Sunday, March 13, 2005

Kyoto (II)

I stumbled into it by mistake: I thought it was the Kyoto Museum of Modern Art and found myself into a competition for high-school bands from the nearby Yokohama.
The kids at the entrance were very nice and invited me to have a look. The program announced about 20 bands. Currently playing was "Sounds great" followed by "Sexual excitations". About one third of the bands playing have English names. Talk about cultural domination.
I stick around for 3 bands. They all sing in Japanese and all have a rebellious, heavy sound to them. There are no obscene gesture on stage, no wild scene show. They play like rebels but behave like nice kids.
The public, though, is the greatest surprise. Almost everybody in the audience is a teenager but the all amphitheater is silent, well behaved. Small clapping at the end of a set, no shout, no scream. It is as if they were listening and reacting to another concert, some classical music that I cannot hear.

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