I was two hours into the trek from Toyama to Niigata, slogging back to Naoetsu station after an unappetizing lunch at the nearest restaurant I could find, a MosBurger. I was bitching at the Kawaii Kingpin on Messenger about the fact that Japanese city planners or businesses apparently didn’t see the sense in putting restaurants next to the station. He explained his watertight strategy of staying home, and I have to admit that at that point it had its merits.
Unfortunately I’m pretty sure Man With a Mission doesn’t do private gigs, and if they did, I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to afford one on my salary. As it was, I was thanking my lucky stars for Sensei, who had tracked down a ticket for their sold out Niigata show on a resale website. This seemed like the perfect way to finish my Golden Week, and if there was one show I absolutely felt I had to see before I left Japan, this was it.
One year ago, I’d never heard of Man With a Mission. They’ve done a lot of music for anime and movies, but I hadn’t encountered them until I watched Golden Kamuy, the opening song for which is their “Winding Road.” Hell, I’m pretty sure that part of the reason I love that anime so much is because of that song. What is interesting is that I didn’t just listen to “Winding Road.” When I looked it up on YouTube I ended up listening to - and liking - lots of their music. I hadn’t tried that before with Japanese bands, and although I’ve tried to find other bands that way since, none of them have struck me the way Man With a Mission did. It’s been a long time since I could say I had a favorite band, and I’ve gotta say, I really dig it.
So. I made it to Niigata. By this point in the game I was kind of done vacationing, as evidenced by the fact that I couldn’t be bothered taking a bus to my guesthouse - I took a taxi - or that once I was there I laid down to take a nap and read. I did spend the morning before the concert wandering, but I didn’t even bother to take the Big Gun with me, instead snapping pictures of the shrine at which I inevitably found myself with my iPad. I headed back to the guesthouse for a little while, recharging my tech, and a little before four decided to head over to the venue, Toki Messe.
It’s been a while since my last concert. In Mongolia we got out to live music fairly regularly, but these shows were almost always in small restaurants, so I guess my last show was Jason Mraz, back in Shanghai. As I found the right entrance and made my way to my seat - not quite as far back as my first concert (Smashing Pumpkins at Kemper Arena back in 1996) but further than I would have liked - I realized this was the first time I’d gone to a concert alone. And I wasn’t totally sure how I felt about that. I mean, I do a lot of things on my own - hell, most of the time I prefer my own company - but I couldn’t help wishing I had someone with me who loved the music as much as I did, like Brucie during all those Smashing Pumpkins concerts, or Diana and Cookie when we saw They Might Be Giants.
Then Man With a Mission took the stage, and as we all stood up, I realized everyone there fit the profile. They clapped in time to the music. They were jumping with excitement, hard enough to make me question the structural integrity of the stands that our seats were arranged on. As the band played, we waved our hands, pumped wolf-claws in the air. Lit the flashlights on our phones and waved them in time with their ballad, “Find You.” (Maybe because I’m getting old I didn’t find it as stirring as the flames of a thousand Zippos, but I didn’t burn myself, either).
Not my photo...taken from the MWAM Twitter, w/o permission
Beyond that, I’m not really sure how to tell you about this experience. I keep lamenting that the clock is running down on my time in Japan, which makes everything seem that much more precious. Even if I hadn’t felt united with all the thousands of fans around me, I don’t think I could have been my usual cranky self. The music was too good. A few songs into the first set, they played “Dead End in Tokyo,” my other favorite song, and it was perfect. I sang along, and the sound from the stage was so overpowering that I didn’t have to worry about ruining the song for anyone next to me - there was no way they could hear me.
Playing a concert is hard enough work normally, but Man With a Mission performs in wolf heads. When I first encountered them I thought maybe it was a tie-in with Golden Kamuy but eventually I figured out that they’ve been using the masks since they first got together. So they took a couple of well-deserved breaks, playing short videos featuring the band between sets. These I didn’t really understand because they were in Japanese. One of the reasons I enjoy MWAM so much is the fact that they have a lot of English lyrics - “Dead End in Tokyo” is sung entirely in English - so I think it’s possible those videos might have been in English, or at least subtitled, at their shows outside Japan. If they make it to Ulaanbaatar, I’ll definitely have to find out.
Finally - FINALLY - they played “Winding Road,” which was definitely a high point for me, and then (I think - I may be misremembering) they played “Fly Again.” In the middle of the song a canon blasted silver streamers out over the crowd. I was too far back to get one, but then some of the crew came up the aisles with arms full of them, so I got a memento after all. I was afraid this meant it was the end, but after clapping, cheering, and another video - this one announcing more Japanese concert dates - they retook the stage and played their new single, “Remember Me.”
Also (sadly) not my photo. My thanks to their Twitter.
And then it was the last moment, and the band held up their towels, saluting the crowd while seemingly every fan in the place held up their own, smaller towels in return. Every fan, that is, except me. Throughout the day as I’d been wandering, I’d been able to pick out who would be at the concert with me that evening, because they all had towels emblazoned with the band’s name and a wolf’s head slung around their necks. Japan has this really cool thing they do where it’s kind of normal to carry your own hand towel around, to dry your hands after you use the bathroom (or your sweat, come summertime), and that’s kind of what I thought the towels were about. I’d never been to a Japanese concert, I had no way of knowing what it would be like - other than what anime told me, and since nobody was waving flashing penlights I was kind of glad I hadn’t based my expectations on anime (for once). I made sure to stop by the merch stand on my way out, though, and pick one up. Maybe I’ll never have another chance to get to one of their concerts. I don’t know. But considering I saw my last favorite band in concert four times, I’d be willing to bet that I’ll need it at some point.
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