Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi [長渕剛], born in 1956, is undoubtedly among Japan's most beloved and accomplished long-running rock legends. Despite his being an active musician at age 63, his hit songs being popular hymns to most Japanese and even having a presence in the Asian musical market overall (especially South East Asia), he is not quite popular among the western public, to whom the notion of Japanese rock&roll was overall a bit odd until the X Japan era. Instantly recognisable due to his colorful headbands, his sentimental voice and his image of a good-hearted lout, Nagabuchi is actually a man of many talents such as painter, actor, poet. Being a solo artist (that is, signing up bands just for tours) he is singer, writer, guitar player and also harmonica virtuoso. He is also known within Japan for various human rights advocacies. The present album and live performance is, to my mind, the best possible material to discover Nagabuchi as an artist, the peak of an extensive career we'll discuss today.
Born in Kagoshima prefecture, Tsuyoshi was initially a sickly child raised within a regular Japanese household (something unavoidable as the son of a police officer). He suffered from asthma and was quite close to death due various kinds of flu during his childhood. Music became a consolation during those prolonged times of convalescence, so much so that he started saving money in order to buy a guitar and play the kind of folk music he often listened to. By the time this project came to fruition, he was not only interested in enka and other folk influences from rural Japan, but got interested in the protest movement of the 60s, and its deeply musical backbone. Tsuyoshi started performing at age 17 and got himself in the kind of of troubles people used to cheap music shows in late-night bars would expect. His first album dates back to 1979, carrying a Beatles' flavored portrait of Tsuyoshi, at the time quite in the beat of his generation. While his image of an almost clueless, good-natured hippie vividly contrast with the late jaded rock star, it was quite revolutionary in Japan at the time, as it was in the United States (you only need to take a look to the salaryman of the period). But having hoppend late in the protest movement due to his being so young at the peak of it, this focus would take a new direction by the mid eighties. Musically, this turn also was notable, driving him away from his pop-ish folk to a kind of rock nevertheless deeply influenced by Japan's traditional music. By the late 80's he composed some of his greatest hits, definitely consoliding his mature style, which he carried out to this day and age.
Tsuyoshi's style at this point included softly distorted tracks, favouring an acoustic and clean approach, yet including aggresive and rythmic playing at a quite high volume. The resulting sound definition allows for the inclusion of frequent synths (in songs such as his popular hit 勇次), choirs, armonica solos and vocal inflexions of the kind Tsuyoshi's potent singing frequently uses. Thus, even if not a hard-rocker (the kind of which the 80s provided many), Tsuyoshi's style was unmatched within Japan's mainstream musical market (if we exclude the frantic underground punk scene, at the time blossoming in the Shinjuku LOFT pub). In time, his concerts would become massive events, testimony to how energetic and passionate Tsuyoshi behaved in live. This energy enhances even the recorded versions of live sonds, way more enjoyable that the studio ones in my opinion; thus, we are reviewing a live event here, of which you can (as of today) see the live footage in Youtube.
Yet not every aspect of Nagabuchi was favorable, and much of his explosive personality (so well captured in songs) went the wrong way. In 1983 he divorced his first wife on charges of domestic violence, and many live show staff reported being punched or insulted. Discussing this topic on interviews he reports having personality problems tracing back to violence and bullying during childhood (something coherent with his being a sickly child, and having a cop as fatherly figure). Many songs reflect this 'gangster attitude', which was to make him popular among dissatisfied youths. In 1995, just a few years after this live show, the police stormed his house without approval and found 1gr of cannabis, which got him arrested. Many other incidents of this kind eventually got him down for a few years, of which he came out reformed (at least according to his family and acquaintances). While nothing of it excuses his faults, they are vital to understand the artist and even his musical production, which often deals with melancholic and regretful themes. During the 90's and 2000's performed as live artist, most of his albums being compilations and reworks in these recent times; occasional new singles pop up from time to time. His various incursions in cinema (often the yakuza type) made him even more recognisable to the average Japanese public, and his publishing poems and essays in support of various progressive causes gave him a political angle not quite evident at first. This late, mature phase of Nagabuchi's style also touches on his style: he practised diverse exercises in order to get his voice raspy and in tune with his late persona, willingly distancing himself from the good-natured fock singer of years gone by. 
This event in the legendary Tokyo Dome is pure Nagabuchi at his prime, still riding his earned popularity back from the late eighties. Its tracklist is amazing yet short, not displaying every great track (and the ausence of 交差点 is indeed a bleeding one) but some of the most recognisable. The tracklist opens up with 巡恋歌 [Pilgrimage song], a frantic song displaying some country style harmonica. This was among Tsuyoshi's early songs, the album version being from 1978. While the album version is way more relaxed than this 90's live rework, they both exemplify the author's liking of the music from Japan's countryside and enka overall. The live version results in a quite interesting mix of these styles with rock, and the chorus from the audience really intensifies the track in an amazing way. Also, the ending's improv on the harmonica line is really sick I must say. Next track lacks any translation as it is called He.La.He.La, basically the recurring chorus of a song with a lot more emphasis on instrumentals. The acoustic rythm is intense and drives the entire track, on an strange boundary between ska, country and rock. The interludes are filled with skilled guitar solos, intelligently embedded within the syncopated spaces of said rythmic guitar; they make this song quite dynamic and moody. It is a quite long track, spanning about 6 minutes. While having the aforementioned virtues, the track gets kind of dwarfed by the next song, 勇次 [Yuuji, a male name refering to the song's character]. It is a serious contender for my personal favorites of the author, and as a song is best known in drinking pubs all aroung Japan, as well as a traditional favourite of the dissapearing bosozoku [暴走族], motorcycle fanatics with little regard of the law. The live version adds a lot to this track: a smooth keyboard phrase opens the track, and the audience goes nuts in the chorus, dwarfing Tsuyoshi's potent singing to the very end. The lyrics are a message to Yuuji, a former troubled youth, by his best friend, now trapped in a grey life and yet remembering their deserting home and drinking beers on a field around an industrial zone. The emotive and energetic track makes Tokyo Dome tremble, and is perhaps the best part of the whole live performance.
The concert continues via 俺らの家まで [To our home], which also starts to harmonica playing, this time on a nostalgic, beautiful vibe. As a ballad, it softens the audience, but there is also a lot of goof stuff in this track. Having a fun, uplifting tempo and lots of vowels on its lyrics, it is overall a great song to dance to; the original from 1979 actually uses bluegrass fiddles. The lyrics deal with love, but also (and this is a common theme in Tsuyoshi's tracks) with bonding among friends, and their shared taste for gambling, drinking, driving and the rest of it. Next one is also among Tsuyoshi's star themes: STAY DREAM. It is interesting in that it is way more in the 80's musical spectre, pretty much a rock ballad without the previous display of folkloric elements (if not for Tsuyoshi's vocals, which preserve not only the sentimentality but also the plain Japanese of street talk). Said eighties character also manifest itself in the occasional English lyrics, kind of random but so typical of modern Japanese music. The album version also relies on keyboard, but this live version is a full acoustic and solo performance by Tsuyoshi and his guitar, backed by the audience.
The concert continues via 俺らの家まで [To our home], which also starts to harmonica playing, this time on a nostalgic, beautiful vibe. As a ballad, it softens the audience, but there is also a lot of goof stuff in this track. Having a fun, uplifting tempo and lots of vowels on its lyrics, it is overall a great song to dance to; the original from 1979 actually uses bluegrass fiddles. The lyrics deal with love, but also (and this is a common theme in Tsuyoshi's tracks) with bonding among friends, and their shared taste for gambling, drinking, driving and the rest of it. Next one is also among Tsuyoshi's star themes: STAY DREAM. It is interesting in that it is way more in the 80's musical spectre, pretty much a rock ballad without the previous display of folkloric elements (if not for Tsuyoshi's vocals, which preserve not only the sentimentality but also the plain Japanese of street talk). Said eighties character also manifest itself in the occasional English lyrics, kind of random but so typical of modern Japanese music. The album version also relies on keyboard, but this live version is a full acoustic and solo performance by Tsuyoshi and his guitar, backed by the audience.
とんぼ [Dragonly] follows next, also a quite popular track and among my favorites. Simple and grandious, it relies on quite catchy verses and chorus, playing on some minimalistic chords without that many arrangements. Its trademark is the powerful choir it starts with, in playful contrast with the chorus itself. The beautiful lyrics also allow appreciation of Tsuyoshi's amazing vocal range; any singer capable of nailing this live have some golden lungs. The heartfelt live performance is just spectacular, and you can tell the audience just wants to sing forever. The next track is among those which need no translation: JAPAN. Very much in the line of STAY DREAM, it is a keyboard-guitar rock ballad with plenty of English. In fact there is little guitar, and you can tell Nagabuchi is getting a well deserved rest amidst these songs. The song is of course a tribute to his country, interrogating it about its future; it also traces back its roots to a young Tsuyoshi who liked protest songs. Now, it must be said that his English is actually pretty good here. The live song features three harmonica solos, quite poignant and enjoyable. Well into the performance at this point, Tsuyoshi looks sweaty and really tired but you can tell he does not miss a note. Thus we get to the last track, MOTHER. This is a quite beautiful song, from instrumentals to lyrics, and has a lot more game as a ballad that the other English-titled songs here. This poem to a vanishing mother actually captures the mentioned sadness within most of Tsuyoshi's songs, that of bars, of men ending alone in their lives and without means to return to what they had been before. This theme often appears literally; as an example, both 勇次 and とんぼ present this same construction:
帰りたいけど帰れない [I want to return, but I'm not able to]
もどりたいけどもどれない [I need to go back, but I'm not able to]
It is this deep sentimentaly beneath Tsuyoshi's rough persona that grants him the respect and admiration of many in Japan, even if one can still read in some Youtube comments ''ah, I miss the young Nagabuchi before he turned out a mafia guy'' or ''he is too intense right now, he should turn back''. Well, for better or worse he's not keen on doing so, and we can only hope for more material coming from him at this moment. 63 at the moment, Nagabuchi's legacy is still quite strong in the country, his songs regularly appearing in today's Japanese radio stations and he himself touring a lot and playing his greatest hits. For the time being I end this review.
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