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tagged: Tokyo, Japan
Posted by Charlie in 2002 VCR Far East Tour
This journey began (for Lane Hoppen and me, anyway) on Saturday afternoon, with a flight from Orlando to Los Angeles. We stayed overnight in a rather ‘dodgy’ (poor?) Quality Inn near the airport. The only thing that can really be said about it was that it was close to the airport, with a 24 hour shuttle to the terminals. Other than that, the only food places nearby were MacDonalds, Taco Bell or Subway, which was certainly the best of the 3 options. In the morning, Barry (Dunaway, who arrived in the night before, too), Lane and I ended up taking breakfast at the Holiday Inn next door.
We left LAX on a Korean Airlines jet for Tokyo’s Narita airport. A little over 12 hours later, we touched down. This is not to say the journey was easy, but that it was tedious, cramped, and as stressful as any long journey can be. Having said that, the Korean Air staff were as keen to please as any crew I have encountered. They certainly helped to lessen the impact. Narita airport is a little over 45 miles from Tokyo itself. This involves a bus trip in the most unbelievable traffic you will EVER experience anywhere in the World. Such is the inevitable nature of this traffic in Tokyo, that the inhabitants merely put up with it. In New York, LA, London, Paris, Rome (especially Rome), the noise of horns blaring would drown everything else. Here, you hardly ever hear a horn sounded in anger. They DO play an interesting game of “Chicken”, though, with the person who values his car’s bodywork invariably coming out the loser. The way to win this is to drive a large commercial vehicle, and to single out the most expensive looking car in the adjacent lane. Then it involves slowly, but confidently changing lanes, until the person you are crowding slows down enough for you to actually occupy the space he was in moments before! Our bus driver tried this (successfully) a number of times on our hair-raising trip to the Prince Hotel, Roppongi. I think if I lived in Tokyo, I would buy a large Jeep, and weld railway sleepers onto the fenders!
We eventually made it to our hotel rooms a little over 16 hours after we left LA. To say we all looked tired would be an understatement. Lane and I managed to get a short swim in before they closed the pool, then we adjourned to the steak bar in the hotel, for some totally incredible Kobe beef, and a couple of Sapporo beers. That was enough to set me up for a good sleep.
So, I found myself awake, and alert at 2.30am (which was 1pm back home). Eventually I managed to get BACK to sleep. This time I was able to doze, on & off, until around 7am, when Lane called to see if I, too, was unable to sleep. We had breakfast down in the hotel cafe, where we met up with Barry and Alex (Ligertwood). The four of us then went in search of jet lag remedies at Starbucks (which are becoming more plentiful than McDonalds here), where we encountered Pat Travers and Glenn Hughes. Seems we all had the same idea!
Billy Joel’s band used to refer jokingly to McDonald’s as “the American Embassy” when they were away from the USA. I think Starbucks has now taken over that role!
I went to the Blitz club early, to set up and tune my kit. The backline company has supplied a really nice Yamaha maple Custom kit. They sound fantastic! The Blitz is a huge night club on the TBS complex. TBS are a big Japanese TV company. This facility is top notch. The rest of the band arrived at 2.30 for soundcheck, which went really well, considering the language barrier! The monitor man dialed in a great mix for my in-ears with very little prompting.
Food arrived a little too close to the show for my liking (45 minutes), which meant I had not even started to digest it by the time we went on stage. Luckily I had visited the local Starbucks, and bought a double-shot Latte, so I was able to get over that “hump” quickly.
It was not my best night, but then again, the crowd loved it, and I think we all had a good time. Anyway, everyone was full of compliments after the show. We all seemed relieved to get one under our belts, too. The jet lag has really hit us all badly. I am hoping to be able to sleep well tonight.
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