At Loud Park '07

Without my asking him or his asking me, Okami, whose desk is right behind mine in my office, suddenly became my manager just for one day! He needed an interpreter for some face-to-face interviews he was going to have at Loud Park '07 on October 21. I had already accepted to work at an interview with Daniel Erlandsson from Arch Enemy and one with Michael Monroe from Hanoi Rocks before he asked me. Then, he assigned me 3 more interviews. 5 interviews total in 5-6 hours! What an operator he is!! Each one is about 30 minutes, which is shorter than usual interviews, and he thought it wouldn't be a big deal for me. Well, it wasn't actually but I had to skip one of Okami's interviews because it started 30 minutes late and I only had 20 minutes before the next interview. One of my fellow interpreters/translators Mariko was there and we had to ask her to be my replacement. Thanks Mariko! I thought she was perfect for that interview because the interviewees are from England and Mariko's English is English-English. Mine is more like American-English with a Japanese flavor that sometimes doesn't work well with people from England.

Loud Park is a big heavy metal festival in Japan where many well-known bands get together. It was held at Saitama Arena on October 20 & 21 this year. I'm not crazy about heavey metal music and it's a little too much for me when they play something called death metal or hardcore metal. I need melodies (and lyrics sung clearly if there is a singer in a band) to be able to enjoy MUSIC. Otherwise, my ears would hear it all as annoying NOISES. But I had to see some of the bands to learn a little about them. I ended up walking back and forth between the stage and the press room 4-5 times. It takes about 10 minutes between the stage and the press room and I was exhausted in the end.

I found a girl standing alone some feet from me when seeing Wig Wam. She was sort of dancing to their songs at odd tempo, no sync with beats or anything, with her arms up in the air. I could tell she was totally fascinated with them and my eyes were glued to her. For some reason, she closed her eyes all the time. It was..... very interesting.

People I talked with that day are 2 guys from Amorphis, 2 guys from Lacuna Coil, Daniel from Arch Enemy and Michael from Hanoi Rocks. As the interview with Daniel was held before Arch Enemy played live, I didn't know much about their music. Daniel is a shy guy who speaks gently. But I was really surprised to hear his drums afterwards. He plays so aggressively! How can a nice guy like him play like that? The interviewer, who knows his drum playing, was surprised at his facile personality and asked him about the gap between his drum playing and his personality. Daniel just smiled and said nothing. It was a killer smile, really! He is so cute!!

Michael Monroe... I never thought of talking to him! I saw him at the back stage of a summer festival when I worked for it some year ago. My timing to go to restroom somehow synchronized with his that I saw him in front of a restroom a few times during that festival. I didn't see him anywhere else but in front of a restroom. So odd! But this time, it was a real interview. He talked about his saxophones. He entered the press room with a really nice red tenor saxophone which he played that day. I thought the lights on his instrument made it look sort of shinny red but it is actually painted red. He played a little for us and it was not like a singer playing the saxophone for fun. He is a serious saxophone player!

Some people were shooting a TV show at one corner of the same room while he was talking enthusiastically about his saxophones. Lacuna Coil entered for it and it became really noisy. Then, he suddenly asked me "Why is that?" pointing at them. I said, "I don't know but that might be so-called Heavy Metal Attitude." He said, "Hey, I play rock'n' roll, not heavy metal." He rolled his HUGE eyes at them many times but they didn't notice that. Eventually he played his instrument right before his photo session knowing they were still shooting. Those TV people there became silent to listen to him and gave him a hand when he stopped playing. Then he suddenly shouted, "You guys are wacky!!!"

It was so funny for us but it sure wasn't for them. They lowered their voices right after that. It was his tit for tat in a way because he smiled us big after he shouted. He is a service minded legendary star and asked us if we wanted his autograph at the end of the photo shoot. How could we say no? See the image above. It's from Michael. To my knowledge, Michael is the third person that gave me an autograph without my calling for. The first one is Daevid Allen from Gong and the second one is Phil Chen. I never ask musicians for an autograph and don't know how to do with it. Maybe keep it on my CD shelf until someone wants it.