Electric Eel Shock joins the bill for Osaka Rock Day!

Maybe they were already on it.  I don't know.  I'm Japanese illiterate, so Electric Eel Shock may have already been on my ticket when I bought it.  What I do know is they're playing the Osaka Rock Day show with Shonen Knife and Melt-Banana, which amounts to my holy trinity of Japanese rock acts all appearing in the same place, on the same day, with the same me watching.  One reason I moved to Japan in the first place was to have greater opportunities to see bands like these.  While I've managed to make it to quite a few Melt-Banana "lives," both Shonen Knife and EES proved as elusive as the shark before now.

I'm a little concerned that in fulfilling this quest I may die soon after.  These things tend to happen.  What I want to let the fates and the universe know is I plan to stick around to see a few other bands I haven't been able to catch.  Still out there cruising beneath the waves remain Voredoms/Boredoms, OOIOO, 5678s, Puffy, Go!Go!7188, Spookey and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.

Which brings me to this.  A list of bands and musicians I've seen live, both in Japan and in the US.

REM
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Bob Dylan
Statler Brothers
Tom T. Hall
Harvey Milk
The Replacements
Violent Femmes
Smoke/Opal Foxx Quartet
Dreams So Real
Red Krayola
Fantomas
Drivin N Cryin
5/8
Jet By Day
Built to Spill
Modest Mouse
Toy Missile
Melt-Banana

Okay, that pathetic, paltry list was meant to be more impressive but now I realize years of altered states living robbed me of memories of dozens of other acts I've seen live.  Actually, some of these I only learned I attended after the fact.

Osaka Rock Day 1/25/14

I will be attending this show.  They have a spectacular slate of bands scheduled, with the legendary Shonen Knife headlining.  Among the openers?  Another legendary band by the name of...

Melt-Banana.

My entire life has been leading up to this show.  Which worries me a little, because afterwards what else will there be to keep me here?  Oh sure, love, family, friends, work, hobbies, the chance to see other shows equally as cool as this one, scientific discoveries and books to read.  But anyone could pull all that out of a hat.

Melt-Banana at Club Heavy Sick, Hatagaya, April 29, 2012

These are pretty awful but they document the last Melt-Banana show I saw with Rika on bass. This was a very nice weekend, everything going extremely well, perhaps even perfectly. Here's Heavy Sick, just a two or three minute walk from my hotel:

Let's see if we've come to the right place.  We have--

Sold out! Oh no!  But what's this?

I bought my ticket the day before because I've never been to a Melt-Banana show that hasn't sold out.  It was nerve-wracking cutting it even that close, but the end result was I got to hang out with some really cool people and experience some music I wouldn't have under other circumstances while buying my ticket to the Melt-Banana show.  So it pays to keep yourself open for new kinds of fun.

But at least one other couple had the good fortune of getting involved in a language mix-up with the door person and having Yako herself come out of Heavy Sick and add them to the audience list.  That made everyone feel good.  Added a positive vibe to an already ultra-smooth evening.

Heavy Sick is very small.

Here are images from the show itself.

And there you have it.  I have no idea what Rika is up to these days, but Melt-Banana is a duo.  We saw them next on Christmas Day the same year.  They played most of the same songs from this set.  Sorry my photos are so lousy this time around.  I'd blame the camera but it was all me.