Ryuichi Sakamoto

[E.T.]

this morning Ryuichi appeared on TV and played two tunes on the piano. I like them.

merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zabOPYJq ... annel_page

nizu no naka no Bagatelle (Bagatelle in water)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSqcVgho ... annel_page

[Chet]

100% genius
100% beauty

[natsume]

Thanks. He is doing a solo piano tour of Japan this spring. I will see him on April 1st in Fuji City, really looking forward to it.

[Chet]

wow.
natsume, you have to let us know everything about this concert when you come back.
what songs he played, if he spoke between the songs etc...

[natsume]

http://www.sitesakamoto.com/whatsnew/

If you look at the second entry under whatsnew, it talks about the new album and tour, and the itunes deal in which every show of this tour will be available for download shortly after the event. Offered worldwide. Pretty cool. I will definitely get the show I attend, as a kind of souvenir. There is a link to the Japanese album/tour site as well.

[E.T.]

"mizu no naka no Bagatelle" was made for TV CM 1984, suntry Old whisky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo6Vdne3RLo

I'd like to play it on piano!

[karnsculpture]

Love that melody. The original is on his CMTV compilation. Thanks for posting the link to the commercial.

[E.T.]

pretty old, but I thought worth to post
on aired January 30, 2009

energy flow (became #1 hit in 1999 in Japan)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bv6V3XA ... re=related

to stanford (kotoringo's song, taken from the album "out of noise" which will be released in March 4, 2009.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmiWUodX ... re=related

with kotoringo, four hands live in 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDimbfw8 ... re=related

[E.T.]

you can hear samples here with R.S's comments.

[Rhodesia]

I'll wait for the comments of that great show!!!
Lucky you Natsune

[E.T.]

seems like Ryuichi Sakamoto's last night show is available on itunes.

ryuichi sakamoto playing the piano 2009 tokyo 031809

[E.T.]

sakamoto report from this tour

click pictures
http://www.commmonsmart.com/rs/report/?rsno=1&pg=1

[E.T.]

ryuichi started twitter

http://twitter.com/ryuichisakamoto
http://www.flickr.com/photos/skmt09
http://www.youtube.com/user/rskmt09

[natsume]

I never did report about the 4.1 show in Fuji-shi. Pictures and setlist can be found from the link above. We had pretty good seats, which was nice. I had seen him give a solo piano performance once before, in San Francisco 9 years ago, and it was certainly a more lively experience then, given both the crowd and Sakamoto's intial ambient DJ set, and experimentation with prepared piano.

This being Japan, the crowd, and show, were much more subdued. I am impressed by Sakamoto's ability, given his long career and many varied projects/associations, to attract a multi-generational crowd to his performances. 20-somethings to 60-somethings seemed all to be fairly well presented. And, this being Japan, the show was overall very pleasant and relaxing. Opening with the experimentation of Glacier was probably wise, as the show took a turn towards more accessible music early on, and rarely veered from that. I was not familiar with all of the pieces, and I admit, to my ear, it did seem a bit "samey" at times, with the recurrence of the Satie/Ravelesque/Brahmslike themes wafting through each crystalline composition. It was still wonderful to see the man alive and well. One highlight was early on, when he invited the entire audience to take pictures with their cell phones for one song only, Composition 0919. The auditorium was lit up by 100s of phone screens, it was an extremely beautiful sight.

[E.T.]

I went to one of his shows.
It was really wonderful. I listend to his play eagerly, I couldn't be relaxed.
he played for us:

glacier
Improvisation
to stanford
hibari
composition 0919
women without men
silk endroll
normandia
aubade
Before Long
tango
A Flower is not a Flower
asience
energy flow
Perspective
amore
Merry Christmas Mr.Lawrence
the last emperor
behind the mask
happyend
aqua

All plays are great, there were some tunes I didn't know (women without men, silk, normandia, amore or so), but I fell in love with them. happyend was awesome.
Normandia is Mr. Hosono's tune.
I heard a rumor there will be European tour in Autumn.