Day 4: Okinawa (the first show)
Here we are Saturday morning, the day of the very first Magma show. Doors opened around eleven, with things kicking off at noon.
The schedule called for about 30 different acts over the following ten or so hours. Pretty nuts, eh? Each band would be allowed three to four songs. And considering the average punk song is under a minute (or so everyone assumed, though its not an entirely off base clich?) that meant each band was allotted about 10-15 minutes. And we all knew that wasn?t gonna happen.
First up was maybe my fave from the entire trip. It was some Japanese act in which the singer also did kung fu up on-stage. So while in the middle of singing, he would break piles of concrete slabs with his forehead and beat people up. At one point, someone came after him with a baseball bat, swung at him, and the singer kicked and broke it in mid-swing!
As expected, the crowd was kinda small; Okinawa just didn?t seem like someplace that had lots of kids. But at least the show provided a chance for Army guys to blow off some steam via the pit, which was more or less filled with American G.I.s 90% of the time. Through the course of the show I would chit-chat with a few, and all were super happy to have the show, since there isn?t much American music to be found in Japan, and if a club plays something, its always rap, and all the Army dudes flat out hate rap music (yes, even the black dudes).
I knew going in that I was going to be bored at one point or another; I like punk/hardcore and all, but its not really my main thing, plus 12 hours straight of anything gets old quickly, so in the afternoon I decided to walk down the highway and check stuff out. This waterside park was quite nice…
There were lots of car/vehicular related things…
… That one I think was a dyke-bike club. And I think this guy sells auto insurance…
Another cartoon MK sighting!
Under bridges there always seem to be some sort of painting or mural in Japan…
New York has Duane Reed. In Japan, they have a kangaroo and an elephant…
I had no idea that Konami ran a sports club.
Also the highway was a cluster of mausoleums…
As well as the chance to get one yourself…
It wasn?t sunny, but it was definitely hot, so I decided to cool off inside Kojima, which is like Best But there.
The DS section had this, which I really wanted to get, but again, language barrier…
The area was filled to the brim was pachinko places, often greeting visitors with crazy English, like this one which made some crazy promises…
Then there?s this one, which I actually checked out inside…
I never did play any pachinko while in Japan, simply because it looked rather complicated. But many had arcades, and this particular one offered yet another jaw-dropping find (at least to me). A Planet Harrier machine!
Yes, the sequel to Space Harrier, which I have been long-obsessed with since first seeing vids of it in action on IGN. I once had a chance to play it in the States, but by the time I finally found out how to get to the location it was at, which was a laundry mat in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, it had been moved just a day or two prior. But yeah? fun stuff! Again, why in the hell it was never ported to Dreamcast (it ran on Naomi hardware, which would have meant an ultra quick and easy conversion) is beyond anyone?s guesses.
On the way back, I passed by this center for teaching English…
Some more kooky crap from around the venue…
… I guess that?s a gay club, or a club for the gays. And for those who are into Jesus…
Back at the show, here I am with G and the two girls running the official Magma merch table next to us.
Not pictured is the third girl, who got hit on literally by a different G.I. literally every thirty minutes the entire show. Funny stuff.
Well, the show raged on… and on… and on… and on. I was pretty spent, and pretty bored after about seven or so hours. There really wasn?t much to do other than drink beer (primarily Orion Beer, the local brew) and eat corndogs…
Almost immediately the place began to be littered by drunk, passed out Japanese kids. There was this one that was just lying in the middle of the hallway in the backstage area, that everyone posed with, including myself. Here he is with Harley.
Oh, and it really doesn?t come across is this one Japanese girl who had this awesome angry fight stance/dance thing going on that was just a joy to watch. I really wish I had video. Just imagine her, standing like that, and just rocking back and forth, back and forth, and bobbing her head.
Another highlight girl from the audience was this really tall, and rather attractive looking blonde. It was impossible to miss her since she was at least six foot. But yeah, she was definitely one of those girls who you first see and go “OMG, she?s hot” and then, at least for me, fifteen seconds later go “OMG, she?s so fucking annoying.” She basically flirted with every white dude in the place (except for me, but that?s because I was too busy stuff my face with corndogs and onigiri). Keith ended up chatting with her and found that she was both 18 and married. Yeah… that marriage will last.
Anyhow, I forget when, but eventually the Stackers hit the stage. I first saw them in New York, at the NY Shitty Punk Rock CD release party, and they totally blew me away. So it was great seeing them in action once more.
Eventually, night came over the city…
Which as they say is when the freaks come out. The previously dormant streets were all of sudden bursting with activity. Basically, ever two feet was some dude in a white button down shirt, with rolled up sleeves, and tie. And their job was to convince any passer-byer to follow them to whatever club they were working for, like this one across the street, which I?m guessing featured white women…
Since I spoke no Japanese, it was easy to brush them off, but they could be quite aggressive. While on the way to grab some curry, I saw one guy get swarmed by literally 20 of those said dudes. At first I thought they were beating him up, but then I noticed the man in the middle laughing his ass off.
Oh, so again, language barrier. A lot of the curry shops have this system in which you order your food via a machine. You put in your money, and hit then a button. Out comes a ticket, which you bring to the waitress, and she gives you your food. Pretty easy and straightforward, right? And since each button has a picture of the dish, you know what you?re getting? kinda. I wanted curry with some meat, and they had a bunch, all breaded, which meant that I really couldn?t tell what it was. Which meant me trying to ask the woman behind the counter, but to no avail, so in a flash of brilliance I asked what the mystery meat was by making chicken noises and flapping my arms like wings, and making pig noises, and mooing. But hey, it worked; I was getting pork.
I told this to Joe afterwards, so thought it was pretty dumb, and then I told him about the hordes of dudes in shirts and ties, trying to wrangle Johns for clubs, which he wanted to see. And directly outside were to trannies, which meant yet another photo op…
I forget when the show actually wrapped. It was well past when it was originally supposed, mostly due to the American acts hogging the stage. It was to expected, and I can certainly understand a band that traveled 7,000 miles wanting to do more than three songs, but one act in particular went way overboard with like 13 songs, each one of them droning and repetitious (and far too ?hardcore? for my tastes). Oh, and for punk songs, each was way too long. These guys, as did a number of acts, wasted time on stage by bitching about everything, which you know, is first fucking class. By the time the last band did go up front, most of the audience had been depleted. Problem was, one of the major contingencies, the U.S. Army men, all had to go back to their barracks by midnight, or as one guy told me, “The C.O. [Commanding Officer] will cut my balls off!”
By the end, our gang was spent; we just wanted to go back to our wonderful hotel rooms, which made the last acts multiple encores hard to stomach. Though eventually, we were off…
