These were quite possibly the worst of all: hardly anything more pathetic in the world than five 40-something salarymen and OL dressed like teenagers in Don Quixote outfits and shaking unrhythmically to some generic backing track while plucking a guitar and occasionally “singing” (with no two people on the same key) and failing to rouse the slightest level of excitation in a completely captive mass-audience. I think they were followed by a “one-man-orchestra” thing wearing melon hat and bow tie, so funny, in a bad way, that you practically expected people to whip out a gun and start shooting under his feet, or drive him out of town after dropping him in tar and feather…

When we came back a few hours later, they had dropped any pretense at featuring actual musicians and were just playing some 80’s Michael Jackson tracks, with two guys somewhat pretending to move their mouths accordingly (”lip-synching” would be stretching the word way beyond the acceptable threshold: I have seen drag queens on a 24 hour crystal bender in the Tenderloin at 7 in the morning do better)… At least that last one had some unwittingly hilarious potential: only in Japan will nobody twitch nowadays when a guy covered in grotesque black make-up, quite possibly just plain soot, will show up alongside Jacko to do a Stevie Wonder impression…

Seriously, there must have been an empty sign-up booth, where you could just sign a form, pick an hour and get onstage, just couldn’t find it…