Guess who the artist is??



Hint: Female singer songwriter, guitarist, recently married, and has something to do with YUI.

One of my favourite singer songwriter.

Before that, on Tuesday, I went to some live house for the very first time to see FREENOTE, Pringmin, and Tornado Tatsumaki and experienced so called 'intimate' live. It was at a small live house in Shibuya, and I was in the second row.

Now I can really understand why YUI said that she goes to live houses quite often. There are really a lot of hidden talents in Japan music scene.

Even though I didn't end up being a fan of any of the three bands mentioned above, I can fully understand what 'one man live' in Japanese means now. That live I went was a 'three man live'. It was yet another eye-opening experience. Imagine if YUI, GO!GO!7188, Chatmonchy, Shiina Ringo perform in such live houses......

Special thanks to Steve from Canada for 'forcing' me to go ;)

Back to that female artist I said in the beginning. She got famous with her second single, My Sweet Darlin'.

It was in Hangame Square, Harajuku. Yaida Hitomi (Yaiko) was there to promote her latest single Koi Bus （恋バス）, a collaboration with the legendary Oda Kasumasa.

So this Koi Bus CAFE was opened for a limited period of time to celebrate the release of the single. Yesterday, Yaiko turned to be the owner of the Koi Bus CAFE, and had a live radio show recording inside the cafe.

I shall skip most of the details, because apparently not many YUI fans listen to her songs, since Yaiko debut earlier. But I tell you, before YUI, Yaida Hitomi was THE female acoustic guitar playing, singer songwriter.

Gotta admit that I'm old now. I don't really pay attention to newer artists these days.

So I was lining up outside the Hangame whatever Square shop, the second last person, alone (as usual). The queue was kinda longer than I expected, but not as long as the crazy H&M queue beside the store.

When the CAFE 'opens', we went in.

As I walked pass the entrance and saw the CD booth on my right hand side. Yaiko was actually standing beside our right hand side!!! She was greeting every customers, fulfilling her duty as the owner for the day.

That.was.totally.unexpected.

My mind went all blank, I could only look at her face, double checking my eye sight. The real person is just the same as what you see from your computer screen.

One of the girls in front of me shook her hands, and the thought of doing the same came into my mind. I shook her right hand, and I managed to squeeze out this phrase:

マレーシアから来ました。 (I come from Malaysia)

I repeated twice just in case she didn't hear MALAYSIA clearly, you don't really get to hear that word often, being a musician in Japan.

She seemed to understand, a little surprised, and replied thank you.

Well I guess, that's the best answer I could get from someone like her.

Since I was the second last person in the line, and with the guy behind me could only stare at her and did nothing, Yaiko went to the back and hide from her customers.

I can still vividly remember that how the girl before me reacted, as if it wasn't real, since it happened too fast. I guess that's how most of the people felt when they met up close with someone that admire.

As I was willing to settle at the back, being unable to see the stage for live radio recording, one of the staff told us that we could watch the recording beside the stage. In split seconds, I settled myself in the first row.


After the radio live recording.

Still having this unbelievable feeling, I fell that I had to tell someone about it. So I bragged about it to some random Yaiko fan, she could only congratulate me and ended our conversation. Then I emailed two Japanese girls I know.

The real live recording actually started one hour later. While waiting, I exchanged emails in a super slow typing speed. There was this salaryman uncle standing beside me, taking pictures of the stage. So I was like, asking him to send me the pictures too via infra red, since I didn't have the courage to take pictures openly. But I failed to figure out how to send pictures from his Docomo phone to my Softbank phone.

At least, I managed to talk to three strangers today (Yaiko, random girl, salaryman uncle).

I could see Yaiko clearly when she reappeared, front row, 3 metres away. Some fans were sitting directly in front of her, less than 1 meter. Still, everyone was well behaved, and gave great response whenever the DJ and Yaiko were interacting with them. I guess Yaiko's fanbase are more towards 20s and above, they are more or less have basic communication skill lol.


Source: Natalie Music

It depends on the artist after all, nice artist, nice fans.

I really enjoyed the whole show. during the Q&A session, fans asked about her marriage life and stuff, what is the difference before and after married. Very funny.


How close the audience and the artist were.

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my better mp3 player, the recording I had was super crappy =/

And thanks to the free hot latte (cafe au lait), I remained awake until 4 am in the morning.

From a coffee addict, now I'm completely coffee free, my sleep cycle will be disrupted even just by one cup of coffee.



Hope that Yaiko will have concerts soon =D

After telling more than 5 people that I touched her right hand, it doesn't feel that exciting any more. Actually, nobody really cares haha.

Now I feel like learning the acoustic version of Koi Bus, though it might take forever.