Hotel Acceptable, Tokyo.
This is the other hotel King Crimson stay in when in Tokyo, and this one has free Ethernet access.
Twenty one years, of Happy Gigster experience visiting Japan, suggests that three nights are needed before jetlag is sufficiently at bay for me to honourably discharge performance duties. The Virgin cancellation means I have lost my margin. Rising at 09.15, I hope I'm close to the time-zone. Now, to pack for an 11.30 lobby call.
13.42
A Train Heading Towards Matsumoto From Tokyo.
The skills required for competency in translation are not the same practical skills as those required to be a tour manager. So, our Japanese translator was not quite able to get us to our train on time. Now, we are on a later train. Shoganai. We are awaiting a removal of bowels & major organs in exculpation of this grievous error.
The 2' 40" journey provides an opportunity to catch up with a pile of e-mail. One comes from a pal who went to the last two KC performances in California, Los Angeles & Anaheim, and whose view of them I sought. He sent me his critique, but was then concerned that he had given offence. From my reply --
it's a big thing to be asked for an opinion. for example, most people who ask for my opinion don't want it. most people who do offer me their opinion, unbidden & uninvited, have little or nothing of value to offer me other than an insight into their own mechanisms while soiling me with their dump.
so, when i asked for your view it was because i valued your take on the two performances, and you didn't disappoint. gratitude...
the anaheim show was interesting: it began well and then, about three pieces in, began to haemorrhage. my experience was of something like trying to inflate a punctured tyre: the life-blood of the show just ebbed away. it may have had something to do with the band, but i don't believe the puncture was onstage. los angeles was quite the opposite: the band performance was solid, not amazing-amazing, and yet the show held together and had integrity. it was satisfying. this is how a performance should be: with the foundation as a given, the performance can get up and fly (on those occasions when the Muse comes to visit).
all in all, anaheim kinda sums up how performance is increasingly a joyless exercise in futility. which doesn't mean it had no value, just that i have better things to do with my remaining years than pump air into a tire while people sit around & smile, wave peace signs & stick sharp objects into it.
23.28
#911, Hotel Modest, Matsumoto.
This is actually one scale down from modest. Modest is cheap and cheerful. This is clean & cheerless, and rather small. It brings back memories of the hotels that came with tours organised by EG (although those hotels were not as clean). In a room like this, if I knew every other hotel would be of this standard, I could go mad.
The venue is a 20 minute drive away, going, and 10 minutes, returning. There was not enough time this evening for a full soundcheck + rehearsal, but sufficient to augur well for tomorrow: the sound was so awful, tomorrow will necessarily be better. Boomy, reverberant, loud with FOH bounce-back, ears ringing, wretched.
Back to the cubicle & than a quick troll into the nearby centre of Matsumoto with the other Crims. I joined them in a rock bar and left them as they headed off into the night, past somewhat suspicious people seeking to lure unwary geijing into their premises.
Now, back in my cheerless room, I am negotiating with the modest-minus surroundings. The television has no English-language channels. This is what it was like in 1981, when Westernisation was not then as established in external forms of Japanese life. An Anglo adrift in Japan.
"Necessity is a measure of aim."
