Today I decided to perform out on the street. Ryan and I went to Inage Kaigan (about 30 minutes closer to Tokyo) to meet a lady he's been teaching since we moved here nearly three years ago. I decided to tag along and find a place to play that would be both public and private.
It was pouring rain, so finding a dry spot was difficult, but I found a little shelter near the train station. It took me a little time to get up the courage to take my guitar out, but once I began to play I had a lot of fun. It became easier and easier as time went on and I realized there's obviously no reason to be shy. I mean, I've never had a single negative thought about a street musician (let's face it, I have a lot of unhappy thoughts every day when I go through the city). Regardless of any musician's talent, I've only had respect for those courageous enough to play on the street.
I started playing at about 6pm (after warming up from 4:30 to 5:30 beneath the rails), at 6:30 I met a nice man named Okayan, who invited me to play at some parties in some Chiba/Tokyo blues bars in the fall, which is sad because we're leaving in early August. After that, around 7:20, Ryan and Setsuko (he teaches English to her) came out from the little coffee shop where they were studying and a really sweet girl named Yuriko gave me some awesome wafer snacks--in fact, I still have some I'm saving, they're REALLY delicous! We left for home around 8:20.
Yuriko and I exchanged email addresses and she sent me these pictures of us from her cell phone:
ゆりこさん写真をくれてありがとうございます。私の初めての Street Live はゆりこさんとせつこさんも本当に楽しかった。自信いっぱいもらいましたのです。これから勇気だして、がんばります！
Yui
Unlike my experience with other performances, Yuriko and Setsuko encouraged me to play a lot of my originals. The only cover I happened to do was Tomorrow's Way by my now favorite artist ever,Yui. She's mostly known in the U.S. for her songs Rolling Star and Life which have been, respectively, opening and ending themes (anime shows change openings every season(ish) and endings even more frequently) for the extremely popular anime Bleach. Her lyrics are extremely good, clear and simple yet moving. I have never had an artist really move me as much as Yui's songs have.
To be honest, it's a lot easier to play on the streets in Japan than it is in America. Although I love the way we lean toward acting independently in the States, there's nothing quite like the unique community feeling of metropolitan Japan. I will miss it and yet not miss it extremely in both extremes (am I making any sense?--because of the feeling of community, people are a lot more used to noise and such, and a lot more open to pausing their own time to sit and watch someone else play).
To everyone who stopped by, especially Yuriko and Setsuko (and also Ryan) thanks for a great time!
(sorry for the bad commas, it's seems my grammar skills are pretty bad >_< today)
