Eye, eye, eye. Oi oi oi

Once again crazy week of experimenting. I had 6 hours sleep last night for the first time in about a month and suddenly the world seems a much better place. Amongst the wonders I discovered during the recent beamtime the most prevalent in my mind are:

1. 1.   4am is definitely the worst time during a long stint awake.
2. 2   Failing that the 21^st hour sucks hard, though you get your second wind after that.
3. 3.     Checking out the cheekbones of people of Asian descent is a good way to work out their nationality.

So now onto more important matters, a quick eye update. My lens are finally ready woo, I just need to pick them up tomorrow. The fitting went pretty well last weekend except for leaving with a bit of a black eye. Not being Japanese the morphology of my eye is somewhat different. The main difference, apparently, is that my eyelids are stretchier.

This led to a ridiculous scenario. The ophthalmologist spent a good hour jabbing my eyes trying to get the contacts out muttering something about being “柔らかい”（loose) and how different my eyes were to a Japanese persons. So one black eye later he figured it’d be best to try something different, which worked straight away.

 

Complaining aside the difference in my sight is unbelievable. It was like switching from normal TV to HD. In fact it was a big shock when I looked at my face with the lens in. I could see all the stress and malnutrition based blemishes induced by beamtime. It wasn’t pleasant, if I didn’t want to read without squinting so bad I think I’d just opt to have crap vision and not see my face again. Naaaaaah.

At any　rate the main event of the weekend occurred on Sunday. Kobe was hosting this years Punkspring, an annual punk rock festival with one day in Tokyo and the other somewhere else in Japan. With the Offspring as the headline and SUM41 as one of the supports I couldn’t not go and relive my teenage years. I’ve been craving live music for a while now also so it was an awesome opportunity.

The gig brought me back to Port Island, it still awes me to think the whole thing is man-made. The gig was to be at the international conference centre. It’s a huge hall and serves to have many uses. As well as hosting gigs it hosts sporting events, a giant pool in the summer and an ice rink in the winter.

Well I could bore you with details of the bands but I won’t. Some of them were decent, total fat a Japanese punk band were a pleasant surprise. Others were a bit rubbish. The headline acts of course were great though they are looking a bit old.

What felt a bit awkward though was the American bands interaction with the crowd. Given that a lot of the audience can’t speak English I can imagine it’s tough but the approach of the bands was very different. One opted to, pretty immaturely, just take the mick and say stupid offensive stuff that most people wouldn’t catch. I’ll admit I’ve done this in the past at international Frisbee tournaments but I don’t condone it.

One band made a real concerted effort to interact and I think it came across a bit. The other method taken was just to ignore the crown and get on with the music. For me that’s just a bit lame. It got me thinking. With all the pressure of being in a band and having to learn songs and whatever, should you learn a bit of the local language before an international gig?

Personally I think yes. Even just a couple of basis (thank-you, lets go, how’s it going) is going to go down well. It almost feels a bit dismissive to me but then I’m not a big-shot punk star.

Enough musing and on to some surprises. The crowd was mental. I mean absolutely heaving, pogoing like crazy, crowd-surfing and massive circle pits. I’d been growing some expectations about Japanese society in general and was happy to have them smashed by the youth. It was like any punk gig I’ve been to and it’s good to see a flame of rebellion still burning in some, crowd surfing was strictly against the venues rules but it stopped no one. Interestingly People were told at the door not to take pics, and almost no one did, something I doubt would happen back home.

There was one point that sticks in my mind and that was SUM41 playing fat lip. The song has the lyrics: 

I don't want to waste my time

become another casualty of society.

I'll never fall in line

Become another victim of your conformity.

I couldn’t help but be struck by a ten-ton brick of irony. It was odd to be in a crowd of hundreds singing lyrics that possibly 3% actually got. I’d love to think that they’d carry that forward but sadly Japanese society is one built on conformity. You enter high school and your life ends as you study to get into a good university. You work your balls off through Uni to enter into a Job that sees you working 60+ hours a week and no one complains. Why? Cos it’s normal. I’m glad I’ve met some wonderful people in this country who feel different I just wish they weren’t such an exception to the rule. The thing that scares me most is I’ve seen it happening in the UK before I left.

All in all it was a great gig. Best bit? Not getting caked in beer due to the fact no one brought drinks into the standing area. That or the announcer speaking （ 敬語）totally felt out of context. Anyway I leave you with this vid I found which I hope inspires some change in the worlds education system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6UP65M8pYY

Mata neeee