The Tokyo Concert Experience

  This year’s Fuji Rock Festival was an all Japanese affair. Because of the pandemic there were no international acts on the bill. This didn’t translate in a reduction in ticket prices. Can’t really blame the organization for trying to make ends meet, in addition they were kind enough to stream most of it on YouTube. For the financially strapped it was difficult to justify the trip to Naeba this year. As much as I wanted to witness my fourth consecutive edition I had to pass on checking it out this year. I saw this Alternative Night at WWW X as a way of recreating a mid-afternoon Fuji Rock experience at a fraction of the price in one of my favorite venues. A solid lineup that included one of my top three choices from this year's edition of the aforementioned festival, made the offer even more tempting, so I ventured and got a ticket. Didn’t regret it one bit. This was an eclectic evening of really good music. It started off with Yakenohara , from the side next to the audience, spin...

  Abstraction is a difficult word to explain at my English teaching job. For some reason that word in English is not too familiar even among students with artistic interests. I usually say it’s the opposite to naturalism or realism, the latter being easier to understand as a point of reference. When that explanation is not enough I’ll show them pictures of Pollock’s paintings and will tell them how there’s nothing in nature that resembles them. With music it’s more difficult because in essence all music is abstract, there’s no naturalistic representation being attempted. The paradox is that at this Ryoji Ikeda show I couldn’t stop thinking about external references as I was being bombarded by that captivating imagery he’s responsible of - the man has a visual arts background that include individual exhibits at some true A tier museums from around the world. That’s not to say his music is an afterthought, on the contrary. They complement each other nicely. After Ikeda walked to the...