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

John Foxx and Louis Gordon will be playing TWO shows in Takadanobaba Area in Tokyo, Japan on Saturday the 21st and Sunday the 22nd of September. We'll have more details soon.

Rob

Crikey, John and Louis are getting about a bit this year! This is brilliant news - I'm sure their music will go down a storm over there.

John will go down well in Japan. He was always very popular there.

Unless I win the lottery I won't be going

Peter

What about the USA?

Bloody hell! What's going on!?

This quiet year he was supposed to be having has gone a bit 'radio rental'! Australia, now Tokyo! If he's not too busy, how about some warm up slots in the UK!

I can see the back of the t-shirts now;

Australia/Tokyo/...Durham

"At this rate of travel they should easily accumulate enough frequent flyer miles to be able to afford a quick trip to the States by year-end," she thinks, typing with her fingers crossed and her breath bated . . .

Well, a gal can dream, can't she?

I asked a friend of mine where Takadanobaba was and he replied On the Yamanote loop line not far from Shinjuku. Waseda Uni is nearby so it's a kind of university town, full of students. Lots of good places to eat and drink too..

So that should pull a good sized crowd.

Anyone from Australia or elsewhere in John Foxx land thinking of going to the Japoan concerts.
The Sydney concert was so great, I am serioulsy thinking of going to the Japan concerts. I can go FF points at this early stage.

I think Atom Man is also thinking about it.

Any other takers to come over and enjoy some Japanese culture and Foxx live. BTW, The bars in Tokyo are something else.

Definitely considering it but I'll need to wait a few weeks before I'll know for certain.
My Japanese-speaking friend said he'd love to come with me. He won't go to the concert though. He's lived there for quite a few years so knows a few interesting places.

There's also a member here named Poyns (I believe) who's in Tokyo.

A group booking might get us a discount at the hotel (assuming we all stayed at the same place), but that would need to be organised.

Buying tickets online might be a problem if its all in Japanese.

I would love to see John again. It’s 2 weeks since I met him in Sydney - it was the greatest nite of my life & I think about it constantly.

But I don't have enough money to visit Japan & I don't speak Japanese, so I’d be a bit worried about getting around there. I like to be fully aware of my surroundings.

I think I'd sound parochial if I said it was the best concert I'd ever been to. I'm biased.
Japan is fairly safe. Very low crime rate. But I can understand the concern a female traveling on her own would have. That's why organising a group would be better.

Any news yet? I've drawn only blanks so far at this end.

I'm sure Rob will make an announcement when he has the details.

There's still more than 2 months to go.

I'm so looking forward to this, I actually live in the neighbourhood so I can probably walk to the show! I haven't seen John play live since '83!
There aren't many venues of any decent size, so it is going to be intimate I am sure! One concern about live concerts in Japan is getting hold of tickets, they are normally on available through specific (local) agents, and difficult for non-Japanese to navigate (fingers crossed for a relatively easy path for all!).

Solenoid. This is a useful little page for you.

http://jage.jp/ultravox/ULTRAVOX.html

If you go to PIA (ぴあ), they definitely sell JF tickets cos I got mine there.

Splendid Poyns!

Many thanks for the link. I went to Japan Vinyl #2 shop and got my tickets there (and a free badge!!). Interesting that the ticket and the poster don't include Louis Gordon's name.

Also now I realise where the venue is (should have noticed the capitalisation earlier I guess - i.e. Area). Takadanobaba Area is under a supermarket called Seiyu. Not far from the station and a direct route (no turns) so should be easy to get to. Although I haven't been inside, I know that it isn't big, so for those of us who enjoy the more intimate concerts, then this is probably a great venue.
Here is the link to the homepage, it has maps, etc.

http://www.xxxrecords.jp/area/

Looking forward to it!

p.s. Ticket PIA has it on sale now via web, but no English translation that I can find, making it difficult for those overseas who want to go.

http://ent.pia.jp/pia/event.do?eventCd=0828580

Is that the tour poster near the top centre of that page?

Looks like the page changed.
The poster is here:
http://jage.jp/ultravox/JF_2008_Flier_mini.jpg

The general URL is one that PONYS kindly posted:
http://jage.jp/ultravox/ULTRAVOX.html

Scroll down, you should get it.

Are you going?

Yes, that's the one. Would be nice to score one.
As much as I'd love to, doesn't look like I'll be able to get away from work.

I like the tour poster too. Yeah, it would be good to have one of them, it looks great, love the photo.

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.

I have been walking around numerous times with my Panasonic DV camera stuffed in my underpants
Walks a bit hard but it does the trick, when you go in just talk on the phone to someone in your native language and switch to the guys checking to ask them something stupid (where's the cloakroom, toilets etc)
Works for me!
I really had good experiences with just a simple DV camera, usually the sound works out fine.
Just switch off the "zoom" microphone, this messed up my Depeche Mode in Rotterdam video in 2006, super video...but the sound is like coming through a pipe sometimes :rolleyes:
The focus thing is something else though.

Seeing those pictures makes me wanna go Japan!
I wish all a great time overthere

greetings,
fons

some of my handywork > http://nl.youtube.com/user/derfreiwillige