On the day before Loud Park was to begin, Ace Frehley backed out. To fill in for his spot Loudness was added to the bill. I was so happy. I saw Ace before, and have seen Kiss with him. I’m not a fan of either his solo act or Kiss. Loudness, on the other hand, was one of my favorite bands in the 1980s. “Disillusion” and “Thunder in the East” are their best two CDs, IMO, and they played a few songs off of them.

Before a band hit the stage the giant screen between the two main stages flashed their name as seen in the above picture.

This was the scene a moment later before Loudness made their first public appearance in quite a while.

Loudness’s long-time drummer, Munetaka Higuchi, died in 2008. Their new drummer is Masayuki Suzuki. Minoru Niihara is the vocalist.

Akira Takasaki is the brilliant guitarist of Loudness. One of his guitars had glowing frets. You can see the glowing frets better in the video at the bottom.

These pics aren’t great, but given that I was more than 100 yards from the stage and the lighting was poor, they aren’t that bad.

The setlist (set list?) was something like this:
Fire Of Spirit
Hellrider
Crazy Nights
Heavy Chains
Crazy Doctor
In The Mirror
Are’s Lament
Like Hell
S.D.I.
Hit The Rails

There is another image of Loudness in this entry.

Finally, a video showing what the small, Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 (ZS3 in some countries) can do. The audio is very good given the size of the arena (absolutely HUGE) and the fact that it is indoors. The sound bounces around quite a bit, but the TZ7 captures the audio pretty well. When in focus (which the TZ7 sometimes had problems with given the low lighting and hands occasionally thrusting into view) the zoom on the TZ7 sometimes provides a clearer picture with video than stills shot with the same camera.

Posted on October 19th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: loudpark, metal, people, tz7 zs3, video. Comments: 2

Children of Bodom (チルドレン・オブ・ボドム) was one of the bands I was most looking forward to at Loud Park. I should really like them given that I love most of their fellow bands in Scandinavia (In Flames, Opeth, Dark Tranquility, Amon Amarth, Dimmu Borgir, Finntroll, Enslaved, Satyricon, etc.), but Children of Bodom have never quite clicked with me. I was hoping that something would click on this evening. I enjoyed their performance, but they still don’t really move me.

Posted on October 18th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: concert photography, loudpark, metal. Comments Off on Children of Bodom @ Loud Park

Typhoon 18 recently ripped through Tokyo. The rain stopped in the morning, followed by some incredible cloud displays. While the sky was mostly blue, a few clouds seemed to be trying to catch up to the typhoon. They zipped across the sky at amazing speed. The blue was bluer than I think I’ve ever seen a sky. I have never experienced such clear Tokyo air before. The hard rain of the night combined with high winds of the morning really cleaned things up.

We ate lunch that day on the 49th floor of the Sumitomo Building in Shinjuku with a window seat to enjoy the view. Unfortunately, my kids had both cameras on their field trips to Cambodia and Hiroshima so that view will have to remain only in my memory. After spending the rest of the afternoon in parks and museums, we headed over to the Ebisu Garden Place Tower to enjoy the sunset from the 39th floor. This place has the best free views in Tokyo. Unlike the buildings in Shinjuku, from Ebisu you have great angles on Shinjuku, Shibuya, and the Tokyo Tower. On top of the superior vantage point on this evening, the sky was freakishly clear. Not only could we see Mt. Fuji (my first time seeing it from the Tokyo city center) clearly, we could see as far as possible in every direction. We could even see stars. It was magical. Too bad I didn’t have a camera. Next time a typhoon hits Tokyo I will be sure to hit the Ebisu Garden Place Tower at sunset with camera in hand.

A few days later, after the kids brought back the cameras, I did get some night shots of Tokyo (featured in this post) although the air wasn’t even remotely as pure. I took all four photos from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office. The top picture is of the Shinjuku Park Tower (on the left). It is the building featured in “Lost in Translation.”

Looking out the windows on the opposite side of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office you can see the Shinjuku Station (down and to the left), Tokyo Tower (very small in the distance just to the right of center), and the NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building (featuring the tallest clock tower in the world).

Above is basically the same picture as the one I took in the sunshine more than a month before.

Staring out at this view is something I can do all night long. It looks like I’m not alone.

Posted on October 18th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: buildings, night photography, shinjuku, Tokyo, tokyo tower. Comments: 9

I’ve seen many Napalm Death shirts over the years but this was my first time experiencing the band. My first impression was that they seemed like a bunch of recently escaped mental hospital patients. Their stage at Loud Park was nearly black through much of the set, making photography impossible. Mark Greenway, the lead singer, paced the stage in a rapid, clockwise circle through their entire set so I couldn’t have really captured him close up even if the lighting was decent.

Napalm Death played a few, really short songs (under a minute each), but for the most part, I think they focused on their more recent, longer song-length material. Overall, I enjoyed their performance.

Mark Greenway made some speeches between songs. Even though what he said was in English I couldn’t really understand him due to his thick Birmingham accent. I’m pretty sure the rest of the audience (99%+ Japanese) couldn’t understand a word.

What you see above is from the few moments when a fair amount of spot lights were on.

Posted on October 18th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: loudpark, metal, napalm death. Comments Off on Napalm Death @ Loud Park 2009

I started off day two (Sunday, October 18, 2009) at Loud Park a little later than day one. There weren’t any early bands that I wanted to see. The full schedule can be seen here. I arrived in time to see the last half of Hibria, a band I hadn’t heard before. They sounded like a mix of early Queensryche and DragonForce. Although I really like early Queensryche, I got bored of Hibria after a few songs so I went for a stroll instead.

The above photo would have been really cool had it been in focus. Oh well…

Hatebreed was next. I am not a fan of Hatebreed. Every time Pandora selects a Hatebreed song for my stations I end up thumbing it down so I don’t have to hear it again. Live, in Tokyo, however, they put on a good show. The singer was very upbeat and the crowd loved them. I don’t know exactly why I liked them, since I don’t like NuMetal, Metalcore, Rap Metal or whatever category they fit in, but they somehow were interesting to watch in concert on this day.

Will I continue to ban them from my Pandora play lists? Probably. If you feel the same way and happen to be at a gig when they are the opening act, I suggest you at least experience them live.

By the way, Pandora doesn’t work in Japan. Pandora is one of only a few things I miss about living in the good old USA. I’m stuck with Live365 Internet Radio over here, and it isn’t nearly as good.

Posted on October 18th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: loudpark, metal. Comments Off on Hibria and Hatebreed @ Loud Park