Making Up For Prior Stupidity

April 2008 - Cheap Trick plays at Tokyo's Budokan to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the album that made them superstars; it was recorded there.

Captain Sh*thead (me) didn't know about it and hence didn't go.

April 2009 - I find out that Mr. Big is doing a reunion tour of Japan and will play Budokan on June 20.

I failed to achieve attendance.

October 3, 2009 - Shakalabbits, who can be (very inadequately) as a Japanese No Doubt with better/louder guitars (and just better music) will play Zepp Tokyo.

Thanks to my good friend Kazumi, I will be there.

They've played Budokan before, but I missed it... do we smell a pattern?

Let's face it. I'm not a person who's easily pleased.

Or amused.

I guess I'm just easy. How good would a band have to be for me to fly to Japan just to see them?

This good:

I know what you're thinking, but I honestly don't have the hots for this woman. I just love the way she puts her foot up on the monitor and lets loose a voice that could win a tractor pull.

She's not sexy, she's just bad-@ss. She's a wonderful amalgam of kawaiiand [however you say "Don't f@#$ with me" in Japanese].

I wanna be in her gang.

The song in that video opens the 2005 album Clutch (the video is taken from the live DVD of the Clutch Tour). I bought the CD (and the DVD) in Tokyo after hearing another song from it in a guitar shop in Ochanomizu.

It was a very comical scene, trying to make the poor kid at the counter understand I was asking about the music and not the guitars next to the speakers...

I bet most of you can tell me right away which three CDs in your collections were the records you were instantly grateful for buying. Records that restored your faith in a particular band, genre, or life in general.

Clutch is one of those records for me. It's full of imaginative, driving, catchy songs that make me feel like rock and roll is alive and well (at least in Japan).This is another of my favorite songs from that record, "Monster Tree." This video, from the current tour, also lets me know that it's still in the set list.

I am really looking forward to this more than I can begin to tell you. 

Not just because I might get to have dinner with my Christmas guests again, or because I will stroll through Ochanomizu, or hopefully get to see Mio...

It's because for the first time in waaaaaay too many years,I will see what I know will be a great show. Not as a participant or support personnel. Just as a fan.

The tallest, whitest fan in the building, most likely, but who cares?

The little Japanese girl whose seat is directly behind mine, I bet! If I get to meet the band, I will thank them both profusely and sincerely for making such great music and being such a great live act.I hope it's loud enough to peel the paint off the walls. Because that's how it ought to sound.