Blog - Portable Rock live report

Portable Rock live report

Last night, I went to see Portable Rock live at Shinjuku Loft, part of the Loft's 30th Anniversary "Rock of Ages" concerts series. The show's main act was Moonriders, but they brought along two defunct bands that they had ties with to play short sets. The place was packed, with a lot of older people but also many in their 20's-30's, probably a lot there to see Nomiya Maki.

Portable Rock was Nomiya Maki's pre-Pizzicato Five band, together with Nakahara Nobuo (bass) and Suzuki Tomofumi (guitar). It had been 17 years since their last concert in 1989(?), and even that concert was perhaps a little bit of a "revival" as it accompanied the release of "The Beginnings", a collection of early demos recorded at Moonriders' Suzuki Keiichi's studio. Most songs they played were taken from that album, though three of those were also included on their album "Q.T". Having been listening to "Q.T" lately, I knew most of the songs from the 6-song set and had a great time!

Maki was of course beautiful. She wore a simple black dress falling off her shoulders, and had some large shiny accessory in her hair. There was no costume change during the short set.

Portable Rock's set list: Idol / Picnic / Cinemic Love / Golem Polka / 新種海岸 (shinshu kaigan) / Green Books

Just before the last song, Maki said on a reflex 「ピチカートファイヴ、最後の曲です！」 ("Pizzicato Five, this is the last song!") and everyone gasped, and Tomofumi said 「ピチカートファイヴじゃない！！」 ("This is not Pizzicato Five!"). Maki looked so surprised of the words that came out of her mouth without her even noticing, and excused herself over the fact that she had said that line for 10 years and that both bands begin by "P".

I had seen Tomofumi recently when he appeared at Maki's Party People Party for her Pizzicato Five acoustic set, and it was great to see their stage dynamics again.

Next was Cinema, a short-lived new wave/British pop band, and they were quite cool! It was their first live show in 25 years!!
Members were Matsuo Kiyonori (lead vocals and guitar), Nakahara Yasuhiro (lead guitar), Isshiki Susumu (bass), Kotaki Mitsuru (keyboards), and Suzuki Saeko (drums). All members also sang chorus to great effect. All of the front row members (guitars and bass) had great charisma, singer Matsuo had big very curly hair and large glasses, bassist Isshiki was very (too?) talkative and it seemed that if Matsuo wouldn't have stopped him he'd had talked forever about the good old days, and guitarist Nakahara looked very cool in a shirt and necktie with short hair giving him a British look.

They explained that a female drummer was very unusual back in the day, and that it gave their band something special. Her drumming was perfect, and actually the whole band sounded very tight, not like old guys getting back together for a one-time gig. Drummer Suzuki Saeko pointed out that their sound seems somehow more like progressive rock than it used to be. The songs were fun and pop, and they got the whole crowd to sing along to "denwa denwa denwa".

Cinema's set list: ? / Goodbye Heartbreak / Hotel / 君のプリズナー (kimi no Prisoner) / 電話・電話・電話 (denwa denwa denwa) / Cream Soda Baby / 雨のチャイナタウン (ame no Chinatown)

Cinema will have a greatest hits album titled "Golden Best" released in June. Having released only one album plus three singles, all of the album plus a post-album single will be included, and a second disk including previously unreleased material. I'll probably post it to my agenda later.

Last on stage were Moonriders, who just like Shinjuku Loft are this year celebrating their 30th anniversary! Unlike the other bands, I think they've been active for the whole time. I was rather unfamiliar with them, but their sound was a bit less interesting to me, while sometimes a bit new wave they often sounded like folk rock, and sometimes a slight bit cacophonic to my ears (the large number of members (7) probably contributed to that). What I liked of them is their unusual set, with two guitars (rhythm and solo), one guy playing violin/mandolin/trumpet (not all at the same time, mind you), bass, keyboards, and two drums (acoustic and electronic). Especially the violin (sometimes distorted), mandolin and trumpet gave an interesting touch, though sometimes contributed to the folk-ish sound.

Most fun was when they got back for the first encore wearing Darth Vader-ish helmets and then sang "(I can't get no) Satisfaction" in a weird version! And then for the second encore they called back all members of the two other bands on stage and had everyone and the whole crowd singing, that was great fun! They ended the show wearing different black helmets. Also fun was the old videos of them shown before they started to play, back then they really looked new wave and wacky. There was no sound though so I'll have to check out later how their early works sounded.

Posted on April 16, 2006 at 14:15 | Tweet |

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