Overseas Trip

I've got no idea how or why this happened, but between successfully recording DSFAPLS + 直江実樹 and then attempting to record Junkyard Shaman, my Roland audio recorder did a full factory reset.

I noticed half way through Junkyard Shaman's set that the red 'record' lights were lit up, which I usually have disabled. At first I thought it must be a low battery/storage warning, so I hoped it would last the set. But, checking afterwards, both were fine. I went into the settings and re-disabled the indicator lights, and left it at that.

Unfortunately, I didn't check the recorded file, nor any other settings, until THREE SHOWS LATER (!!) at which point I realised not only had the indicator setting reset, the whole thing had: including plug-in power to my mic. So, the next two and a half gigs are all without audio recordings. Video footage is in-camera mics only.

I finally noticed something was up at Wall on May 16th, switching to the internal mics (my first assumption was that my external microphone had died). To top it off, I ran out of storage space as well - all the more annoying because it was filled with gigabytes of empty audio files!! So I used my phone for two of those sets. It was only when I got back to my hotel room after this gig that I really looked at it properly and realised what had happened.

Very, very annoying.

This was definitely the most unique show I went to on my entire trip. The show started at 11:30pm on Saturday night, and ran through until 5am Sunday morning. It's been a long time since I've pulled an all-nighter, so I was a little apprehensive about attempting it. The venue was an hour away from my hotel, and no trains were running between midnight and 5am, so I knew I'd have to stick it out. On top of that, I was attending another show earlier that day in Kashiwa, another hour away from my hotel but in the opposite direction. But, I decided 'what the heck' and went for it.

There were two stages and the acts alternated at first, but then after a few sets they started overlapping. I wanted to see CDR but didn't realise he clashed with Guitar Wolf (I thought he was playing after). That was annoying, but I managed to catch everything else I wanted to see, which was primarily Analskullfuck.

After the moreru set, I bumped into a girl from Germany who was in Japan on holiday. She'd met a Japanese guy the day before who invited her out to this gig with him. But, he'd disappeared without letting her know, and she didn't know how to get back to her hotel, or even the name of it, as the guy had booked it and taken care of everything. All of her luggage and belongings were there, except for what she had on her (purse, phone, passport). She was pretty concerned and I tried to help her as best I could, but there wasn't much I could do. She needed somewhere to sleep for the night, but I didn't have any room in my hotel. She asked another foreigner she'd met earlier in the night and he was able to help, so she left and I went back to catch the last few acts on the Beta stage. I didn't get any of her contact info, so I've got no idea how things worked out for her.

I was expecting to struggle getting through the night, but it was just non-stop madness and it absolutely flew by. Even when the final act was wrapping up at 5am, it felt too soon.

Emerging from the dark depths of a second level basement into the broad daylight of a (comparatively) sparsely populated Shibuya backstreet, and walking to the train station with a soundtrack of drunken laughter, breaking glass and vomiting is a memory I'll keep forever.

I ended up catching the second train of the morning from Shibuya. I resisted nodding off on the journey to my hotel on the other side of the Sumida river, and crawled into bed at 6:20am. By 11am, I was up and getting ready the final full day of my trip, and the final gig which was starting at 5:30pm...