Here's Part 2 of Simon Dunmore's Asia blog...
The plane was descending into Tokyo Narita airport, it was my seventh visit to Japan and I was as excited as the first time I was about to touch down. A lot of DJs never have the privilege to play Japan, and whilst that initial journey six years ago was a trip into the unknown, this time I knew exactly what to expect and that made it equally thrilling. I count myself very fortunate to have been able to experience a Tokyo club in a frenzy and to have two extremely good friends in Take (pronounced Tarkeh) and Youichi (Yo eechee). I could not wait to get there.
It was Tuesday, a full 3 days before the first gig at World, Kyoto. Take met me at arrivals. I had a number of meetings set up with our distributers, publishers, artists and licensees so by the time I crammed in a little Xmas shopping and kept up with the office, Friday soon arrived. We took the bullet train to Kyoto, passed Mount Fuji and arrived at lunchtime. Kyoto is the ancient capital of Japan and has an abundance of temples. The design and architecture is amazing...you can almost feel the Samurai spirits walking amongst the throngs of tourists. It is a pretty magical place.
As night closed in, we met with DJ Kawasaki and the manager of World for soundcheck and dinner. I had met Kawasaki once before and he is a great and equally cool DJ. He had the crowd in a great place by the time that I actually arrived at the club. If I am honest the numbers were a little light (it the Friday before Xmas and the Japanese love their office Xmas parties as much as us Westerners) but what the crowd lacked in numbers was more than made up for in uber-enthusiasm...as usual they went potty from the first beats and made DJing an absolute breeze. It was soon obvious that they wanted the classics, after all it was a party, so it was a 3 hours cocktail of the anthems with a few current tracks as filling. Christmas tree tunes with a fairy on top were Diana Ross ‘The Boss’, Inner Life ‘Ain’t No Mountain’, Chaka Khan ‘Fate’ in amongst Reboot ‘Enjoy Music’ (the Riva Starr Rmx) & Mr Ferrer’s ‘Hey Hey’.
Up at midday the next day and took the bullet train back to Tokyo, downloaded and edited the pictures from the day before and caught up with my emails of line. Hit the shops (again) and then took a 3 hour disco nap before getting picked up. Checked in on the footie...Liverpool are the football equivalent of the Channel Tunnel at the moment....so I had a chuckle at the thought of Rafa imploding again. I should mention that I have the painful experience of supporting QPR so the only joy I get these days is watching other teams wallow in misery....and Benitez does misery exceptionally well :-).
Dinner again...I met with Hisa (the owner of King Street)...checked the results (United lost to Fulham....happy days)...and then downstairs to Air. This is a great club, it has House heritage, the booth is laid out perfectly (including the new Pioneer CDJ 2000’s) and you are right amongst the crowd. The sound system is immense and the technicians constantly stop you driving the levels into the red....it is sonic heaven.
I will stop bleating on about playing to such a crowd but 3 hours went in what seemed like seconds. The night was supposed to finish at 5 but we carried on an extra 30 minutes playing classics for the last half hour until I was told that the police were outside :-(. Stocking filler tunes were.... Arthur Baker ‘Tear Down The Walls’, Su Su Bobien ‘Wonderous’ and Solu Music ‘Fade’.
Another great, no fantastic, night and it would be rude not to mention my hosts once more so I would like to thank Take and Youichi for 6 years of amazing hospitality.
After the gig...straight back to Narita. Sleep always makes a 13 hour flight go a little faster and I was really looking forward to seeing the Yasmin, Louie, Millie and Lucas, to Xmas at home and to New Years Eve at Pacha, Ibiza :-0)
See you in the ‘10!
Simon
