Tokyo Shinjuku (Jp) @ Antiknock

Yesterday has been quite tiring. Leaving Nagoya at 8am, after a 5 hour rainy trip we got to Tokyo by early afternoon. After a genuine laundry, we walked through Shinjuku visiting everything we could: temples, getting panoramic views from top of skyscrapers, walking through the center city... Then we finally ended up the evening at the Tower Records to see an acoustic show of our friends from AUTHORITY ZERO. We 're getting along with them better and better and you can tell seeing how the parties go on !
This morning is free time, everyone's waking up whenever they want. Then we're all meeting at the Antiknock club for the soundcheck. This is another cool small club, about a 200 people capacity, a great stage: not so high wide enough. Again, the audio equipment is way too big for the place, let's put it that way, it's like putting the audio equipment of the Olympia ( a big venue in Paris ) in my toilet... the result is a really loud sound but this time a bit crappy too, the bass amp is cracking and the kick is so loud that everytime Belzu's playing it's putting my guts upside down.

It's still raining over Tokyo, we spend the rest of the afternoon at the hotel just fucking around. I missed the 3/4th of the bands by the time I got back to the venue and it's so crowded down there I can't even take a look at the last band playing before us. Here we go, we're starting to play and it's starting really well, kinda like Nagoya. The audience is reacting just fine and is giving us all the energy we need.We end up the show by the OPERATION IVY's cover " The Crowd" featuring the drummer from DON'T TURN AWAY doing the backing vocals. Amazing show tonight.
After the show, we're all going to a restaurant to drink some sake bomb to warm up us just fine for a anthology-like hold them poker game, which is gonna make collateral damage as the bets are glasses of sake... He doesn't want to admit it but I'm quite sure Jayson ended up the game feeling sick!!

Nagoya (Jp) @ Upset

We 're leaving at 11am today, destination Nagoya. The journey is not gonna be long and except one or two fellows shouting shit in japanese from time to time, it's a quiet journey. One thing to mention is that our driver a.k.a "Huge Balls", has just taught us our first japanese words: "chinko" and "manko" - respectively "dick" and "pussy"-, therefore everyone is working on his japanese vocabulary!!
We arrived in Nagoya by 2 pm. The Upset club is a small club, like a 100 people capacity club. This is the kind of place we've played countless times accross Europe, we took advantage of it to perform our fastest soundcheck ever, a new record: less than 5 mins.
After an afternoon of sightseeing, we're back at the club at the beginnng of the evening. Contrary to what the local staff had foreseen, the venue is crowded. The first bands play and they're all good, I'm starting to believe that there are no crappy bands in Japan. The sound is once again so loud and I don't know if the japanese guys have super tough ears or if half the population down here is deaf as fuck, but noone ever uses earplugs.
At last it's our turn to go on stage. Punk-rock is similar to everything else: you lose some, you win some... tonight we're lucky bastards I guess!! It's by far the better of the 4 shows we played in this country. The contact is set right from the start with the audience, we are crazy on stage... and all that with a smile. We leave this kind crowd just warmed up good to let AUTHORITY ZERO set the venue on fire.
As the world couldn't be so small, on our way back to the hotel, we ran into a japanese girl that has lived several months in Nice, she even got pictures of the French Riviera with her !! The evening ended up in a sake bar in Nagoya, drinking up our homesickness.

Osaka (Jp) @ Namba Rocket

We got up pretty late today, tired of last day's evening. Fortunately, we didn't have to travel today, Osaka is such a big city that we're playing there again tonight, but in a different club, a smaller one. We know those kind of clubs pretty well, the soundcheck is done even faster than yesterday, only disturbed by a little problem of guitar amps and electricity shocks in my microphone.
We spent the rest of the afternoon sightseeing, having a nap, and finding smoething to eat. I have to admit that I had quiete some tough times with japanese food... I'm participating to a kind of "survivor tv show" and when I pass the test, I got a pizza!!
The show kicks off with 3 japanese bands, it's crazy but all the bands are good in here. The timing is rad, they got good songs... On an other hand tonight we're not making the live performance of our lives, we 're almost playing like wimps. I think we lost all our energy skanking last night. We put up the worse show of the tour, that's not such a big deal either, but let's say the flame was desperately not burning tonight.
The show being over we decide to end up the evening at the "ROCK ROCK". The custom here demands that every bands take a polaroid of themselves, the photo ends up pined on the wall of the bar. NOFX, FALL OUT BOY, MXPX and even GUNS 'N ROSES are already there, so we don't hesitate a long time and take this photo... Our mugs end up in the bar window, between MOTORHEAD and LESS THAN JAKE !!

Osaka (Jp) @ Club Quattro

We travelled from Kawazaki to Osaka today as we're having a day off. 600 kilometers in 8 hours and a half... We, therefore, woke up in Osaka we don't have to take the van today and that's good news, gathering 17 people in a tour bus gets it easily noizy. We'll kill time walking around in Osaka, that's a pretty big city and judging by the way people look in here, there's a good rock n' roll potential.

The Club Quattro is located on the 8th floor of a sort of mall. A great club with a capacity of 400 people, a great stage, and lights and sound equipments that are worthy a zenith ( big and well known venues in France). We get rid of the soundcheck quickly, it sounds good but ultra loud. Tonight the gig is sold out, tonight we start at 8pm again, and tonight again we strum our guitars as hell. We are starting to get used to the way the japanese audience react, even though their extreme attention and quietness between every songs is still a bit weird to us. AUTHORITY ZERO and LESS THAN JAKE are putting up amazing shows tonight. If you trust Roger (LTJ bass player/singer), Osaka feels like home, and appart the fact I couldn't find any socca (traditionnal meal from Nice) tonight, hell yeah in Roger I trust!!
We end up the evening at the "ROCK ROCK" bar where every bands that toured Osaka are supposed to go. And We meet there the guys from MAYDAY PARADE and PARAMORE that were playing in Osaka tonight too. The athmosphere is crazy and a few beers later, everyone ends up skanking along with the choruses from Operation Ivy, Pietaster and other ska hits that the DJ is playing. A little tired and the legs feeling numb, we head back to the hotel to get some sleep.

Kawazaki (Jp) @ Club Città

We woke up easy this morning. The night was quite good for almost everyone, we're starting to get used to the time zone difference.
We wait at the hotel till 12:45 and Mizuki come to pick us up to do the soundcheck.
The Citta club can welcome 1400 guys and we are told when we arrive that tonight's show is sold out. The show is worth seeing anyway, KEMURI, LESS THAN JAKE, AUTHORITY ZERO, FREYGOLO together plus as a local guest COQUETTISH... It might be quite a good show!!!
As for everything, the soundcheck is really well organized, the stage is set in 10 mins, we soundcheck in 20, the bands soundcheck without any delay... it's some resty and comfortable way to tour, moreover we don't even have to take care of my guitar, Jeff and I have our own guitar tech for all the gigs.
The show starts at 5 o clock and the club is crowded, the guys from COQUETTISH are very good tonight. They run through their songs like madmen. Then it's our turn to play. We 're excited tonight and we play hard since the begining. The reaction from the audience is a bit surprising, because when you clap your hands you can have like 2800 hands clapping with yours but when the song is over there's a total silence... we're just going to play our songs without any breaks and clap our hands as much as we can!!! The gig went on well and it'd better off have been that way because LESS THAN JAKE is playing right after us.
I have to admit that I didn't watch their and AUTHORITY ZERO entire shows. On one hand I'll get the chance to see them again on this tour and on an other hand i'm way too busy talking to the good old guys from KEMURI... These guys are amazing, like humble and kind as can be. It's their turn to play, and there's something in the air right now, something we're gonna talk about for centuries. Time stopped its course, I feel like crying, and I, ordinary being an asshole, am almost about to get into their Positive Mental Attitude... I said almost !!!
We end up the evening like close friends, sake is everywhere and in all the hands, and we'll have a story to tell to our grandchildren: "when your grandpa played on the last tour of the japanese Ska punk ambassadors"!!!

Big In Japan

Here we are in Japan we're all safe and our guitars too !!!
The flight even though lasted forever had been quite ok. No major troubles to mention, being closed for such a long time (almost) didn't drive me mad... but most of all for the greater good, belzu took a sleeping pill, we therefore didn't hear anything coming out of his mouth during all the trip.
We meet Mizuki and Machi at our arrival, they are our tour managers in japan, and we went to tokyo which is like 2 hours far from the airport. Just to make us feel like we're REALLY in Japan they took us to a traditionnal japanese restaurant in town. We kinda randomly chose some meals and, appart fro the rice and fish, it's not that easy to tell what exactly you're eating, but it seems ok all in all.
We then went on with some sightseeing, walking streets and temples... Tiredness catched up with us, it's like 34 degrees celcius outside, the streets are really crowded, and we haven't slept for 26 hours. Mizu Mizu took us to the hotel which is in Kawazaki, a big city near Tokyo. After a highly appreciated nap, we hang out outside in the city. The streets are still crowded, the shop signs are blinking everywhere ... I feel like it's not a good thing to suffer from epilepsie down here. It's not good to smoke either, at least not in the street, because noone is smoking except in small smoking lounges and close to the an ashtray. We also went to some records shops, the prices are really low and you can find punk-rock albums everywhere, it's different from home. We end up eating at Mc donalds, at least we 'll know the cause of our stomachache tomorow, then we went to bed.

I Think I'm Turning japanese

"Let's pack our bags and let's run away, from that night, from that day..."

FREYGOLO + AUTHORITY ZERO JAPAN TOUR 2007
09/24 = KANAGAWA @ Club citta' kawazaki + KEMURI, LESS THAN JAKE, COQHETTISH
09/26 = OSAKA @ Shinsaibashi quattro + LESS THAN JAKE
09/27 = OSAKA @ Nanba rockets + DON'T TURN AWAY, VIBEDRED, SUNSET BUS
09/28 = NAGOYA @ Upset + DON'TURN AWAY, STUDS, The CLUTCH
09/30 = TOKYO @ Shinjuku antiknock + DON'T TURN AWAY, FAITH
10/01 = TOKYO @ Shinjuku acb hall + SCREAM WALKER
10/02 = NAGOYA @ Quattro + LESS THAN JAKE
10/04 = TOKYO @ Shibuya quattro + LESS THAN JAKE
10/05 = TOKYO @ Shibuya quattro + LESS THAN JAKE

Lespinasse (F) @ Le Before

I don't know what we've done, but we spent 8 hours to travel through the 400 kilometers that separated us from Lespinasse... Well in fact, I know what we've done. First, We spent 1hour and a half to go out of Barcelona, the GPS is out of order and the direction aren't really clear in this town. Most of all, we lost 1hour to go to the "Jonquière" (a place near the border). According to Nico, you can find there the best and cheapest chorizo in the world... As if Toto's smell of puke wasn't enough already, we're supposed to endure the smell of the pork butchery... Plus, it took us 45 mins to find the exit #12 and we finally arrive at 8:oo instead of 5:00 at the "Before" parking lot.
Pierro of the 'To Loose Punkers" and Ju of the band SHAKE UP welcome us with arms wide open and didn't care about about our delay. Glancing at the venue: its wide, looks like a place to celebrate weddings and Communions... on an other hand there's no real stage, there's a kind of platform but it seems a bit sketchy to be 6 standing there. Belzu will be the only one there, the other 5 are going to play on the floor. Well... we unload the van, install our gear, sound check. There's an athmosphere of tiredness around all the FREYGOLO members tonight, everyone's paying back for last night.
There's like 60 people in the bar now. We start playing. The athmosphere is not as crazy as last night and if you add to this us being in a poor form, you'll get a more than an average show. We try to make this a good show the best we can and our friends of the band CHARLY FIASCO that are here tonight do their best too to motivate the audience. We finally make it and we end up with 3 "encores" that were a bit chaotic but energetic at least!!
We're not gonna fuck around that much tonight, we load the van back, say goodbye to all our friends and head back direction Nizza!!