The Tokyo Concert Experience

This year I went to shows from almost all of my favorite genres. I got to see artists that I looked forward to witness perform live for the first time and also checked some of my favorites once again.  It was difficult to boil them down to the best five. This year there was not a single dud in the bunch, other than the extremely disappointing one already chronicled , but even that one was more a result of terrible organization rather than the quality of the performance itself. Most shows I went to were either extreme metal ones or electronic ones, but I also saw some prog, world music, reggae, jazz and classical. Indie rock and pop were also prominent, especially when including the sets at Fuji Rock as I did. The following are the top five. 5. Marc Robot’s Ceramic Dog at Fuji Rock Festival . The band was there to prove a point, and that was that they are a rock group. They mentioned that their bookings come from jazz festivals mostly. In this setting, in which they shared a

This show was on a special night. December 2nd 2018 was the 70th birthday of Toninho Horta . The legendary guitar player from Minas Gerais started his career in the late sixties and and in the early seventies became part of the Clube da Esquina group along with Beto Guedes, Flavio Venturini, Wagner Tiso, Lo Borges and Milton Nascimento. The last two responsible for the emblematic album that bears that title, quite possibly the most renowned Brazilian album in history. Toninho walked onto the stage humming the Happy Birthday tune as a reminder of the auspicious date. It didn’t take long for the audience to join him and to welcome him to what was definitely a memorable show. Things got started with a long tuning session that involved some audience participation, setting the tone for a recurrent aspect of the show. Horta’s interaction with the crowd is more like a dialogue.  In his stage banter he spoke about his gratitude to Japan, a country he considers as his second one.

Growing up, the genre that held the key to my music appreciation adulthood was prog. I remember listening to Genesis’ The Music Box and being in awe with what a song could be capable of. One album in particular opened the floodgates. Just looking at that gatefold spread on vinyl was exhilarating. A terrified man screaming as he literally sees his mind expanding, an obvious and yet accurate metaphor of what that record meant. With only five songs and the perfect flow that connected the relentless brutal pace of the opening song with the pastoral calmness of the second one. Closing the first side with a mellotron driven anthemic tune and opening the second one with a ballad that turned into sort of a full musique concrete improvisation ditty. Then closing with the title song in full epic mode. That record was a trip and after that I got Larks’ Tongues in Aspic , the early eighties trilogy, watched the live videos, they pretty much became my favorite band. Then the nineties came