Happy New Year (it’s now January 14) and thanks for coming to see my concert at the yearend festival. Festivals aren’t really my thing, but unless you appear in them people forget you. For a band it’s like a test. That venue has a capacity of 40,000 people. When you give a great performance it’s fine, but it sucks if you have a cold or something. It’s instant bad publicity. So that the audience doesn’t get tired of us and go off to another stage, one thing we do is hold onto them with our meager number of singles. It’s like trying to interest a girl you like when you’re out drinking with a group. It would be OK if you’d talked to her directly, but she’s already made up her mind about you based on rumors. It’s the same feeling of helpless desolation. But of course you’re happy when you have that spectacular sight spread out before you, because it’s something that you always wanted. It’s a special feeling you can only get at a festival. With a sea of people before you, you can even mistakenly believe you’re a god.
I went to Shimokitazawa for the first time when I was a junior high school student. The plan was to go around the vintage clothing stores, but I had no idea how to find them, so my two friends and I ended up walking around and getting tired. There was nothing for it but to buy a pair of pants at the Uniqlo in front of the station and go home. Now I have an office there I go almost every day, but I’m still not used to it. For that reason I hardly ever leave the office and go out for a walk, although I couldn’t get by without the place. It’s not a place I treasure, but it’s necessary.
Festivals and Shimokitazawa are sort of similar. I’m supported by them, and I’ll probably continue to be supported by them.
Because I was brought up in Tokyo, I can’t have the experience of moving to Tokyo and I can’t speak a local dialect. But it also means I can come back to Tokyo anytime. Let’s make 2017 a mutually good year in Tokyo.