Karl's Corner - 08/14/2005

08/14/05 a penny for your thoughts...it's settled and done

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...MB '05 Tour: Day 67: Summersonic Festival - Tokyo, Marine Stadium
More tidy little van rides brought us out to the Marine Stadium, which is actually quite a ways out in some suburb of Tokyo somewhere. If anything it was even hotter than Osaka today! The sun was blistering and the humidity unrelenting. Just standing around induced instant sweaty discomfort. They ran firehoses up over the gigantic crowd to keep people from collapsing where they stood in the midday sun, and kept it up into the evening hours. But who's complaining when youre about to play to 40,000 people, in between Kasabian and Oasis? Not us!

Various sightings today of Chuck D, but no one seemed to be able to spot that wily Flavor Flav. Scott nearly introduced himself to someone he thought was Flav but realized at the last second it must have been his stunt double or something. In any event, it was difficult to check out any artists' sets that werent actually at the baseball stadium, as the other stages were quite a distance apart and not easy to spot.

Weezer delivered the same set as last night, and it was once again fun, huge and dramatic, if beset by the occasional minor techie glitch. The crowd was LOUD, as the whole stadium was packed to the gills - It definately looked more full than 3 years ago when we played with G n' R.

Both shows were filmed, and several tracks fom each will be shown on Japanese TV soon, as part of a Summersonic Special.

This time we watched Oasis from the skyboxes (sharing with Kasabian, who were in a celebratory mood), and learned that the Oasis front of house sound (what the audience hears) was just as briliant if not more so than the killer sound we heard on stage yesterday. What a treat to watch these guys in action. Legends!

After the show the band did some more short interviews, this time with MTV, Tokyo-FM, and United Project Radio.

fan reaction (more in the comment section)
"...Today I was up early in the morning, all ready to go to the much anticipated SummerSonic05 for the first time in my life with a friend of mine. Walking under the hot sun with myriads of other people clad in rock t-shirts, I headed towards the Marine Stadium to first see a Japanese hip-hop group, Rip Slyme and I ended up gaping with awe at the size of the stadium. After that, I couldn't wait until 6pm when I would be able to see/hear Weezer live for the first time in my life. 5 hours later I was standing amongst a HUGE group of people, about 5 meters away from the stage where I could see Pat, Brian, Scott and Rivers so close up that it was almost surreal. The fact that I was almost face to face with a band that was always something distant and only tangible with the sound from the CD was unbelievably exciting. I was ready to rock'n roll and the crowd started to tune into the Weezer spirit with "Photograph." Despite the 60 mins of getting pushed around by the sweaty men around me, singing/waving/jumping/doing the =w= sign with them filled me with great happiness...(clothes getting sweaty, voice getting hoarse.) Thank you for giving all the Kanto-area Weezer fans such a great time and on a personal note, thank you for giving a girl the energy and motivation to pull herself through a tough Highschool Junior year of college preparation! ...P.S: It was a treat listening to Brian and Scott sing and I must say, that the whole band was well-dressed for such a wonderful occasion." ---Sol

large size picture link: here, more: 1.

The current tour merchandise can be seen here.