Japan Blog
Steve Hackett Acoustic Trio Tour of Japan Nov 2006
Written by John Hackett




“The Path Of Life Has No End”

 As we stepped onto the travelator at Tokyo Airport, it seemed as if we had already covered at least a mile trudging along (after a back-breaking 11-hour flight) past the usual impeccably groomed Japanese airport staff. Steve turned to me: “The path of life, it has no end...” he said, at his most inscrutable.

It was both irritating and refreshing to find the lady at the food kiosk spoke no English whatsoever. So requests for a nice cup of ‘rosy lee’ while we waited for our connecting flight to Nagoya, were met with a look of compete bewilderment. John Wood saved the day by finding bottles of hot tea in the fridge, of all places. It seemed that Japanese ingenuity knew no bounds. But that was just the start – time for a loo stop.
Ablution Evolution
 The sign read “Equipment to cleansing the buttocks with warm water” accompanied by a helpful cartoon-like drawing of a bottom in mid-spray. Inside the cubical I was initiated into the delights of the electric toilet. There was a button for every occasion:
    “Rear washing stopped”;
    “washing the rear”;
    “increased absorption strength for removing odors”.
You could even adjust the water pressure, which was very handy for that already jet-lagged posterior. If only Thomas Crapper had been able to peer into the future, he would, I’m sure, have been proud of this ablution evolution.

We were met at the airport by Hide (pronounced Heeday) who worked for the Blue Note club where we were due to play the following day. Hide was later to get into my good books by saying how young we all seemed. I expressed surprised at this, to which he replied he was used to dealing with older jazz musicians like Toots Thielmans, the harmonica player, still gigging in his 80s!

The drive from Nagoya airport to the hotel was a little hairy for those of us in the front of the van. As we approached the barriers at the first motorway tollgate I naively assumed the driver would slow right down. But no, he steamed right toward them until at the moment I thought they were going to come crashing through the windscreen, ruining a perfectly good flute embouchure, the barriers suddenly lifted. There were nervous laughs all round and the driver just grinned. It didn’t seem much less alarming the second and third time he repeated this party trick. After all, surely even in Japan technology can sometimes go wrong...
Alcoholic Support Act The gig at the Nagoya Blue Note was a little unusual in that the support act was a glass of scotch and coke.  Let me explain. Apparently it is their tradition to offer a cocktail each evening specially chosen by the artist. In this case, Steve harked back to his salad days (hang on a minute, Steve hates salad, so that can’t be right – Ed) at the Speakeasy club, by choosing scotch and coke. The drink was then placed on a round table at the front of the stage and spot-lit for maximum effect. They brought one backstage for Steve before the show, but as he doesn’t drink these days, John Wood dutifully put all personal feeling aside and consumed it on behalf of the company. There are times when a man is measured by his acts of self-sacrifice – but this wasn’t one of them.

The gig itself was terrific. Both gigs, I should say, as these were all double shows; 6:30 and 9:15pm. The audience were incredibly quiet and attentive during the performance and suitably noisy at the end. It was a real pleasure to meet so many fans as they lined up for autographs after each show and see the very real affection they have for Steve, despite the language barrier. I even signed a few albums of my own.

I was particularly struck by the number of copies of “Voyage of the Acolyte”, now in CD edition, offered for signing. This was appropriate as we had included in the set, for the first time, an arrangement of the end section of “The Hermit”. This piece, played so beautifully on the album on oboe by Robin Miller of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, was now back in its original arrangement, as played by Steve and myself that day when Tony Banks and Peter Gabriel came to our flat in Victoria to hear Steve play for the very first time. The other addition to the set was the flute melody from “Supper’s Ready”, which then went into “After the Ordeal”. We also had fun extending some of the improvised sections, most notably on “Next Time Around”. Some of you may like to know that Nick Clabburn has put lyrics to this melody of mine for inclusion on the follow-up to “Checking Out of London”. The opening line ‘Drunk on my back, outside a Chelsea bar’ does leave you wondering, however, where he gets his inspiration...


Peel Me A Grape It has to be said that all the venues we played at on the tour were incredibly well organised with an eye for detail that makes performing so much easier. Even the dressing room grapes in Nagoya, for example, were already semi-peeled (presumably by an origami expert) which took a lot of the sweat out of the evening. And as I stood at the side of the stage with Roger, waiting to go on, a flute in each hand, a member of the club staff took my cleaning cloth and spread it neatly out for me. It was a small gesture, but in these days of TV reality brutality, it was a much appreciated reminder of more genteel times. Like when we had bus conductors and etc... (readers are invited to write the next 10 pages themselves).

While some may have the impression that being on tour with the Steve Hackett Acoustic Trio is an endless round of luxury hotels, adoring fans and the merest raising of an eyebrow sufficient to have staff running in every direction to satisfy one’s merest whim, the reality can sometimes be a little less glamorous. Often, even maintaining caffeine levels can prove problematic, as Roger found out just before we left Nagoya the following morning. Apparently at 8:00am he found himself outside the glass doors of Starbucks with a desperate need to feed a serious cappuccino habit. The doors did not open automatically as expected, leaving Roger peering in longingly at a world beyond his grasp. It comes to something when a man of Mr King’s abilities is stumped by a door mechanism (hang on, this is sounding familiar – Ed) but so it was, leaving Roger wandering back up the street, his craving unsatisfied. Apparently, at this point he received a tap on the shoulder as a helpful little man ushered him back to the Starbucks entrance and motioned to a cunningly concealed button that would effect entry to this particular caffeine kingdom.
The Nozomi Superexpress
 And the Japanese politeness was never more in evidence than on the Bullet train which we took from Nagoya to Tokyo where we would play four shows. As you went through the ticket barrier, a pertly uniformed lady bowed to each customer. She seemed proud of her job and with such a brilliant service this was rightly so. The ticket gave us our carriage number which was clearly marked on the platform, so there was none of the usual wandering up and down in search of our seats. Once on board we produced our tickets for inspection. As the ticket collector reached the end of our carriage, she turned and bowed low to her customers. Similarly, the lady with the tea trolley pushed it through the door, but then turned and bowed before proceeding further. We zipped along at an incalculable speed with a ride that was so smooth you could have performed a frontal lobotomy on yourself without fear of slipping with the scalpel. As we sped past Mt Fuji, with its snow covered summit, looking, as Billy remarked, like a giant Christmas pudding, I mused on the state of our own beloved transport system...
Flushed With Success And so to Tokyo. The hotel was full, and I mean full. There was a wedding going on so there were no spare rooms to be had, even for those seeking an upgrade. Outside were neat rows of padlocked umbrellas, while inside it was raining peach blossoms as the newly-wed young couple ran the gauntlet between the rows of wedding guests lined up on either side. I headed for the restaurant, but it was full. The waitress rang the restaurant upstairs for me, who said there was one space, sitting up at the bar. This was clearly a popular place! I declined and headed for a 7-11 sushi take-away on the corner.

Again, for the four shows at the club STB139 in Tokyo we were well looked after by the promoters Naoju and Kana. Naoju is also an excellent photographer, so every evening he would take shots of the trio which Kana would rush round the corner to have developed. So for each show the fans would line up with a different photo of each of us that we could sign, thereby sorting out all my Christmas presents to friends and family this year at a stroke!
Photo: Naoju Nakamura

A lady called Mikari produced a photo of Steve and me taken with her backstage at the Reading Festival in 1979. She took some more up-to-date shots that evening. Maybe in another 30 years she’ll take the third in the series, if Steve and I prove to have the stamina of Toots Thielmans.

One evening, the very last fan in line bowed low to Steve and read out from his notebook the following statement (which I thought was so touching I scribbled it on the back of an STB beer mat):
    “I love your music – it’s very precious to me. I am very happy
     because I live in the same age with you.”
I must also mention Ricky who came to all four shows (he wasn’t the only one) and the Okada family who, in typical Japanese style, came bearing lovely gifts.

We were relieved to find the back stage electric toilet was the deluxe model. This one had the added feature of a synthesised flushing noise, with its own volume control. Suggestions for the purpose of such a device on a postcard, please, to the Camino office.
Photos: Mikari Uehara
Can You Tell What It Is Yet?
 And so on to our final destination in Japan, Osaka, via the wonderful bullet train again. An army of pink-suited cleaning ladies, with brushes, mops and other cleaning materials neatly stashed in their blue shoulder bags, waited eagerly to attack the train as soon as it pulled in and restore it to a standard of impeccable Japanese cleanliness. Another neat touch was the swivel system on the seats so that as the train changed direction, all seats could be switched to forward facing with a few deft moves. Once again, we were in toilet heaven as this particular Nozomi express boasted three variations from the luxury urinal, through traditional Japanese to more western style facilities. Billy Budis, Steve’s manager,  had requested an upgrade for us on this journey, so I bagged a window seat and dozed off and on as we zipped past this densely built up, beautiful country.

Backstage at the Blue Note club in Osaka, the strange space-age, cone-like object in the corner turned out to be part of a stereo system. Billy put on a Joni Mitchell compilation, which somehow caught the right mood – an orchestral version of “Both Sides Now”, the same song, but a very different take, Joni’s voice now deeper, more experienced, more poignant. I read in the sleeve notes that apparently as a young woman she had had to give up her daughter for adoption and was only now, some 30 years later, re-united with her. Just writing this now it brings to mind the role of pain in this world and our attempts to deal with it. Was Joni’s loss the reason for that deep emotion in her work?

The last concert we played that evening was probably the best of the tour – the pressure seemed off and somehow the improvised sections took on a new freshness. It was also a real pleasure to see Naomi again, who had been so helpful last time we were in Japan. “How’s your flute?” she asked – in 2002 she had taken me across Tokyo in search of a master flute repairer.

We celebrated back at the hotel with a final drink in the Sky Lounge on the 35th floor, Roger reminiscing how he’d been in the same bar 10 years before for the “Tokyo Tapes”. Billy ordered red wine, which came in a glass so large that John Wood enquired if he’d like a goldfish to go in it!

At Osaka airport Steve & I sat over a plate of scrambled eggs (sounds messy – Ed). At the first show the night before a lady had travelled all the way from Hiroshima which had Steve reflecting on the hand of friendship and forgiveness that music can bring.
Synchronised Sumos
 The 777 flight from Osaka to Tokyo was a comfortable, spacious experience. Our seats each had about 10 different buttons which could alter the seat from upright to bed position (via back massage) at the merest flick. The look on the faces of John and Roger next to me, grinning like a couple of 3 year olds, as they went from upright to horizontal and back again, is a lingering image for the tour.

Sadly, this level of comfort was not to be ours on the flight from Tokyo to Heathrow. Instead, on the final descent, we watched as three stewardesses on screen demonstrated in perfect synchronisation stretching exercises to be performed while seated. The camera seemed to linger on a well turned oriental ankle as they made rotating motions. I reflected things could have been worse – we could have been watching three synchronised sumos. But then, how would they fit them in the seats? I’m sure the Japanese would have a technological answer, however: “Ah, yes, press sumo button here and three seat becomes one!”
Photo: Naoju Nakamura
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