SOLITUDE (JP) – PUB ANCHOR 3/4 2019
2019-04-03
“Japan’s SOLITUDE history started in 1996 with two ex-members of SACRIFICE (Japan) (the founding member and main composer Akira Sugiuchi and the bass player on two of their albums Toru Nishida.)”
A bit annoying that when SOLITUDE finally played in Sweden, the first gig would be at Anchor in the middle of the week. They deserved so much better! Nevertheless, the guys played an awesome gig like the pros they are! And also the next 2 gigs in southern parts of Sweden went obviously way better:) Met the guys up at the central station and had them as house guests a couple of nights.
Line-up: Akira Sugiuchi (ex-SACRIFICE) – Vocals .. Shingo Ida – Guitar .. Toru Nishida (ex-SACRIFICE) – Bass .. Takamasa “MAD” Ohuchi – Drums (SOLITUDE in tokyo 2011: https://www.extremmetal.se/2011/11/25/solitudeclub-missions-koenji-tokyo/)
Great to hang out with my old friends from Tokyo for awhile:))
I had two bands of interest at this years Loud Park festival and the first and main one, KING DIAMOND (also the reason I was about to visit the festival this year), got cancelled:/ We were supposed to hang out a few days before Loud Park and I was already in Tokyo when I got the message from Livia. All the KD stage gear being on a boat which got stuck in some Chinese harbour due to terrible weather, and couldn´t make it in time for the festival. So the KD show got cancelled in last minute when they were supposed to leave for the airport. A couple of guys from the band/crew already left so they at least got to have some days in Tokyo.
I can´t really understand why I didn´t take more (and more serious) video while in Japan…just some very few, really sucky clips which I tried to glue together. Probably they´re just fun for us but I´ll share with you anyway:) Got one more, just have to send it on YouTube. The first clip was over 8 minutes but YouTube cut it in half!!!!! Don´t know why…So you miss the Slayer finale. Some from the backstage bar with the labelguys (Spiritual Beast) and the Brasilian band Hibria, our friends Takashi & Miho from Hiroshima and some (short) clips of Rob Zombie & Slayer (live that is..).
Thursday 22nd of october – a full day for Metallic Kitty with interviews, signingsession & stuff. I did what any good friend would do and left her completely alone early in the morning and went for a photowalk. Well…she was taking a 2hr bath anyway, so…;)) I came back about 3PM and the interviews were still going on at the hotel. A couple of hours later we all left for the Burrn! Magazine headquarters for the last interview of the day. A really good one, I think! The guy who did the interview was really serious and interested, the interpreter did a great job and Kitty came up with some good thoughts. Hope we can get the interview translated by somebody when it´s printed…? Me and Akira had an important role as quiet sidekicks;)
Lots of fun people and even our friend Yayoi found her way to the shop. It was good to see her again:) Also saw a couple of familiar faces from Loud Park. Everything worked out perfectly and after some meet & greet with fans outside the shop, we went for some dinner with Mats & Akira (Spiritual Beast). They took us to this Izakaya where we got our own booth, lots of great food, some beer and some really clever (?;)) conversations. Kitty doesn´t drink any alcohol, but after a couple bottles of water, she really had it going;) Later we went to this rock club, owned by some friends of Mats & Akira. We also met Yayoi on the way, so she tagged along.
Earlier when my friend Takashi asked if he would buy us some tickets to the Loud Park festival, we said no. It was quite expensive, most of the bands play in Sweden all the time (except ROB ZOMBIE!!) and most of all, we thought we had far too little time to spend in Tokyo anyway, so a whole day on a festival…naaahhhh. Why we even discussed it, was mostly because we thought it would be so cool to go to a Japanese festival with a JAPANESE audience:) Then we thought it could be nicer to go to some small metalclub in Tokyo instead.
