Touring Japan: 5 Things I Learned
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taken in the Harajuku shopping district in TOKYO, Japan
Anything is possible, so always follow your gut.
It had been a life-long dream of mine to tour overseas with a band. I was given the opportunity when I started a band that I was a lead singer for. I always knew in my gut that to do the things I wanted to accomplish, I would have to be the lead, but I was always happy just playing bass. I would suggest touring overseas in other bands I was in and always get shut down for lame excuses or just because it wasn’t the lead singer’s idea.
It’s not as expensive as you would think
I did the research. I did the math. One of the many reasons I was frustrated in other bands I was in was that the same people that would shut down my plans and ideas for international touring, would want to spend hundreds (More like thousands) of dollars in gas (and other travel expensives) to play to a handful of people (like shows with literally less than 10 people attending) on a Canadian tour. I know touring Canadian would be great experience, and when you are in a band you should do things “just for the experience”, but really, why not get the most bang for your buck? I also researched travel grants for music touring and the band a a whole was able to get about $5000 in grants when I went to Japan…you can read more about that here.
Other countries are more supportive of the local music scene than Canada
Sorry, Canada. I love living here and I can’t imagine living anywhere else but one thing that is lacking is local music scene support. Please don’t take this as a personal attack if you are the exception to the rule. Or maybe your life has changed (jobs/kids/other responsibilities etc.) and you can’t go out as much anymore. That is natural. A scene will never work if new people are not coming in. I do think the death of the all-ages clubs in Canada is what is killing the scene. People don’t turn 19 and then magically get into punk/rock music, a lot of your musical identity is formed in high school. I also know that Canada has a less dense population than other countries. For example, if 1 in 500 people went to local shows in Tokyo, that’s a fuck-ton of people, but to be fair, they have waaay more clubs. So the number of live music venues per capita is probably actually the same. The difference, the “going out” culture. Specifically, in Tokyo, people often are out of their apartments from 7 am-11 pm.
Other places do it differently than Canada…and it works!
I think that we can all agree that going on stage at 12 am on a Tuesday sucks. No one is there and the people who are, are mostly just alcoholics that would be there anyway and don’t really give a fuck about your music (lol kidding…or am I…lol). This is so the bar can keep the people in the club until the liquor-selling-cut off time - 2 am.The shows in Japan where 6 pm-10 pm-ish with the last band usually going on at 9:30 pm. This is to encourage people to go out after work before commuting home. Japan has a very strong (hard) work culture, I actually hear from North Americans that have immigrated there that that is the worse part. Your neighbours consider you lazy if you are home before 10 or 11 pm. So why not go to a show? The best timeslot is actually the last one at 9:30 pm as people there often work late. The club really fills up around 8 pm as people get off work.
I have seen early shows done here but they are not “part of our culture” so people are not in the habit of going to them. Also, here in Toronto, you really need to drive it home (advertise) that it is an early show so that people show up on time. Though it could possibly work if it was a regular thing. Also…It’s pretty easy to tour Japan (logistics-wise)
Every club has it’s own backline - making touring a dream! This is a concept you see at many music festivals in Toronto like CMW and IndieWeek. In Japan, Small level clubs (like under 300 capacity) have their own backline INCLUDING drum cymbals. This makes change-over between bands seamless and touring a dream. It is an extra cost to the club, (especially if they have to replace cymbals) so some will make you pay a “rental" fee which works out to about $30 CAD. Well worth it if it means you can take the subway to the gig. I found this out while doing my research and it was confirmed when I started booking gigs. The only thing we had to lug around was my giant bass lol. I booked an AirBnB close to all the venues and took cabs, but in one instance we did take the subway (from Osaka to Kobe on a double-header day when we were booked for two gigs on a Saturday!).
An American band we meet that was touring Japan at the same time, was playing 30 gigs just in Tokyo! They were playing a different club in a different neighbourhood each night. They were traveling exclusively by subway to all the gigs. The closest place to Toronto that you might be able to do something similar is New York City - and that would be if you were a master of gear sharing threads.
Of course, most clubs also allowed you to use your own gear if you wanted (we found their gear was better than ours anyway lol). Every club had 2-4 (or more) tech people employed (a LOT of women too, pretty much every club had at least one female tech), and they would act as roadies if need, helping bands load/unload gear from the stage if needed.
As well, when I attended a networking event at the Kansai Music Conference in Japan, I learned that a lot of bands use courier services to transport gear from city to city while touring Japan. Courier services are so reliable in Japan that you can have them deliver gear from venue to venue, or hotel to hotel, etc. I think I might do that next time when changing cities.
