Concert Season 2013 Season Premiere: akai SKY, or "I'm With The Band"

So full disclosure... I'm going to be talking about my friends' band. I've always wanted to write about them, trying to come up with some subtle way to say I know them while praising them, saying I'm such a VIP that sometimes I can get "backstage" and hang out with them, sometimes eating lunch or dinner with them, but I can never come up with anything. That and I never wanted to write up something and then associate them with something negative that was beyond their control like an amateur K-pop dance troupe that had the look but did NOT have the moves for the two minutes they were on stage... or the creepy vendors that were hitting on the underaged girls at the convention they were playing at... or the convention itself who treated the musical performances as an afterthought, whether it be keeping the performances in a room with shitty acoustics, or a shitty PA system, or a shitty sound guy, or any other minor setback that has hindered bands from playing at their best.

Plus, it's always been hard to talk about it since I can never talk about it objectively, and I can rarely talk about their shows as a member of the audience since most of the time, I become either the "merch guy" or the "camera guy" or this time around, "the door guy." When you're the friend of a local band that doesn't have the professional setup that most major bands and venues have, you end up getting asked for help.  And me being the type of guy I am, more than likely I end up helping out whenever I see them play.

So I figured... why not write about my experience as cheap labor the cover charge guy (and maybe other times as merch guy/cameraman/photographer/grunt) as well as talk about the show.

So I think there's no better way to spend Easter than at a rock show. Church? HA! Fuck that. They never explain how Zombie Jesus turned into the Easter Bunny... or was it how the Easter Bunny fought Zombie Jesus with cocoa beans and the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch and hence why we celebrate Easter by eating chocolate and trying to find colored eggs. Yeah, I like that story better.

Plus, imagine Nicholas Hoult as Zombie Jesus...............

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah... rock show.

So my friend and I... errr... I mean the girl I'm dating and I... uhhh... does she become my girlfriend after a certain amount of time or is that something both parties have to agree on at the same time? Are labels really necessary in this world? I'm getting away from the point... sorry...

Anyways, we head over to my old stomping grounds -- the Mission -- a couple of hours early to help set up. After meeting up with another friend who came to help, I introduce my friend to Hayashi and Umi who wanted to meet her. They looked genuinely happy to see her, which was great to see.  After introductions, we got our first assignment: help set up the merch table. My "lady friend" -- quotations specifying difference from any of my other lady friends, because... well... you know -- offered to help, which made the job quicker.

After that, I got the "door guy" gig, being in charge of taking the cover charge and stamping hands. Now, to be honest, I don't like dealing with money. I do not prefer to be the guy in charge of buying tickets for a group or the guy gathering the money together after dinner at a restaurant. Occasionally I'll do it if I feel competent at that moment. This time around, I thought being the "door guy" was more like being the bouncer... but I was wrong. The initial rush of people, making sure I was getting their money and doing it quick enough, making sure if they were on the RSVP list, was kinda stressful, but after that, it did get easier. It did help that my "lady friend" got cupcakes and jellybeans at the snack table on multiple occasions and some trips to the bar for water as well.

And if anyone reading this was there and thought I held on to your hand a little bit too long or did it weirdly, I only tried to do a good job and get the stamp perfectly on the hand... but to be honest I don't even think the image showed properly on the hand. So if my double hand technique of "left hand holding in position while right hand stamped" was creeping you out, I'm totally sorry. I'm not a pro who could just do it right there without using my other hand who could go "Let me see your hand. BAM! Done." just like that.

And yes, the stamp was suppose to be that of a cow girl, not a messy rectangle of ink.

The first two bands were cool, from what I heard. Minor Setback, the band who opened, played pretty well for the band's first time performing. The Stars at Dusk had a glam metal look... or maybe I'm just thrown off by the frontman's long hair that reminds me of the hair metal bands from the 80s. Their sound was definitely rock, but with a hint of metal crunch to it... but don't take my word... I've never been too good describing music and using other people's lingo.

All of it sounded pretty good, but since I was the door guy, I couldn't see either bands' stage performance. I would get a glimpse here and there, but most of the time, I was either taking money and stamping hands, chatting with my "lady friend", or watching the TV screens that hung over my head. I love the fact that instead of playing some random anime show or movie on the screen, which would have made sense for the younger crowd at the show, they had a Godzilla movie on. I'm not quite sure which one it was, but it had Rodan and Ghidorah in it as well as a white dude that looked a little bit like Nick Bockwinkel. (Upon further research, the movie in question is most likely Invasion of Astro-Monster/The Great Monster War. Plus, if you knew who Nick Bockwinkel was before reading this, then wow... just... wow.)

Anyways, by this time, only a couple of more people came in during akai SKY's set. The place was packed, though. Granted, Sub/Mission is a pretty small place, but there was easily over a hundred people in the place and it made for some great energy, even all the way in the back where I was standing. The J-Rock "Peep" Show, as they dubbed it, was a way to celebrate akai SKY's new EP that came out days prior online. Even with my back to them through most of the performance, they were still great live. Off the new EP, "Break Down!" and "To the Sea" are my favorites (and if I ever do a video blog show instead of my lengthy text form, I'll do my best to get "Break Down!" as the theme,) but the other two songs sound great. And you know what... their music in addition to the kaiju battle scenes in the movie was pretty much the highlight of that night.

I've been with akai SKY since the beginning. I was there when they were just a trio with singer/drummer Yama, who I hope is living the sweet life with his family in Hong Kong because he's an awesome guy. I have seen the picture where the three were playing Guitarfreaks and DrumMania, which I'm sure inspired the band to do it for real. I was acting as photographer and camera guy during the "Val and Jay" days. To be honest, their current lineup, with Ryuusei and Jinra, gives them way more character as a rock band since their original music is great. I saw them play in an old firehouse in Fort Mason and on stage at the Asian Heritage Festival playing at the Civic Center. I went as far north as Sacramento and as far south as Monterey to see them play/help out. They are the only reason why I would go to an anime convention... well unless one of the original Power Rangers were there, then maybe, but that's beside the point.

You can say I'm biased... and well yeah, you'd probably be right.

But you know what? They're still awesome. Buy their music and see them online. You can even find them on iTunes if that's your thing. Their music is not expensive at all and it's totally worth the price.