LIVE REPORT ~ Japan Nite: March 23 2008

Knitting Factory - Los Angeles, CA

Music Madness From Japan

[featuring]
Petty Booka/The Emeralds
ketchup mania/detroit7/SCANDAL

On the eve of Japan Nite, Hollywood Blvd was full of Michael Jacksons, Marilyn Monroes, street performers and even an Easter Bunny. Despite it being a major US Holiday (Easter), Japan Nite at Los Angeles still drew quite a crowd, even though it wasn’t apparent at first. Very few times has a Japanese rock event been held on the main stage of the Knitting Factory, so we were a bit confused about where we should go after obtaining our tickets, and there seemed to be no fans around to ask.

A security guard took pity on us and pointed our way around to the right of the ticket booth. There was a table with flyers of the various bands near the entrance, but sadly we forgot to grab any. Once inside we wandered a bit through the thick crowd while trying to adjust to the reddish lighting in the Knitting Factory. Seeing banners hanging around the balcony where the second seating area was, we later realized that the bands actually used that space to watch each other's performances.

Note: If you’d like a good spot, get there early! We didn’t quite make it and instead stationed ourselves in a small niche near the back of the venue. The start time was 8:00pm; however, fans should know that most events tend to start a bit later. Japan Nite was no exception, starting between 8:30 and 9.

The first act of the night was Scandal, an all girl band from Osaka. Dressed in schoolgirl uniforms, this five-girl band looked like they had stepped out of an anime – which wasn’t too far from the truth. They have anime versions of themselves on their fliers, CDs, their myspace and their website. There is an animated short also on their website. Scandal has no single vocalist: all of these 16 and 17-year-olds play an instrument as well as sing.

Scandal looks like a JRock band, but they sound more influenced by JPop--a softer rock sound with very catchy tunes, often inducing the audience to throw up their hands and wave peace signs instead of the classic metal horns. The first song started off great until the bassist, Tomomi’s, bass strap broke. However, they just continued playing and singing without stopping. For each of their songs, one girl would sing while the rest would play their instruments and dance around the stage. The crowd was mostly still, but some moved to their music. It wasn’t until the very end that Scandal riled up the crowd enough to get most of them moving to the music.

The most surprising group of the night was probably Petty Booka, a country-western duo. The act consisted of two y