Blog - Weekly revue: 2015 week #6 (January 31 to February 6)

Weekly revue: 2015 week #6 (January 31 to February 6)

Food: - Curry & biriyani at Halima Kebab Biriyani, Ueno
- Pork curry at Tiri Tiri, Shibuya

Music events: - First of all, this was Vanilla Beans week! Their new album "Vanilla Beans IV" was released on February 3, to coincide with setsubun (Wikipedia). Many in-store shows were held everyday (with even more this weekend), and I went to see two of these.

On release day, I dropped by the 5th floor of Marui Jam in Shibuya where there is a temporary Vanilla Beans shop (until this Sunday), and then we rushed across the street to Marui City where a mini-live was held. They sang two songs ("Please Me Darling" and "uchōten Girl"), and then they were joined by long-time friend Okite Porsche for some setsubun celebrations. Okite-san was the demon by default (of course), and Rena, Lisa and him threw hundreds of small bags of beans at the crowd to be taken home. :)

The 2nd show I saw was at Tsutaya in Nakano, where they often play a show on Thursday whenever they have a new release. There they sang "tasogare Highball", "Muscat Slope Love", "Fågel och vind" (my favorite so far on the new album) and "Please Me Darling".

- Rewind to Tuesday. After seeing Vanilla Beans we went to Organ b. where Matsuda "Chabe" Gakuji was holding his monthly event "Learner". This time the guest was Kaji Hideki, and the place was packed! It was my first time seeing a live show at Organ b., and there were chairs for the audience to sit. This event has a kind of rehearsal theme. Chabe (and guests) bring sheet music, or play songs they haven't played in years, or covers, etc. and they just play and sing without really practicing first. Actually it's a bit like seeing how they may practice at home, there's no decided set list, and it's ok to stop after a verse and start over. That was a lot of fun! Chabe and Kaji-kun collaborated for several songs too. They also talked about old Shibuya-kei days, when they both worked together at Zest Records in Shibuya, and Kaji-kun taught Chabe how to use the register! I'll definitely go again when the timing is good.