Seeing Halcali tomorrow (?!) (Now with added picture)

A friend e-mailed me to say that Halcali will be appearing as guests on Zip FM's Lachic Century Session in Sakae, Nagoya.
Which might not sound like much (and still might not after I've told you), except that the studio is on street level, designed so that people can crowd round and see in.

So, it's not a show, and I'm not even sure what they'll be doing (if anything), but getting to see them in person for the first time is more than enough reason to charge my digital camera up and go down!

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I just got back.




This was as far as I got with the camera before I was met with a slightly too angry "no photos!" bark from one of their guys.
I actually arrived 30 minutes too early, thinking it started at 5 instead of 5:30, so I wonder around the Lachic department store in the vague, vain hope that I might bump into them in the book or coffee shop. I don't, of course. They were probably sipping milkshakes somewhere air conditioned at that point.

Anyway, 5:15 rolls around so I wander back outside, thinking that maybe a crowd might be forming. The problem is, Japan is heading into it's season of heavy rainfall, and it's been pouring down all day. I don't know whether it's this, poor advertising (it wasn't even listed on their website), a combination of both or something else, but there's no one there. I don't particularly mind, but it would have been nice to have had a little crowd milling about at least. But then it's 5:30, and out they come.

Seeing them in person for the first time was as strange as I was expecting, but in that great heart-jumps-into-mouth-for-a-second way. The interview itself was fairly short, but the two things that stuck out were first how funny they were without trying too hard to be, and how they're obviously both great friends. With so many bands putting a face on for the media, I really like (and have always liked) how Halcali seem so honest, slightly humble and (for want of a better hackneyed phrase) down to earth.

The DJ tries to pry some new album information out of them, but all we get is "there's a lot of different people working on it, and we think it's great". They played Tougenkyo as they came out, It's Party Time and also its b-side Clutch. Not to add a downer to this, but it certainly didn't grab me much on first listen. It's very Tip Taps Tip esque (they said they asked for the lights in the studio to be dimmed and sat down during recording), but the sound wasn't coming from the best quality speakers at the time, and with the noise of the traffic and people in general it was hard to tell. That'll be one to mull over when the single is released.

So what else? There were a few phone in questions, one which asked "is there an activity that you do without fail everyday?" (Yukari drinks soy milk, Haruka wants to say "exercise" but admits it would be a lie) and so on. There was another phone in question from Bonnie Pink (who was yesterday's guest apparently), but I've completely forgotten what it was. The whole thing was about as lightweight as you'd expect, but they were lively and funny, and the half hour passed by pretty quick.

Then that was it. They jumped into a taxi, and were gone, ending one of the most rain soaked, interesting and oddest 30 minutes I've spent this year.

Come. Back. Soon!