21.5.2000
Holesome's first performance in Tokyo was a psychotic affair that took a week to recover from and has done permanent damage..... over two hours of trainhopping to BIG SIGHT a Godzilla-like venue with guitars,gear and friends BenM.,Ben,Luke&Girlfriend ..we arrived at the futuristic exhibition centre the size of an international airport to be met by organisers Chie & Yasushi and more friends Chris,Adrian.
Are you Electric yet? Much Confusion as the guys head for the bar. I felt numb. Norma definetely a hit in Cowboy gear running circles around the stage and into and out of the dressing room. Pam,Rox and Shige showed up to check us out too. Watched the fashion show and groaned about the little practice amps we had to use for the show. Video cameras were rolling and the show eventually started around 3.40P.M. Very weird moments as you can see in all the photos.
Very nervous, no sound check so sound was poor. Tough show to drag out! o! f ourselves but it went off with video cameras rolling Norma doing the way down low dirty boot scrapin' twist grind squat.. it seemed a million times..yelling at the audience.Shocking them right out of their brains. Guitar effects in songs between songs, movement and the roar of a vast architectural space synthesised Holesome's grungier messages. My CD Glasses were a hit with one of the Cd's hang danglin till it dropped off .Chaos.You had to be there. We played 'Superficial Bitch' twice, 'Dancin' & 'Blandlands' were particularly memorable as was a cheeky,'Don't You Even Know My Name ?' Flash bulbs,cheers and more weird moments.We played our 40 minute musical set as part of a the DesignFesta's fashion show (check the red carpet) and shocked just about everyone especially the confused japanese people who kept walking into and past the band positioned near the entrance to the exhibition.
Holesome had been rehearsing since January with Kazz(who as of now! i! s the 2nd drummer to quit Holesome at the start of things to come) and this crazy 38y.o.R'n'R guy Taka who has helped the band tremendously.So we have 3/4's of a band and a guitar wizard called Shige comin' into the lineup in the near future.There were loads of video cameras & flashbulbs goin' off. We have enough video footage to make a short film which is exactly what's gonna happen.We hope to make a filmclip so as to promote the band to so clubs in Tokyo and to whoever... After 10.00PM We all went to an Indian Restuarant in Shinjuku and stuffed ourselves with food and drink(no time to eat that day), took more photos and things just fell apart..exhaustion set in as we desperately raced to catch the last trains home but that's another Tokyo story...
more photos?