SOUL'd OUT

I must admit that I was a little disappointed with the enthusiasm showed by the Japanese fans for the Cardigans and Daniel Powter at Summer Sonic. Admittedly, they would probably not get a huge response from North American fans either but I am sure that it would not be like pulling teeth to get a response as it often was at Summer Sonic. So, I was very happy to get a chance to see how the fans reacted to a Japanese group. I decided to check out a hip-hop group,SOUL`d OUT, from Japan in Keane`s place. A strange switch but time-wise it worked out well.

In the last six years, hip-hop must have become extremely popular in Japan because the venue was packed and the crowd was live. When SOUL`d OUT hit the stage, they reminded me a lot of Swollen Members, a Vancouver hip-hop group who are not too slick and are a little rough around the edges. That is not a compliment. I was surprised at home much English was used by the lead rapper. Examples included the old hip-hop standbys such as:
"Make some noise!"
"Put your hands up!"
"How you doing tonight?!"
"Don`t think you are feeling this music"
"Give it up for ..."
"Rock on everybody!"
and my favourite, "We are out, Peace!"

There was even a cry in Japanese, "なんでもいい!" That translates to "Everything Good!"
I was taken by surprise at the crowds enthusiasm and language is definitely not a barrier here. Almost all of the directions to the crowd were also in English as were half of the lyrics. The rappers had pretty flawless English, too. At one point, they told the crowd to kneel down and then we all got up slowly and jumped around. The beats and rhymes sounded pretty much like a lot of the hip-hop coming out of North America but if definitely had more of a pop feel a la Black Eyed Peas than say a more hard-core rapper like DMX. By the end of the concert, I was waving my hand from side to side in unison with the Japanese fans. I spotted a few other gaikokujin bopping their heads to the beat, too.