Japan (ft. YMO members)
Live at the Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan
December 8, 1982
“Sons Of Pioneers” Tour
Recording quality : A (Home Remastered FM Recording)
Setlist :
00:00:00 – Burning Bridges
00:03:50 – Sons of Pioneers
00:08:43 – Alien
00:13:54 – Gentlemen Take Polaroids
00:20:28 – Swing
00:26:13 – Cantonese Boy
00:30:00 – Visions Of China
00:34:03 – Nightporter
00:40:35 – Ghosts
00:46:41 – Still Life in Mobile Homes
00:52:11 – Methods Of Dance
00:58:49 – Quiet Life
01:03:28 – European Son
01:07:57 – The Art of Parties
01:14:18 – Bamboo Music (ft. Akiko Yano & Ryuichi Sakamoto)
01:21:04 – Taking Islands in Africa (ft. Ryuichi Sakamoto & Yukihiro Takahashi)
01:26:15 – Life in Tokyo
01:33:17 – Canton
01:38:35 – Good Night (ft. Akiko Yano)
Notes :
As always with my tastes in music, I was particularly glad to discover Japan in 2015, especially their last album, “Tin Drum”, released back in 1981. It reminded me of Talking Heads/King Crimson polyrythmic vibe mixed up with Yellow Magic Orchestra asian synth coldness.
The “Sons Of Pioneers” tour following that last album release was also the last tour Japan ever did, touring both Europe and Asia (mostly Japan, a country in which they were very popular). The band added Masami Tsuchiya as a touring guitarist, a musician oftenly nicknamed “the Japanese Adrian Belew” because of his particular guitar style, sounding a bit like the King Crimson/Zappa/Bowie/Talking Heads guitarist. Performing songs from their not-so-little back catalogue, the tour emphasized mostly on “Tin Drum” tunes (only omitting “Talking Drum”), which were hauntingly beautiful and still way ahead of their time.
Japan’s performance at the Tokyo Nippon Budokan was eagerly awaited, and the band did not disappoint. They invited members of YMO (one of my other favourite bands of all time) to perform with them during the encore : Ryuichi Sakamoto played keyboard while Akiko Yano and Yuki Takahashi performed vocals.
Not so far from Japan’s live album “Oil On Canvas”, this performance is yet almost as important, with no songs omissions and rarely performed songs such as “Bamboo Music”. It’s available on a 3-LP bootleg set but the sound is not always that good. Talking about sound, I did all I could to improve the mastering of this bootleg, re-EQing all the songs, adding bass and treble here & there, cleaning the music a bit. Enjoy !
Japan (1982) were :
Richard Barbieri – keyboard
Steve Jansen – drums
Mick Karn – bass
David Sylvian – vocals, guitar
+
Masami Tsuchiya – guitars, keyboard
Alo Japan.