Never did finish about Tomo's show...

If you haven't seen them yet, there are some videos from Tomo's concert down below. But I think I failed in explaining why I was there and what happened that night. And so...

I got home from Nikko at 7:30ish and the minute I exited the Tabata metro, my Okaasan ran up to me and said we had very little time. So we drove back to her house, dropped off unneeded stuff and jumped on bikes. Having full confidence in my bike-riding abilities, I proceeded to pedal and duly proceeded to fall on my face. Thankfully, however, the problem was not with my motor controls, but simply a bad bike chain.

After a neighbor gracefully provided another bike, Okaasan and I made our way to a subway station and transferred onto a train headed for Shibuya. In Shibuya we met up with Otoosan and a family friend, the Brazilian Louis. Louis has been in Japan for 10 years (going on 11) and was Tomo's English teacher in high school.

The restaurant was pretty awesome. It was filled with mostly hipster types wearing odd clothing and talking in hushed groups. The waitstaff was clothed in leather, animal skins, many earrings, and more rings. For those who reside in Washington DC, think Seth from Kramers times 5. Loud JPop/Rock (?) music blared in the background. This is what we- a smartly dressed adult couple and two gaijin!- walked into. The best part of all though, is how good the food smelled, and then how good it tasted!

At some point during the meal a man dressed in a smart leopard skin jacket, with skeleton gnarled rings, long chain necklaces and trendy glasses walked up to our table. After bowing and introducing himself to my Japanese parents, he sat himself down across from me and told a waiter to bring him food. We got to talkin...ends up his favorite band is Third Eye Blind and he really wants them to come to Japan. One thing of note regarding Japanese and American hipsters- In America the "in/trendy hipster" stuff is either foreign or simply bizarre (sorry friends). In Japan, it's the same...only the "foreign" stuff is, of course, American. But it's not the same stuff our hipsters listen to. The underground American music here is American pop rock. Bands like Coldplay, Third Eye Blind, and Greenday register as "different" and can be heard in the Japanese equivalencies of Greenwich Village (NYers) or Dupont Circle (Washington DC people).

Anyway, so as is the custom in Japan when you meet someone, the manager who was eating with us came along for the rest of the night. We headed out to Tomo's show, which was held in an apparently popular rock club. The music was good (see below) and the crowd was surprisingly big. Tomo said it was the band's debut show, but they were really together and the crowd loved them. The highlight of the night, for me anyway, had to be seeing Otoosan dancing in the restaurant manager's leopard coat.

You can find more information on the band at www.ashraycall.com