Last month I went to see the Tokyo show by Kenji Ozawa, who was on tour for the first time in four years.
From first grade at junior high through high school, my only idol was Kenji Ozawa (my idol for life in fact). In junior high, somehow I managed to get a ticket to his concert at Yokohama Arena, taking a small 1,000 yen bunch of flowers with me. I had two posters on my bedroom wall each the size of half a tatami mat. I got my parents to take me to an outdoor music festival in Nagano after finding out he was playing there. Looking back I cringe a bit at my diehard fan behavior.
Although my ardor gradually cooled off when he relocated to New York and news about him died down, sometimes if someone asked who my favorite artist was, or when I told somebody what my first CD purchase was, I would feel a stirring like a mild numbness in my heart.
Blessed with the chance to see him live for the first time in ages, I headed for Zepp DiverCity in Odaiba with mounting excitement, as if I’d gone back in time to junior high. Together with famous songs from the past, the two-hour concert also featured seven new songs. I felt the passing of time in the old songs about love and passion with the new ones about his love for his child and his feelings about the world. And although he was singing on his home ground of Tokyo, his nomadic air combined with the lyrics of the new songs stirred my emotions.
Then I came out of the concert hall and into the dazzling light of the Fuji Television building, where I’d worked for seven and a half years; and I remember a peculiar feeling, as if my junior high school self and my working adult self had met up there.
Mr. Hayamizu, do you have a personal idol?