Metamatic Forums News and Announcements John Foxx news Japanese tour...

If anyone is joining the Japan tour later in the month from overseas, just a note for info:

Japanese venues have a curious custom of requiring to charge you for a drink at the entrance (it may be legal need, I don't know exactly) In some cases the cost is included in the price of the ticket, but not in 9/21~22's case at AREA. The reason I state this is that I saw two non-Japanese having a hell of a time understanding this a few nights back at the Killing Joke concert! Anyway, you will be asked to pay 500 yen at the entrance - don't be surprised. You can then exchange it for a drink inside. Please don't ask why (but if you have the answer, please post!!!).

Oh, and also be on time! Most venues get fined heavily if they overrun, so the start time is normally the time the band actually come on stage. Don't expect to be standing around waiting.

But of course, anyone reading this will be there at 6pm when the doors open to get the front centre position, right?

See you there!

...very exciting.
Hopefully some forum members will get pic's of the show, but is there any chance anybody could also post some photos of the venue, its outside location, etc, I find the context of it all quite interesting so I'd kinda like to see where its all happening

(would have said the same for the Australian tour, but I was not posting then )

I would happily take pictures inside the gig if allowed. Does anyone know the policy on this? I don't want to lug heavy camera gear there to find it is not allowed in! Happy to do for Metamatic.com for no charge and to give commercial rights over.

As for outside, I can probably do that very easily - it is a short walk for me!

random, passing shots are fine for me

just don't get arrested by my request,
I'd never be able to post here again if that happened

Here you go..

Click here to see the main street

Click here to see the entrance

Click to see view from across the street - the red sunshades belong to the supermarket

Click to see entrance sign - make sure you get the right door going in!

Click here to see you chance for refreshment on the way out - apple anybody?

Sadly, there are many signs up saying "no pictures or recording", so carrying good camera gear is probably not a very good idea. Since they are all in Japanese, I could always pretend that I can't read them .

You can imagine that crowd control could be a problem. The only entrance is on this very narrow pavement - there are (more) signs at the door saying "no hanging around".

Excellent - 'From Trash' indeed.
Looks quite an 'interesting' place - a bit of a rough diamond!

Hello Smith too - that'd be me then :p

Re: the posters. I'm not so impressed with it. Looks very dated.
And I wonder how Louis feels about shows always being billed as 'John Foxx'?

Thanks for posting these so quickly solenoid

Where I am its quite dark and raining heavily here right now at 9.24am, so it was a pleasant surprise to log on here and get this candid view of a far away place...

John and Louis don't mind. Lots of people at the Sydney concert had cameras, phones with cameras, etc.

What would be really good is HD video. The loud sound at a concert seems to overwhelm the audio on cameras that can do video too, so a proper video camera with some sort of audio control would be de rigeur.

Stage lighting and effects (fog mostly) seems to affect autofocus cameras, so one with good manual focusing controls would be the best bet. And very low light capability would be good too (greater than 800 ISO. Perhaps 1600 or 3200 ISO). Flash tends to wash out images so avoid it if you can.

The Sydney venue said the same thing so I asked Louis for permission. He said it was no problem.

Some of the latest HD video cameras I've seen are quite tiny. You could easily carry one in a jacket pocket unnoticed. I imagine a lot of fans would have camera phones with them too.