Day 27

7-9-08

I was under the impression that today Noriko and I were to go see her very favorite band--VAMPS--in concert. From what she said in very excited Japanese, I deduced that the two of us, plus a friend of hers, were going to the radio station to see her favorite band. It was all very exciting, with squeals of glee and so forth. I wasn't really sure how we were going to fit a concert after school into our already ridiculous schedules, but it was only one train stop away, so at least there was no extra travel time.

There was much running when we got to the station, for we were very short on time. Two blocks of light jogging later, we arrived outside the building. I had seen it before, as we had been in the same neighborhood once earlier this month. Outside the large window are series of baracades were arranged, and people were packed in like cattle. It suddenly made sense why there were a bunch of loitering cow-people last time I had been in the neighborhood: they were watching a band. There was no where to sit, though one probably could simply relaxed and be fully supported by the crowd if one needed to. The corral wasn't big enough for everyone there (a very small number of people for a band performance, I thought) and the people from the department store next door kept shooing people out of the way so that their customers could get in the door. It wasn't a very good setup, poorly engineered in my opinion, because it was inevitable that the band-watching-people would overflow and get in the way of high-class-shopper-people.

We spotted Noriko's friend, Izumi, in the midst of the mob, and fought our way over to her. It was already sweltering outside, and within the mass of people the heat was simply unbearable. We were forced to abandon the crowd to loiter in the lobby of the swanky shopping joint until the band arrived. When it did, we had to fight our way back into the crowd, which was becoming nigh on impossible. The trick was to wait until someone escaping passed by, and then swoop in on their spot. Poor Noriko and her friend, being on the vertically-challenged side, couldn't see anything, though it was easy to tell when the band arrived, due to the surge forward and ear piercing shrieks.

As it turned out, I was misinformed about the activities of the day. It was not a concert, but a radio interview, which I could neither understand, nor see. But I was still caught up in the excitement of the crowd. Every time the two band members looked out at the crowd, there was a surge forward, a roar of cheers and much waving, numerous hand gestures and people trying their very hardest to phase through the glass. Noriko and Izumi managed to fight their way to the very front, but I hung back, pressed up against the cool glass of the fancy shopping center, trying to avoid being crushed by rabid fans.

All in all, I had a reasonably good time, Noriko got herself a towel with the bands name on it, and we had a spare five minutes before we had to leave, so we spent it in the traditional way: purikura.