Feeling: Happy, occasional showers of guilt for drinking too much with an optimistic and excited front coming in from the North as I'm looking forward to Snowboarding in Hokkaido...!
I went to a really smart bar called Star Club - it's pretty small (I would guess that 100 people would squeeze in and it would be packed). Having said that it has a big stage, an awesome PA system and good drums, cymbals, amps all there so you literally just plug in and play. I went to see my friend Shin play an acoustic show. It was really good, about 4 or 5 people played, some bands and some solo - one guy just played 1 song. Good vibe tho so I reckon I'm gonna go there a lot - it's famous in Kobe. It's on a street in a not so glamourous part of town that runs parallel to the train tracks - it has loads of little Izakaya's and Ramen & Okonomiyaki restaurants that are really good. The club itself is actually under the tracks so when trains go over you can hear them and feel the place rattling - it just adds to the great atmosphere!
The only drawback is that gigs in Japan are expensive so even going to see my friend play cost 1600 Yen (£10/11) plus you have to pay for one drink as you go in so for a beer and entry it costs about £15, and that's considered cheap! A big gig like Muse is arounf 8000 Y or Phoenix 5800 so live music is not cheap!
Shin and I are gonna try to get a band together out here along with Shin's mates Aki and Kazu (Kazu is a good friend of mine too and pretty much lives next door so we hang out a lot anyway), he asked the guy that runs the place if we could have a gig and we can, so watch this space.
Here's the club after the gig when the lights were up
The Sound Engineer (cute girl) was up in the roof
Shin singing his wee heart out (he did a cover of Creep by Radiohead mid-set)
Another guy with a good voice
In other news, I got loads of cheese from my friends - God bless you all (you know who you are). You have no idea how much I appreciate little things like that!
Oh and check this out - a recent discovery in a convenience store.
Chocolate Sparkling Water - What next!?! The funny thing is, it actually tastes and smells just like chocolate!
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