21 Jan. , I visited my home town Nagata (in Kobe). There was a festival in Nagata Jinja (shrine). This is a report of this festival.
21 Jan. , I visited my home town Nagata (in Kobe). There was a festival in Nagata Jinja (shrine). This is a report of this festival.
There's a long story. There was two modern rock bands called 'Newest Model' and 'Mescaline Drive' - you can easily imagine how they played. Members of the two bands made a new group 'Soul Flower Union'.
After the quake of Jan. 17, 1995, Soul Flower began to play old Japanese popular songs, to cheer up the people (chiefly elderly people) in refuges. People became to love them so much, and Soul Flower made 40-50 free concerts in Kobe, chiefly in Nagata.
They decided to present a rather big event one year after the quake, titled 'Tsuzura-ori no Utage' (a festival of tapestry??).
That Soul Flower played a very old style of buskers, called 'Ching Dong', this name is after the sound of the instruments - chimes, drums, trumpet, clarinet ... etc. It's a music for example for Circus. I don't know if circus in Western countries also play these kind of music.
In Nagata live many minorities - people from Okinawa, Korea ... etc. Also the bands from Okinawa and Korea played music. Soul Flower also played songs of Korea like 'Arirang' and 'Traji'
I saw an old ladies laughing and dancing and crying to their music. It's a great thing. Can you imagine the scene, old people dance to the Rolling Stones? :-)
At last an Okinawan band played Okinawan traditional dance music and all the people stood up, danced to the music. Was really a great festival.
NAKAYAMA Takahiro (Feb. 1996)
Soul Flower Review
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