Another Year of Concerts

Last year I wrote about going to many concerts. By the end of the year, I had been to about seven different concerts, and in many different cities around the country. While I do not think I will go to as many this year, I have been starting to make a new list.

At the very start of the year in January, I went to Nagoya and saw the singer Vaundy. I have been a big fan of his music for several years now. This was actually my third time seeing him live, but the other two performances were shorter and at events shared with other musicians. This time it was the first time I had seen a full concert by him. The sound and setlist were great, and he played most of my favorite songs. We were quite far away from the stage however and the venue’s shape was not ideal for a concert. He also does not like to use screens for close-up cameras, and there was no encore, so it suddenly ended and felt short. It left me feeling a little disappointed despite how good the music was.

More recently, I went to Osaka in late May to see Official Hige Dandism. It was the first time they had done a stadium tour, and while the weather was humid it thankfully did not rain. It was a great concert. The sound, presentation, and production were all very high quality. We luckily had seats in the center area of the ground area of the stadium. The setlist was almost all non-stop hit songs too, so it was a fun experience. Even though they are so famous, the band members seemed shocked to be performing in a stadium for the first time.

Several months ago, I also went to a small live house show of a former NEO student. It was cool to see one of our students performing on stage. Some of their classmates also showed up and gave support. Watching their performance inspired me to put more time into my own bass practice. It would be nice to find someone to play with sometime in the future.

 
While I have only been to a few live shows so far this year, I have tickets to see Creepy Nuts next week here in Okayama and tickets for the Monster Bash music festival in August. I have been considering buying some tickets for another concert around then as well. There are so many musicians I want to see live; I need to get lucky with tickets and scheduling first.