Blog - INO Hidefumi live report

Ino Hidefumi live report

Last night was Fender Rhodes player Ino Hidefumi's first live show in Tokyo! He had previously only played in his home town of Fukuoka. The show was held at Ebisu Liquid Room, and the place was really packed.

The band had two other musicians, drums stage left and bass stage right. There was also a piano towards stage right, sharing the stool with Ino-san's Fender Rhodes that stood sideways in the center.

Ino-san played most songs from his first album "Satisfaction" (though one of my favorites, "Midnight at the oasis", was missing), plus some others he played on xylophone, glockenspiel and pianica, and then there were also some interludes he did with electronics. His great playing skills showed mostly on piano, but I definitely prefer him sitting at his Rhodes.

There were some special guests in the middle of the show, first of which was Fujiwara Hiroshi. This one was already expected as he had appeared at the Fukuoka show, and also they both had written about it on their blogs. HF accompanied on guitar and sang three mellow songs he selected himself, two of which Ino-san played on piano. The last was Culture Club's "Do you really want to hurt me?".

The next guest was the real surprise of the night. Ino-san announced "I think it's been a long time since he played bass on a stage... Konishi Yasuharu!" Wow!!! Konishi-san playing bass on stage! I think I've only seen that when I saw Groove Room Orchestra in 2002, and maybe at the P5 tribute recording for TV show Factory? Konishi-san replaced the band's bassist for two songs (who played subtle guitar instead), the first of which was Jackson 5's "Never can say goodbye"! Great sound and feel, he just kicked ass! (to put it mildly)

Then there was an encore which started with the piano version of "Spartacus". I thought this was quite predictable, as the song is featured in both Rhodes and piano versions on the album, and felt very fulfilling.

Ino-san also announced that he will have a new 4-song mini-album out in June in collaboration with Tower Records. While he had only released covers so far, all four of these are originals.

Another thing very worth noting were the lights! Ino-san definitely having a liking for things analog, most of the lights weren't controlled by electronics and motors, but by human staff. At times two guys would hold flexible metal sheets, reflecting waves of light throughout the venue. During "Billie Jean", while two guys held projectors in their hands, two others held in front of themselves large mirrorball-like discs that they appeared to be bending from the inside, making for some really psychedelic result! And during the encore's last song, guys stood below three normal mirrorballs and manually held and waved a projector towards these, while other staff was pulling the mirrorballs' strings to make them wiggle like crazy ("just don't drop it, please!", thinks the projector guy).

One word: "satisfaction".

Update (2007/4/2): Photos can be seen at Ino-san's blog (Konishi-san is on the top-right one).

Posted on April 1, 2007 at 12:19 | Tweet |

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