Nisshoku Natsuko (02/14/2020)
By: Philip Brown
Tags: Japanese Music, Japanese Culture, Music, Japanese

Nisshoku means solar eclipse so I wonder whether that is her name or it’s a stage name. But if it isn’t her real name then it’s a good decision because it does sort of match her musical style. But I will get to this point in time; but I need to start at the beginning.

Her band is herself and a drummer (who also plays several other instruments depending on the song) and she is a pianist. So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the new live house looked like a piano recital hall. It was nothing like the normal live house and that had some strengths and weaknesses. The strength was that the lights were all over the place which made the lighting effects more spectacular. The weakness was it was really intimate and pretty bright which made me being the tallest and the only white guy in the room all the more obvious (and since there were seats I couldn’t stand in the back like normal.)

Her audience was a little under 200 people and there were a good mix of men and women with a good balance of ages, some middle school looking people and some older with every age in between. I was in the middle toward the back and ironically there were other taller people in the audience and all of them were a few rows in front of me. I could still see but it was funny that all of the taller than 6ft people were all in the same area. Even though we had chairs about half the performance Natsuko asked us to stand up which must have sucked for the people behind us…

Their music was really quite good; although not really my taste. She is really skilled with the piano and seemed to be playing all of her songs by memory, which became apparent with something that happened later, and most of them were from many different music genres and styles. That being said most of the songs were pretty upbeat yet there were portions that got serious or morose for a minute or two then jumping to the previous peppiness. While parts of the songs felt a little cookie cutter the transitions between parts of the songs and the potential for changes in mood and rhythm made the songs not get boring. This music would be great for relaxing after a hard day at work or for a long train ride… but not really for the things I normally listen to music for… It does sometimes seem like a solar eclipse in that it feels like the base of the song is hidden but if you look directly at it you get blinded so you no longer can see it… at least to me… Anyway…

Natsuko had a pretty earthy, husky, voice. Almost like someone who had the weight of the world on their shoulders. But; she had a pretty good range and could sing fairly high pitches which gave the songs good variety. The drummer had a higher pitched singing voice but he didn’t sing much. She on the other hand played piano while singing while wearing a white dress shirt and black pants. I also noticed that she was barefoot which might have led to a problem later in the show.

The drummer on the other hand wore all black and had long hair like a reggee player. He also had that feeling whenever he was playing the drums; he would lean back and have his mouth open while swaying with the music. While I say he was a drummer but he also played other instruments: triangle, bells, cowbell?, nuts?, and for one song he had a box which he sat on and played like a drum (which also had a tambourine inside with some other instruments that I couldn’t see). He did some back up singing, hence the high pitched voice, and was easily the most laid back of the pair. He participated during a few of the later intermissions.

The intermissions were all fairly unique from other concerts I have been to (minus the second intermission). The first had an extremely formal style of speaking. I hadn’t heard it much in concerts (or even in normal conversation) so I could sort of follow what was happening but I couldn’t understand the specifics… The second was pretty normal: she talked about the things she did in Hiroshima and explained why the next song was about winter (and then she made a joke that it didn’t snow at all over here…). The third she had a raffle where the drummer had a box with all of the ticket stubs and she chose one who would tell her the next song to play. She mentioned that there were over 80 songs to choose from and she had to practice a lot to get ready to play from memory all of the songs from her line up. Lastly she explained why she doesn’t do encores anymore, something about not wanting to get the audience riled up after having a satisfying conclusion, then proceeded to ask the audience to come to the stage to sing the final song…

So… for the first time I got to go to the stage and squatted next to the piano while clapping with a song that I didn’t know the lyrics with the singer looking directly at me (being directly across from her). It was a memorable ending but like normal being the odd man out feels like being the odd man out; it didn’t help that when I turned around to leave I noticed that the security were directly behind me, and not just 1 or 2 but most of them, almost as if to make sure I wouldn’t do anything. (I did get out without any problems)

That being said it was a memorable ending to a surprisingly good concert (since I didn’t know the band before I showed up). If you like piano music with an energetic flair you will really like this band.

4.2/ 5.0