Let me tell you a story

Sunday, July 23, 2023

Let me tell you a story

I have been posting music by the 5 young Ladies of Band-Maid for over a year on my blog, and a few people enjoy those posts and the Ladies music. A couple people have been a little rude and dismissive.

It was shortly before Thanksgiving of 2021, when I forgot to turn off auto-play when I logged in, to YouTube. I started going through my subscriptions, when the animals started fighting in the kitchen. I got up, and got them sorted out and kenneled. As I came BACK into my room, I heard this music that sounded really good, and was that Japanese, I was hearing? It was, but the music was good, I sat down at my desk and restarted the video and watched it from the beginning. And I was very impressed with the musicianship, the talent and the energy of the young Ladies on the stage in that video. What was that video, you ask?

Since Nippon Crown, the Ladies OLD label is being a pain here is the link to the song: https://youtu.be/FHpuEqMAcDg

Freedom, by the Band-Maid. I watched the video at least 15 times in the next 3 hours. I would watch Freedom, check out a video on my subscriptions, then come back to Freedom and watch it again. I then noticed the next video by Band-Maid that YouTube was recommending to me was "Onset"

Since Nippon Crown, the Ladies OLD label is being a pain here is the link to the song: https://youtu.be/mVrN-j_Uc0U

After Onset, I was hooked. I subscribed to their channel and started to watch ALL of their videos. And I was AMAZED. EVERY SINGLE SONG, was good. Not just good but EXCELLENT!! I hadn't felt like this about music or a band since the mid 70's with RUSH, Kansas and Styx. Yes, I feel these 5 young Japanese Ladies are just as good as the Greats, of RUSH, Styx, Kanas, and many others. Don't believe me? Watch these next 2 videos. They come from the same concert that "Freedom" came from but are the 21st and 22nd songs out of 23, and they had already been performing for over 2 hours at the time. If you pay attention, the last few bars of the first video, are the first few bars of the second.

Since Nippon Crown, the Ladies OLD label is being a pain here is the link to the song: https://youtu.be/3LxX_t4vg7U

Now listen closely, you see the Ladies go back to their pedal boards at the end of Play, you hear the notes ringing out. They reset their pedal boards for the next song, and they're off.

Since Nippon Crown, the Ladies OLD label is being a pain here is the link to the song: https://youtu.be/QbyQCJn6rYg

Both of these songs are extended from the studio release. Play has an extended intro, and Domination has an extended breakdown/bridge. And when you look at them, they don't look like they have been performing for 2 hours already, under hot lights in front of over two THOUSAND people. And they look like they are having FUN.

That is why I fell in love with these 5 young Ladies music. Their music is fantastic, the Ladies themselves are real, down to earth, they have very little ego and truly want to perform for their fans and to give them the best show they can possibly give.

But while I was discovering these young Ladies, the world was in the heart of what we now know were unnecessary unneeded lockdowns. But the fear that certain groups and the media perpetrated upon all of us, made many people shut down emotionally. Not being able to go out. Not being able to visit our friends, or our families. Loved ones dying alone, either through incompetence or outright malpractice, all of us were harmed.

And 5 young Ladies, seeing this in the world, and feeling it themselves, took it upon themselves to try to bring some hope and healing back to their fans. So they wrote this next song. They originally were going to perform it at Budokan, but due to the lockdowns the concert was canceled. So on the day that their Budokan concert was going to be held, they held a concert, an online concert, that people could watch in their homes. The Ladies themselves were surprised when over people from over 67 countries logged in to watch them perform for almost 3 hours, but they debuted the song they had written. Before they performed the song, Saiki Atsumi gave a small talk, explaining about the song and the future of the band.

Translation of the speech that Saiki did before playing "About us" in their 2-11-21 Okyu-Ji (all credits goes to t-Shinji on Reddit/r/BandMaid and big thanks to him, or her, for this awesome work - You can watch the concert and enjoy the translation):

Saiki:

We were supposed to meet you today.

For the first time in a year, we thought we could meet you all, those of you who could come to see us, but we can’t meet you in the end. I’m sorry.

Even though it’s not my fault.

We have been having days of turmoil for about a year. In the beginning, we were very surprised because we hadn’t experienced it before, and we had no experience of not being able to meet others in person.

We were sad, but we found we shouldn’t be sad in this situation.

When I saw you masters and princesses on social media, you were more depressed than us, and we thought that’s too bad.

We Band-Maid have been thinking about how to cheer up all of you in the last one year.

We truly wanted to meet you at Nippon Budokan, but it’s impossible because of COVID, so let’s wait for the day when we can meet.

And in the last one year… or in the COVID pandemic, we have become more eager to cheer you up, and we Band-Maid realized again it’s important to give our songs to you.

That’s why we wrote this song for Budokan.

We made the album also in the pandemic, so it might have a little similar feel, but this song is planned for Nippon Budokan, and we really want to give it to you masters and princesses now.

Budokan is not our goal but just a stepping stone. We will perform at bigger venues, and we promise we will bring you there and give you even better songs, so let’s keep it up a little more.

This is our present for you masters and princesses.

Please listen to it.

And today, is the 10th anniversary of the founding of this Band-Maid. As part of honoring the Ladies, a group of people on a Discord server came together to make a Lyric video, so all of us could sing along with the Ladies. They included the Romaji lyrics so we CAN correctly pronounce the words, and I just hope one day to be able to see the Ladies again and to sing this song along with them. So please, watch the next video as well. It is the same song, but with drawing and lyrics added, so we can share our love of the Ladies and their music to everyone.