So as I mentioned in my entry on Tuesday, my only real plan for today was a trip to Nishinomiya Gardens to listen to Rie Fu performing. Something I’d forgotton about though was that the dorm had planned a little bit of a lunchtime party for us as a welcome to the large group of students who’d recently moved in. I could only stay for half an hour, which was enough time to have a little food, do an introduction to the group and pick up a very generous gift of some snack foods from our dorm manager. It seems a lot of the new guys go to an entertainments school in the area, and the one guy goes to that anime university I found not too long back.
Perfect weather meant that there were lots of families enjoying their time in the garden area of Nishinomiya Gardens, the spot that “Nishinomiya Live” was (and has been) taking place. Kids were running through the fountains drenching themselves head to toe, older couples enjoyed spots in the shade, and even the litter pickers seemed to have a non-forced smile. As I made my way to the stage area and the sitting spot I could hear Rie Fu and the crew doing last minute sound checks to make sure everything was on and up to scratch. I took that time to whack out a sketchbook and started doodling. After a while I started to think more about the locations that I’ll be using in Lotaku, and started to try and draw pictures from my old school. My crappy memory aside, the weird shapes and layout of the buildings didn’t help much when trying to make a birds eye view pic.
As expected, Rie Fu’s set was awesome. I don’t see live acts very often (buskers being the obvious exception), so whenever I do go it’s normally a real treat. She opened with my favourite song of hers, Life is Like a Boat, which coincidentally was the first song that I sung at karaoke since coming to Japan. I did take a video of it, but was told off (I didn’t know you couldn’t film >_< ). After the performance she was signing copies of various CDs, so I picked up a copy of her newest album, Urban Romantic, which also came with a DVD. When I was getting mine signed I hit a bit of a snag. In the few seconds we had to talk, rather than say something meaningful or anything relevant, I say the one thing that I myself always hate to hear; (in Japanese, and for me substitute one language with another) “Your English is really good”. Like a pro though she responded positively “you gotta keep trying, right?”, whether or not this is one of her song names I’m not too sure though. Either way I went and sat down feeling like a right plonker. After wards one of the camera guys asked me a few questions and although I tried to answer in my mangled Japanese, I don’t think I answered any of the questions the way he wanted.
As the second set (she was performing twice) was going to be the same as the first I headed off earlier. I’ve just had a look on Rie Fu’s blog and there are a few pictures up. In one you can see me looking like a plank, camera in hand, but seriously it was a great show. So to sing us out with a song from her new album, it’s Rie Fu and Present.