Japan Underground presents 'We Love Japan '

The devastation in Japan caused by the earthquake and tsunami is immense and they need as much help as possible to help rebuild their lives. Japan Underground, a live music/club event that happens throughout the year, stepped up very quickly indeed and managed to pull this event together. It was sponsored by HMV, MOMA, Manga Entertainment LTD, The Relentless Garage, We Love Anime, Uniqlo, NME, Onboard Karaoke, Cosplay Portrait, Namco Bandai and Play for Japan.

Tickets were a teeny £10 and so D and I went along , dragging my little sister and her boyfriend with us too. Bands to perform included No Cars, IMMa, Akira the Don and a few others. A late addition was Adam Ant who was announced as headlining the event which was a huge shock for me as he is one of my favourite musicians of all time (I even have a tattoo he drew for me at a book signing) and so I tried to get my Ant friends to come along too.

Aaaanyway, the evening was great. We arrived an hour late and missed a few acts (stupid traffic), but we still had an excellent evening. There was karaoke in one room, the main room had the live acts and J Pop/Rock music playing between. The stand sold loads of stuff raising money for the evening including DVD’s, CD’s, wristbands, toys, posters and a raffle to win one of three huge goody bags worth around £300. Lucky me as I won the first bag and the stuff in it was insane – DVD box sets of anime, t-shirts and a £100 gift voucher for Uniqlo (I LOVE that shop). So D and I were psyched AND had helped raise money for a good cause at the same time. Really a huge thanks needs to go out to all those sponsors for donating so much nice stuff.

So a brief review of the acts. IMMa were amazing. I’m a huge No Doubt fan and they totally reminded me of them and we bought their album. No Cars were fun, cute and funny. Saara Takase was beautiful, although maybe placed in the line up wrong as her songs made me a bit sleepy. I spoke to her for a bit afterwards and she was lovely. Akira the Don wasn’t quite so up my street and I especially hated all the rapper friends he brought on stage too, but I’m sure others enjoyed him. Adam Ant was also good. My main criticisms would be that he would have been better with a band as he’s not great at the guitar by himself, plus a few less cover songs from the 70′s would have been better. Also maybe a few more of his big hits and less of his older punky stuff. I don’t think anybody told him that most people there were under 21 and had no clue what those songs were. At least they might know his 80′s songs from their parents or something. As a huge fan who knows all of his songs though, I was happy enough ^ ^

On with the pics…

WeLoveJapan