1. Over one hundred Fans Meet B'z at Hongkong Airport
- B'z Fans call for Inaba Koshi to take off this shirt
[29/06/01]
Japanese rock kings B'z arrived in Hong Kong from Taiwan yesterday to
promote their August concerts, and attracted over a hundred fans who awaited
their arrival at the airport. B'z have rarely met with the media, and
when member Inaba Kohshi was asked to display his tattoos, he did not
know what to do.
Rock stars B'z arrived at the airport at 3 in the afternoon. When the
two members walked out of the restricted area, almost a hundred fans swarmed
forward, and there was a scene of chaos. Among the fans was a thirty something
year old woman carrying her little daughter, B'z are really "Middle-aged-lady
killers."
After being wildly chased by fans, Matsumoto Takahiro and Inaba Kohshi
were showing signs of fatigue, but continued straight on to the media
conference. At 4:30, the two of them arrived at the Tsimsatsui HMV. On
hand were about 50 fans cheering for them. Inaba and Matsumoto had changed
outfits to meet heir fans.
At the start of the conference, B'z used Cantonese to ask "How are
you ?" to their fans. The two admitted that this is not their first
time in Hong Kong, they have been here multiple times before to shoot
MTVs.
During the conference, some reporters daringly, loudly, and in a coarse
manner asked Inaba, "How many tattoos do you have on your body?"
Inaba had not expected this question and his face immediately showed his
awkwardness, but he magnanimously replied, "Not too many, a total
of seven tattoos!" This caused a commotion in the room, Fans screamed
and boldly asked Inaba to take of his shirt and show his tattoos, so that
Inaba looked ill at ease. He shook his head right away.
Regarding what form the August concert will take, the two have not yet
decided. They said, "If there are any particular songs the fans would
like to hear, please let us know which ones, we will accommodate everyone's
requests." But they emphasized that the concert's focus would be
on the music, and not on fancy stage props to attract audiences.
After the conclusion of the conference, for the sake of seeing their
idols a few more moments, fans waited outside HMV and refused to leave.
Not until B'z departed, did fans begin to go their separate ways.
June 29, 2001| www.the-sun.com.hk | Translated
by Murasaki
Article originated from B'z "Loving-All-Nite"
Site | Photos courtesy Bzmaldini
2. Japan Rock King - B'z [29/08/01]
SOUTHERN CITY POST -The super group B'z was established in 1988 but
it was not until 1991 that they changed their music style from pop-dance to
genuine hard rock. In Japan, B'z occupies the all-time No. 1 position among
all artists/bands. In the last 13 years, they have repeatedly proved that they
deserve to be on the top position by always producing stunningly fresh innovative
music. From the number of their selling records to the number of person involved
in their Live shows, B'z has always been the leading role in Japan music industry.
Possesing incredibly sharp sense for music, Tak Matsumoto manages to capture
the pop music wave into his music and mold it with his outstanding guitar playing
and Koshi Inaba's vocal that is rich with variation and sex appeal. This is
the true essence of B'z which enable them to continually break records beyond
belief.
In 1990, the single "Taiyo No Komachi Angel" went into No. 1 position
in the chart. This was B'z first No. 1 single. After this, their record is nothing
short of astonishing: Singles which stayed in the chart
for 50 weeks ! Album which stayed in the chart for 163 weeks ! And 25 consecutive
singles which hit the top spot right in the week of release(*2002:
the record is now twenty-nine singles and fifteen albums/mini-albums, all debut
at No.1)! Their best albums sold more than 10 millions copies, mini albums
34.4 millions, maxi albums 42.3 millions. Altogether B'z
has sold about 76.7 millions copies of singles and albums, making them the all-time
best selling group in Japan, the best rock band and No. 5 best sellers in the
whole world!
Latest News
August 27, Japan rock-duo B'z left Taiwan for Hongkong to prepare for their
two days concert in Wanzhai Hall, Hongkong which are to be held on August 29
and 30.
When they arrived in the airport, the awaiting reporters and fans pushed forward
to get a closer look. In the process, there are some fans who fell down and
there's even a Japanese fan who pushes a baby-cart while running after them.
When B'z was interviewed later that day, they said they felt that the fans'
reaction was overwhelming and they had not expected the fans to like them as
much as this. About the Hongkong's concert, they stated that the song choices
will be the same as Taiwan's concert, but different from concerts held in Japan.
The songs are chosen with careful consideration that the fans' taste is slightly
different here. They also said that they have learnt some Cantonese phrase which
will be useful on stage.
During the press-conference, both B'z members seem at ease and very confident
with their music. No wonder all 28 of the singles got to number one spot.
Conversation with B'z : 'Our home is B'z' Q : Both of you have been working together for
more than 13 years, what do you think of each other? INABA : We both have different characters and hobbies
but there's one thing that links us. B'z is our home. Matsumoto-san always brings
out the best in me and he's also a very good leader, so our relationship has
always been very smooth. MATSUMOTO : I am quite a lazy person. If not because
of working with Inaba, I'd probably be even lazier! Inaba always strives for
the best, therefore his working attitude influences me to also work as hard.
Q : How do you solve differences between the
two of you? MATSUMOTO : Actually when we're not working, we hardly
get a chance to hang out together, so beside in music, we don't have differences
in any other matter. When we have different ideas for our music, we will try
each other's ideas and see how it turns out to be. We will accept the idea with
the best result. If other artist probably does not want to try out different
music ideas, B'z will, because we can't possibly know how good or bad it is
until we try it.
Short Reviews on "Eleven" & "The Mixture"
CD Title : ELEVEN
Genre : Rock
Recommendation : *****
The latest single "RING" begins with pure twinging of simple guitar
playing and combination of various instruments as background. Its arrangement
style is close to "CALLING". The applied guitar technique here is
impeccable and very unique. Mid-part towards the end, the song is crafted with
even more darkening mysterious atmosphere which leaves a long-lasting impression.
"JUICE" the steamy hot single does not employ as much mind-blowing
variation in guitar playing as other songs, instead it sticks to the pure and
simple heavy metal formula at its finest. Masterfully combined with the vocalist,
Inaba's passion-ridden wild vocal, right up to when he ends it with one simply
spoken word - Juice, this single is an excellent representation of what a good
hard rock music should sound like.
CD Title : THE MIXTURE
Genre : Rock
Recommendation : ****
For this album, B'z members, Matsumoto and Inaba selected the songs which have
not been included in the previous two best albums. The Mixture is compiled of
songs from various albums, B-side songs from various singles and some unreleased
numbers. Because of consideration to market's expectation, the singles released
before are under certain limitation. Therefore the biggest attraction this album
has is to show more sides of B'z music, some we never knew before, not only
B'z extreme hard-rock, also some sentimental love songs and even country-rock
style. This time the fans also get to collect songs which were initially compiled
into their singles' B-side only.
3. B'z uses Cantonese to joke in concert while
Dir En Grey gets bare-breasted on stage
Japan's rock-king, B'z and underdog band, Dir En Grey respectively held concerts
in Hongkong last night. On B'z side, the vocalist with his "explosive-lung"
singing style and Cantonese jokes telling entertained fans so much that everyone
clapped and screamed for more. On the other side, a Dir En Grey's band member
gets bare-breasted and pretended to vomit blood, while fans banged their heads
and stripped bras off, so that it was too much for anyone to digest.
Hailed as Japan's music King, last night was B'z first concert ever to be performed
in Hongkong. The vocalist, Koshi Inaba and guitarist, Tak Matsumoto, did more
than a few splits in the air, they also use very accurate Cantonese to speak
to the audience. We can conclude that their Cantonese accent is by far the best
among all foreign artists who have come to Hongkong.
"I'm very happy, very honoured (here he missed a character) to be here.
Tonight, let us have fun together!" Inaba pulled out a paper that clearly
stated a cheat note and read from it. Worried that the fans did not get his
meaning, he repeated the whole thing in very fluent English.
Afterwards, whenever the fans cooled down, Inaba immediately shouted, "Is
everyone in the house happy? How about some reaction here? (Here he missed another
character) Hongkong is the best! Hongkong is No. 1!" So that thousands
of fans laughed and touched by B'z sincerity.
During the whole night, B'z performed the total of 19 songs. When they started
to sing Beautiful Life dorama's theme song (* Konya Tsuki No Mieru Oka Ni),
the whole concert hall sang together. While Inaba's high-range vocals and "explosive-lung"
singing style deserves the biggest praise, Matsumoto's guitar is equally as
strong, always at the perfect moment proofing his profound technique. But talking
about the real eye-popper was when Inaba did splits in the air repeatedly and
made the female fans screamed in ecstasy when he rinsed himself with water.
Furthermore, when he took off his shirt and bared his upper body throughout
the ending of the concert, all female fans in the audience seemed reluctant
to leave.
SONG LIST :
1. Pleasure
2. ZERO
3. Gin No Tsubasa De Tobe
4. Samayoeru Aoi Dangan
5. Easy Come, Easy Go
6. Love Me , I Love You
7. Koi Gokoro
8. Yumemi Ga Oka
9. HOME
10. Konya Tsuki No Mieru Oka Ni
11. Ultra Soul
12. Calling
13. Real Things Shakes
14. Giri Giri Chop
15. Juice
16. GOLD ENCORE:
17. Love Phantom
18. Hadashi No Megami
19. Bad Communication
* Following is not a very good report on Dir En Grey concert
