BADASS INC. Live!

I'm a big fan of live shows. Every once in a while a friend invites me along and to check out a live venue and I never hesitate. Sometimes I just feel like I'm kook'd up in a small box when I don't get out of Tohoku every now and then. Don't get me wrong, I love Tohoku for the chill isolated laid back lifestyle, but new adventures to other remote spots are always interesting.

This time around, the lead singer of the band BadASS Inc. invited me to go check out their live acoustic show. Her stage name is 'Bon'...(no connections to Kappa)...I met her at one of my elementary schools as she was an assistant teacher. She was only there for a few months and every time I saw her she always spoke to me in English and since this is quite rare for Japanese elem. teachers.... I had to asked her why she spoke so much English. She leans over and whispers to me, "Don't tell other teachers, but I'm in a band." My eyebrows perked up, "What? Really? What do you sing? What kind of band?" She does a quick left and right check over her shoulders and said, "I like rock music, do you listen to Rock?" I had instant flashbacks my high school days where I had friends who had listened to Tool, Metallica, STP, Nirvana, Scorpions, Slayer, Iron Maiden, AC/DC etc etc.....
"Crazy really? Thats cool...I wanna check out a show," I said with a nostalgic grin on my face.

The spot was at a place called Marrs in Towada city. We got there just in time for the 1st act and instantly upon arrival I was polluting my lungs with tobacco smoke and I'm not even a smoker! Courtney was the only free soul that evening and joined me for a bit of live acoustic Towada. Unfortunately for the non-smokers, Japan is quite slow in adapting the "No smoking in public places" law, but I'm sure in a few years...ugh like 20, Towada will also fall in line. It was nice to see the cool and hip people of Aomori. Everyone seemed to be quite stylish and actually displayed a little care in their fashion attire. I guess I'm just used to seeing the Bugz Bunny jerseys and sweats in my Town!

The music was cool, but the place wasn't. Image a small room packed full of people and the A/C broken. Yah, hot and stuffy...which unfortunately, mixed with massive amounts of tobacco smoke gave Courtney a headache. I felt bad cause she looked miserable..but the show must go on....I was there to take pictures of BadASS Inc and the BadNEWS was that they were last. Fuck!

There was another photographer there who touted 2 canon bodies both accompanied with flash guns...he looked quite serious and definitely poppin' off a lot of shots all night long in between drink. It was cool to see another young photographer in the house even though his shooting style was drastically different from mine. He shot flash head on with every shot. I never would use a camera mounted flash and if I can ...I like to capture the mood of the scene with the available light. He had a nice L zoom lens and a telezoomer....I chose my 50 1.4 and up'd my ISO...no flash.

Anyways, when BadASS Inc. came on, they did covers from old school rock bands like, "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard, "Rock all night long" by KISS, and a few others of the same era and magnitude. I knew the words so I sang along with everyone else that was still left in the house and it was quite good fun. When the show ended, Bon was super stoked we came and wouldn't stop thanking us...and the whole time I kept thanking her for inviting us to a rockin'n good evening. We said goodbyes and left the premise only to find the pachinko parking lot gated and locked. OMG!! I couldn't get my car out! There was a white piece of paper on my windshield that said I couldn't park there. The angels were looking upon us that night because one of the entrances was still left open and we were able to go home. Next stop, McDonalds for midnight filet o fishes!