Ferenc- Day 7, Tokyo

Last entry I guess... Last night's show left us with a great buzz, and great sadness that the tour is over. The show was truly packed and many in the crowd had seen us a few times on the tour so our set was getting more familiar, so we got a great response. This morning was a beautiful day. We asked one the Surf Coasters fans if she would come to the Akasaka Temple to pose with us so we could re-create the classic Ventures Live in Japan cover. She had come to the El Camino and Yokohama shows in a kimono so we thought she would be appropriate, and it turns out that she was happy to oblige. The temple has changed a little in the last 40 years, different paint, and some tall bamboo growth, but you can see (or will be able to see as soon as I post the a pic) that it is basically the same. The story about the Ventures photo shoot goes that they were signed to EMI in Japan, which has offices in Akasaka, so when they need to do a photo shoot, this temple was the most convenient place. We arrived and the place was empty, no festival going on like yesterday. Migumi was wearing a red kimono, and Yuzo had lent us an old style bamboo umbrella. I carefully got everybody in place, using a printout of the original album cover as a guide, then jumped in line and Yasa snapped away. We tried some other poses, and got great results. Then, 4 hours to kill until we had to leave for the airport so we drove over to Shibuya for some shopping, lunch and sight seeing. Mission accomplished... A much easier drive to the airport, no traffic. Nao and his girlfriend me us there to say goodbye. We did a little last minute shopping, then waded through customs and got on a half full plane. An uneventful flight home, and here we are in foggy S.F.
I would declare the tour an unqualified success. I still stand by the observations I made 2 years ago ( 1- surf music is not popular in Japan like Americans imagine, 2- It would take years to arrange a Japan tour and 3- being a tour guide is hell). That said, I think we did pretty good for a completely unknown commodity, and the shows kept getting better and better. The Nokie show was a textbook case not only in dealing with translation problems, but also in dealing with personal expectations. We had built ourselves up so much- wow, playing with Nokie, we better be great, we better learn his arrangements, failure is not a possibility- that we almost doomed ourselves. And to have our expectations dashed, and further compounded by nobody telling us what the plan was, yep that was the low point. Luckily, by the end of the night it turned out fine and I have a great memory of playing with one of my heroes, whos humility is equalled by his talent. But I don't want to harp on the El Camino show any more, I want to think of the great imes hanging out with the Surf Coasters, all our Japanese friends who helped organize the tour, all the really great fans (some of whom saw us all 5 nights), the really great bands we got to play with and driving around an amazingly beautiful country. An experience of a lifetime, really...