minor miracle, he managed to marshal through the 'Use Your Illusion' track, 'Estranged' and the excellent Chinese Democracy single, 'Better', regroup, and absolutely rip into the old Wings standard, 'Live and Let Die' with renewed acrebic ferocity....which he was able to pretty much maintain through the remainder of the band's 23 song, two hour and 20 minute set. Of course, unlike the rest of the band, Mr. Rose was afforded the opportunity to slip back stage periodically to change his sweated out gear, and catch his breath - which no doubt helped him out immensely. There were few surprises, with the exception of Duff playing half of the Johnny Thunder's classic, 'You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory' as a segue into G&R's cover of the old Misfits tune, 'Attitude', both of which McKagan took center stage and performed vocal duties on. There was also almost no stage banter, aside from a "How you guys doing out there?" at the very beginning of the show, and the band intros about halfway through. In fact, it was all the job-at-hand, and very professional. They hit the stage on time, got right down to what they were there for, wrapped it up on schedule, and were done. Not a lot of inter-play, smiling or camraderie, like you see from other veteren bands like The Rolling Stones, or even Metallica. Just brass tacks business. While I recall seeing rhythm guitarist Richard Fortus crack a broad smile while playing the band's instrumental cover of Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here' with Duff (while Axl was off changing and gargling), that seemed to be the extent of it. At the two hour twenty mark, as the band wound down on their final encore number, 'Paradise City', and the ubiquitous multi-coloured confetti started to fly around over the VIP section at the very front, the band closed ranks, joined arms, and took their obligatory bow for the nearly sold out stadium crowd. Axl arm in arm with Slash. Something that seemed nigh on impossible three years ago. Never under-estimate the power of cold, hard cash, I guess. The audience and band got what they came for. While I enjoyed the show, I couldn't help but feel that something was missing. Maybe it was the stiffness of opening night? Or the sense that they had become an oldies act, stuck playing a repertory set of greatest hits, like happens with so many other veteren bands. Will they last beyond this year's touring commitments? Indeed, it was surprise enough that they managed to stick it out without disintegrating, or slipping back into their old animosities and problems last year. Or maybe they've conquered their demons? Will there be a new album at the end of this road...or will that be it? I guess time will tell. I would be lying if I said that I wanted them to pack it in. Whether they have a mind to pick up where they left off is another matter. When the Sex Pistols finished their last round of 'for the love of your money' reunion shows, they pocketed their takings and went their separate ways, rather than follow through with a plan to record an album of new material, and try to pick up where they left off in 1977.
Rock and roll is a dying beast. In ten years time will there still be a rock band standing that could fill out a stadium? The Rolling Stones will be into their 80's. When I saw them on their 'Steel Wheels' tour in 1989, word on the street was that they were finished. After all, they were all in their late 40's. What kind of rock and roller hits the stage at 50? It was unheard of. Pete Townshend has already announced that the last series of shows by The WHO would be the last gasp of that band as a touring outfit. There are even rumblings of an imminent final tour from the KISS camp ( along with the final resurrection of their legendary original line-up, with Ace and Peter - the ultimate last cash grab). Of course, we've all heard this before. The more that bands and artists announce their 'final farewells', the less seriously we take them. Legends have been dashed, and hard won credibilities squandered when artists flog and sell out 'farewell' tours, only to re-emerge 'hats in hand' a couple of years (or less) later, when their bank balances are low, and the bills need to be paid. Legendary veteran Vancouver punk act D.O.A. is a prime example of a band that cried "wolf!" one too many times, and essentially destroyed their hometown credibility in the process. This is a band that had commanded a lot of respect, 'back in the day'. While they still pull it together to tour, with their sole founding member leading the charge, it's a rare occasion indeed that they'll book a show in Vancouver. Their welcome was worn out years ago.
So, that's round one for 2017's Japanese concert calendar. Last year was a quiet one, with only one show in early spring (the excellent Brain Wilson Pet Sounds show). March 2nd, we'll be back in Osaka to take in a club show featuring The Damned, on their 40th anniversary jaunt. March 22nd, legendary UK ska act, The Specials will actually come to Nagoya...and then April 29th, it's off to Tokyo to see old man McCartney for the third time in four years. There's an artist that defies the odds. I guess Japan agrees with him in his dotage. He puts on a show that rubs out the competition, though.
This is all lovely news, and events like these are welcome distractions, what with the stomach turning state of the world in general these days. Funny...into my 50th year on planet earth, I'm not much different from when I was a teenager. Drowning out the unpleasantries of reality with music and movies. Fortunately, my lovely wife is fond of events and short trips. With the political climate being what it is these days, and my unfortunate U.S. citizenship, I think it will be a long while before either of us feel comfortable enough to travel abroad. So...Japan it is. Until someone does something about that Cheeto Dingleberry POTUS, anyways.
