(Cover of their new "Best Of" album which I bought that night)
Huge applause greeted the Yoshida Brothers as they walked out, bowed, and sat down on their seats. They were quite a sight: they wore multi-coloured kimono and forest-green hakama, that in itself a sort of fusion of old and new. I even want to say that the orange-dyed hair is becoming a traditional Asian style at this point in time, also mixing the old with the new (or not, but still). The two of them both sat down, they both flicked back their right sleeves, and they both went through a quick fine-tuning of their shamisen.
I just want to again mention that we were sitting in the fourth row of the theatre. I don’t know how we pulled it off, but the seats were amazing. The entire concert we could see every little breath, every little crack of a smile… it really couldn’t have been much better than that.
After their first song, the Yoshidas each took a microphone and (in English) said their own introductions. They told us it was their first time in Vancouver (and their first time in North America period, I believe), that they were really enjoying themselves, and that they hoped we would like their show.
As if there was ever any question about that, right?
If any of you have never heard the tsugaru-jamisen style of shamisen, it’s a very percussive style with a lot of fast fingering and steady slaps to the body of the shamisen. As such, it’s very rhythmic and my friend next to me and I often found our knees bouncing to the beat, our heads nodding along – I also know that on several occasions my fingers were drumming out rhythms on my seat. So as we sat in our seats getting our little grooves on with big, goofy smiles plastered across our amused faces, I would look around now and then at the rest of the audience in attendance…
Nothing. Complete stillness. All those Japanese faces were neutral, still, and silent. Not one bit of head-bobbing, no bouncing knees that I could see. It wasn’t even that I was expecting to see it. It just felt so strange for me, who grew up with a jazz band mentality where you would clap and cheer for someone after just a solo, to have such a seemingly uninvolved audience. During some really crazy-fast points I just wanted to throw my fist into the air and cheer for the Yoshidas. They may have been dressed traditionally and may have been playing traditional Japanese instruments, and the entire set may have just been two guys sitting in the middle of a stage with their shamisen, their monitor speakers, and nothing else… but as far as I was concerned, they may as well have been rock stars.
Even at the end of a song it just felt wrong to cheer out loud as very few others did, and even then it was only after certain songs. I will say this, however: despite a lack of vocal cheers, that Japanese audience was putting out the loudest, most deafening applause I had heard in a long time with just their hands. The Vancouver Playhouse seats a little less than seven hundred people, and those people could clap! “Thunderous applause” is pretty cliché, but there were definitely times when the audience’s clapping might as well have been a line of cracking whips. After experiencing those end-song clapping sessions, I came around. The audience may have seemed uninvolved, but the intensity and under-the-surface emotion was burning plenty hot. By the end, I found it all to be a very all-encompassing cultural experience in a way.
The Yoshida Brothers themselves definitely looked like they were having fun the entire night. Aside from the very proper way they would bow slightly after every song, shake their sleeves back or rest quietly when only one of them was playing, you could always see the little moments where their classic Japanese composure would take a break. As the really intense, really technical parts of songs came out, their lips would curl ever so slightly and their heads would bounce around just a little more as they got into the music. This was especially noticeable when they played “Kodo”, the song from the Wii commercial.
This was easily the one song many of us were waiting to hear the most. And as the one brother strummed out the familiar sounding intro, the other was getting himself ready… and then finally with a deep, emphatic breath they both shouted “Hii!” and drove straight into the song. I remember all of us looking back and forth at each other, smiling and nodding that this was indeed the song. After “Kodo”, there was no way to hold back the “whoos” and the whistles.
The concert ended a little after 10pm with a (surprising but welcome) standing ovation followed by an encore performance. The Yoshidas bowed and waved, big smiles across their faces mirroring our own. Funny enough, after their encore and exiting from the stage, the house music came on as a way to tell us that yes, the show was now over; the song was “Overland Blues” by the Yoshida Brothers. At once, one of my friends as well as several other younger people around us snapped to attention, mentioning how they loved that song and how they were sad they didn’t play it (though to be fair, “Overland Blues” would have required a third musician/guitarist on stage).
Ultimately it was a very satisfying concert, and only part of what I imagine should be a very satisfying North American tour this month (which started May 14th in Los Angeles and ends May 31st in Minneapolis. As I finish typing this up, the Yoshida Brothers have probably just finished their concert in New York and shall be off to Chicago within the next day or two. I can only hope that this will give them incentive for future tours as this was something I’m sure Wii – we – could all appreciate seeing.
For a better sense of how their set looked for the most part, I found a clip of the Yoshida Brothers playing “Kodo” from their show in Los Angeles last week on the 14th.
