In the morning, I rode my bike to the store and got some money for boat fare. I was in a hurry, so I left the bike at the store and took a taxi to the harbor. On the way, the taxi driver picked my brain about living with a family in Japan, learning Japanese, and Arnold Schwarzenneger.
I got to the port and waited for the 10:30 AM high-speed boat bound for Yuge island. When the boat arrived, I waited to board while the six-foot loading ramp lowered and a bunch of old grannies emerged from the boat and slowly descended behind their Walking Stecky walkers, their torsos parallel to the ground. Once the boat was empty, I walked up the ramp, sat down on the back row of the boat, pulled out my Nintendo DS, and began to review kanji characters. I looked up from the screen after what seemed like a few minutes and realized that we had already arrived at Yuge.
I got off the boat and called Kuroda-san, the band leader, since nobody was there waiting for me. He said that they were waiting around the corner, and I mentioned that I was going to go grab some lunch. He told me that they were making preparations, so it was okay if I didn't buy lunch right then. What kind of preparation? Lunch arrangements? Equipment preparations? I assumed he meant that they'd set up lunch already and that I needn't buy anything.
I walked over to the area where they were setting everything up, and they cheered when they saw me. We plugged all the stuff in and did a quick sound check, and then walked over to the fire station, where they had set aside a room for us on the second floor. They had bought 800 yen bento lunches with a little bit of everything, which we sat down to eat while chatting.
In the bento: A bite of spaghetti, a shooter marble-sized meatball, a bunch of rice, an overly salty chunk of fish, some pickled veggies, a few small pieces of fresh cucumber, some konyaku noodles, a rubbery pink-and-white tofu thing, a salty egg block, a small piece of crab, some shredded cabbage, and a single pork gyoza.
Pretty good, all in all.
Here's a quick band member profile:
Eiichi Kuroda
The leader Uoshima'X, Kuroda-san's a 45ish year-old municipal worker from nearby Yuge island who plays a mean electric guitar. When he was young, he had an accident in his spine that messes with his equilibrium and can do serious damage if he consumes any alcohol. He's my Pepsi-drinking buddy at all the band functions. He loves American and British rock-n-roll guitar from the 'sixties and 'seventies. He's been on Uoshima for at least three years, so he'll most likely have a transfer next year, which will probably dissolve the band.
Tomomi Teshima
Teshima-san is a 40 year-old lady who moved with her husband to Uoshima to fish for a living. She is the lead vocalist for most of the Japanese songs and backup vocalist on most others, and played the keyboard during the beginning for songs like Brick, Highway Star, and Smoke on the Water. She loves Ben Folds and Coldplay. She was one of three people who came to English conversation classes when I lived on the island.
Saiki Kazue
Saiki speaks a bit of English, so I call her by her first name. She was placed on Uoshima as a kindergarten teacher about eight or nine years ago. She was wooed by one of the local fishermen, and they married and started a family. When Kaisei, the oldest of their two kids, got into kindergarten, Saiki had to look for a new job. Now 34, she works as a receptionist at the island medical clinic. A month or two before I left the island, she joined the band and took over as keyboardist, but also provides lead vocals for one song and backup vocals on others.
Masa
I don't even know his full name, but Masa is our drummer. He's good at bass guitar and can play rhythm guitar as well, but we don't have any other options on the drums. He's about 30 years old, and is married and has a boy named Takumi who's just a little younger than Kelsey. During the week, he works on the New Uoshima 2, the town's high-speed ferry.
Yaa-san
I don't know his full name either. Yaa-san is our bass player, though I use the term lightly. He's a nice guy, but he struggles with keeping a beat. He often lags behind the band or rushes his parts, and he hyperventilates in front of larger crowds. He works during the week at the garbage treatment plant with his brother, who has Down Syndrome. I think that Yaa-san might have some mental disabilities as well. I'm pretty sure that he's a native of Uoshima, and I think he's 35 years old.
Reiko Abe
Abe-Sensei teaches first and second grade at the elementary school on Uoshima. At 28 years old, she's the baby of the band, and is the latest to join. She cracks me up with all the onomatopoeia that she uses. I'm not sure where she's from, but she provides backup vocals and can play the keyboard, and she looks a little like the crazy villain from Bloodsport.
After lunch, we went down and rehearsed all the songs. Highway star was very uneven. I listened to the other songs from the audience area and the guitars were slightly off-key. Vocals were shaky. Yaa-san wandered aimlessly on the bass. Despite having the feeling that we were going to tank, I wasn't nervous at all. We were going to play for the Shimanami Yacht Club welcome party, not some huge audience.
We went back to our room after rehearsing and had some ice cream. Masa's ice cream had beans in it.
Another band started rehearsing, and we went to the window to watch. The band, Guitar Pants, was very good. They're from Matsuyama, and play 'seventies Santana-style groove rock. All of the musicians are technically exceptional. I prayed that we'd get to play before them.
The show started at 6PM. A news reporter from one of the local stations was the guest emcee, and all the band members wanted to have pictures taken with her. She had all the makings of a Japanese reporter--tall (for a Japanese person) and slender, hair that must've taken hours to do, and really brown teeth. Yeah, I'm shallow.
We were the first band to play, while Guitar Pants played second. A jazz/blues guitar duo followed, and a local acoustic guitar group with bongo accompaniment and a muddy steel string sound played last.
When our turn came around, I was pretty relaxed. The other members were nervous. Yaa-san might have been crying from the pressure. There were about three or four hundred people at the show, but most of them were old, darkened sailors who knew boats and traditional Japanese music much more than they knew English or rock-n-roll. I worried most about what I was going to say before my song, which was the last of our three-song set. Teshima-san opened with Yuugure, a Japanese pop song from the 'nineties. After that, Saiki followed a long speech by singing Diamonds, by PrincessPrincess. It's a Japanese pop song that resembles some the most cliched themes from early Nintendo games. Japanese pop music is consistently about fifteen to twenty years behind American music.
After Diamonds, I walked up to the mic and shouted, in Japanese, "Good evening! I suck at Japanese. We're Uoshima'X!" Then I yelled something in English and counted off to start Highway Star. I confidently danced around the stage, putting all I had into the vocals. I thanked the crowd and we walked off the stage as they cheered. As rough as our rehearsal was, our actual performance was pretty solid. Yaa-san even played a few correct notes. People came up to me to tell me how skilled of a singer I am. Good old Japanese flattery.
I stayed to watch Guitar Pants, but had to leave at 8PM to catch a ferry with Saiki to Habu, where her husband was waiting with their car to drive back to Imabari. We took the Shamanami bridge, a really long series of suspension bridges that connect mainland Honshu to Mainland Shikoku. In the car, we talked about all sorts of subjects, from family to Filipina prostitutes on Habu. Our soundtrack was 80's American pop music that all sounded like the Pet Shop Boys. The dashboard of the car looked like something from a flight simulator.
We drove by a huge fireworks show that was going on over the water next to the bridges. Lines of Japanese cars stopped on the highway to watch.
When we approached a tunnel, I held my breath and made a wish like I used to back home. I wished that I would, for the sake of this blog, remember the name of the Yoshifumi tunnel, through which I successfully held my breath. See, wishes do come true.
They dropped me off at home, and I went in to see Stef. I had forgotten to pick up trash bags, so I walked back to the store amidst a chorus of cicadas and frogs. The bike was still there from earlier that morning.
Lastly, some pics from the show:
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