Last Tuesday, on September 28th, I had the pleasure of seeing X Japan in concert at the Fox Theater in Oakland. I actually did not start listening to X Japan’s music until after they had disbanded back in 1997, but I’ve always liked their music, especially their powerful ballads, and have respected them as one of the most revolutionary rock bands in Japan. They reunited in 2007, albeit without their guitarist hide who passed away in 1998, and when I heard they were doing a North American tour this fall and that their second stop was Oakland, I had to go! X Japan is a legend in Japan, and their popularity is so huge that it would be impossible to see them in such an intimate venue back in their home country, where they constantly sell out their stadium tours — many of their Japanese fans have flown across the Pacific just so they can see them up close during their tour here in North America.
The concert was opened by a thrash band called Vampires Everywhere whom I neither knew about nor cared about, and X Japan didn’t take the stage until well into an hour after the concert had started, but they put on a performance that was worth the wait!
A huge thank you to Mariko, who got the tickets — we had pretty good seats: front row of the loge area, so we had a great view of the stage from above, so we could still sit and enjoy the concert without getting pushed and shoved by the hardcore fans.
Yoshiki takes the stage.X Japan's first performance was "Jade."Yoshiki on drums with vocalist Toshi.Yoshiki's piano performanceYoshiki on piano and Sugizo (formerly of Luna Sea) on violin.X Japan at the end of the concert - Pata, Heath, Yoshiki, Toshi, Sugizo. Yoshiki said that hide was performing with them that night, too.End to an awesome concert.
The set list was mostly made up of their harder, metal rock songs, punctuated by piano and violin solo interludes by Yoshiki and Sugizo. I was impressed that even though it’s been over a decade since their prime in the ’90s and all the band members are now significantly older, Toshi’s voice was still the same, and the band as a whole put on solid performances. Since I’m partial to their softer ballads, the highlight of the show (for me personally) was towards the end of the concert, when they performed “Endless Rain,” and stopped playing/singing repeatedly to let the audience sing back to them. It was really beautiful.
Here is a personal video I took of the end of the concert, when X Japan was taking photos against the crowd, and then exited the stage (throwing multiple water bottles into the audience in the process). I was a little disappointed that they didn’t actually sing “Forever Love,” and only ran the recording of it at the end, but it was still a great concert!
Tonight, I had the pleasure of seeing the beautiful, funny, and most incredibly talented Idina Menzel perform with the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall!
I have been looking forward to this for a while now, since I have been a fan of Idina since her RENT days. She just has such a powerful stage presence and her voice is one of the most beautiful that I have ever heard. When I heard she was going to perform in San Francisco, I had to go. I dragged Dan along with me, and we were also joined by our lovely friends Sam, Uyen and Charissa! (Thanks for coming with us, ladies!) After a delicious dinner at Indigo, we headed over to Davies Symphony Hall for a truly memorable performance!
Idina sang a couple of her own songs that she has written and recorded, but also sang a number of her Broadway hits. She sang the RENT classic  No Day But Today beautifully, and it was breathtaking to hear her sing some of the Wicked songs she made so famous — I’m Not That Girl, For Good, and of course (my favorite!) Defying Gravity. She even slipped in a couple songs from the episodes she guest-starred in for Glee recently (Funny Girl and Lady Gaga’s Poker Face.) We were all in total awe of the Broadway powerhouse and uber-talented songstress that is Idina Menzel. It was one of the best live shows I have seen in a while, and I really hope that I can see her again sometime soon!
Some photos from the evening….
On the balcony of Davies Symphony Hall before the show.
We weren’t allowed to take any photos or footage during the actual concert, so this was my way of getting a photo with my Broadway idol….
I love you Idina! Please come back to San Francisco again soon!!!
::UPDATE:: I found a video on YouTube of one of the biggest highlights of the concert. She sang “For Good” from the musical Wicked unmiked and a cappella after thanking all of us for coming to see her. It really felt like she was singing to us; it took my breath away.
Dan and I finally went to see Wicked today in San Francisco! I’ve been wanting to see the musical since last year, and so when we found out that it is leaving this September, we had to make sure we caught at least one show before then. I had a wonderful time watching Wicked at the Orpheum Theatre — the story was magical, the cast was amazing, and the music was incredibly memorable. I loved it!!!
Last night, Dan and I went to the much-anticipated Muse concert in Oracle Arena in Oakland. Muse is one of Dan’s favorite bands, and so when I heard that they were coming back in December, I immediately picked up a pair of tickets as a birthday gift for Dan. I’d also grown to become a fan, from listening to Dan’s music library, so I was pretty psyched to see them live too.
The stadium was packed and Muse put on an awesome show that did not disappoint! They sang all of their much-loved classics, such as Uprising, Resistance, Supermassive Black Hole, Unnatural Selection, and my personal favorite, Starlight. Their set was incredible, too! They had these massive skyscraper-like structures onstage that opened up to reveal them inside each at the start of the show, and they kept being lowered and lifted and spun atop them while all sorts of motion graphics and effects played on the sides of them. It was visually stunning; I’d never seen anything like it before.
Here’s a video of Muse performing Starlight last night. Amazing!
It was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, and I came out even more a fan than I was before! Definitely looking forward to seeing them live again sometime. 🙂
I can’t believe it’s already April! It feels like just the other day we were ringing in the new year, and a quarter of the year has already passed us by. April has always held a lot of meaning and memories for me.
In school, it was always characteristically the busiest month of the year for me, in terms of putting on International Street Fair and the fact that most of our APIA events for AASU took place during April.
This April marks seven years since Dan and I have been together.
And it was on that fateful day of April 16th three years ago that thousands of lives at our university were forever altered by the actions of a single gunman.
Especially due to this last incident, I can’t really say that I can look back on all of my memories of April with fondness, but it has certainly always been a very emotionally loaded month for me. Since moving to California, April has always been the month I feel the strongest pangs of homesickness. My favorite flower is the cherry blossom, and there’s nothing more gorgeous in April than the 3,800 cherry blossom trees that come into full bloom for a couple weeks every year around the Tidal Basin of the Potomac.
This lovely scene in Washington, DC used to be only a 15-minute drive away from me when I lived in Northern Virginia, but I have not had the pleasure of seeing it in years, due to college and moving out to California, and I have really come to miss it.
The ephemeral nature of the cherry blossoms remind us of the transience of life — characterized by their amazing beauty when in bloom and their swifth death shortly afterwards, the blossoms have often been regarded as a symbol of mortality by the Japanese, and prominently appears in various forms of Japanese art, music and culture. Cherry blossoms, despite their fleeting lifetime every spring, still effloresce and flourish every year, and quickly but gracefully wilt away once they have reached their peak. It’s a reminder of the brevity and delicate aspect of our own human lives, and the importance of living each day to the fullest with no regrets, as if it were our last.
As cheesy as this may sound, I actually have a cherry blossom playlist on my iPod and I have it on repeat every spring when it’s cherry blossom season. There are countless songs about cherry blossoms in Japanese music, but these are my personal top five.
Angela Aki is a half Japanese, half Italian-American singer-songwriter and pianist who grew up in Japan but attended George Washington University — she even has ties to my hometown of Vienna, Virginia, where she recorded her first English album These Words at Jammin Java. She has said that the cherry blossoms she sings of in this song are those in DC, and how they reminded her of her home in Japan. Angela Aki has a really beautiful, powerful voice and this song is one of my favorites by her.
4. 「ã•ãらã€by ケツメイシ (Sakura by Ketsumeishi)
I love this song — it’s a sad song about lost love, but the lyrics are beautiful. I also like the upbeat tempo and the “rap” that comes in here and there. My good friend Richard from school used to sing this song every time we went karaoke, without fail — and was pretty good at it, too!
3. 「桜ã€by コブクム(Sakura by Kobukuro)
Kobukuro’s Sakura is a true classic! I love all of Kobukuro’s ballads. This song also has a tinge of sadness, but the ultimate message is that of hope and having the strength to move forward with your life beyond loss and sorrow. It’s about becoming as strong as the single flower that endures through raging storms and strong winds to see the moment when the rain lets up.
2. 「ã•ãら （独唱）ã€by 森山直太朗 (Sakura (Solo) by Naotaro Moriyama)
This hit song, released in 2003, was Moriyama’s big break and launched him into superstardom. It’s become one of the most popular songs of the last decade, a staple graduation anthem often sung at commencement ceremonies across Japan. The style he sings in seems more traditional than modern, and it really is a classic graduation song in that it sings about the blossoming of youth and the inevitability of parting ways with friends. There are various versions out there, but the one here is his solo, accompanied by piano. I love this other version as well, in which Moriyama is backed by a chorus.
1. 「桜å‚ã€by ç¦å±±é›…æ²» (Sakura zaka by Masaharu Fukuyama)
This is my personal favorite! I fell in love with it when first hearing it in 2000 when it was released, and still love it ten years later. It is one of the most romantic songs I’ve ever heard, although it’s very bittersweet in that it is (again) about a love that has been lost. The soft melody, Fukuyama’s serene vocals and the depth of the lyrics has made it a classic favorite for me. It was a huge hit in Japan as well, selling 750,000 copies in its first week and it remained at the top of the charts for three consecutive weeks; it has sold over 2,300,000 copies overall on the Oricon charts, making it one of Fukuyama’s most successful songs.
I have a friend who can sing the song particularly well and he sang it on guitar for us once, which caused tears to spring to my eyes. I literally melted….
