Osaka is what I imagined Japan to be like. A huge, sprawling cityscape with neon as far as the eye can see, a wealth of consumer options and more people than I'd be able to count even if they stood still. Paul and I crashed for an hour or so when we arrived and then, under great physical duress, forced ourselves to get up and go exploring. I think I may have moved too quickly... going from exhausted slumber to the center of Osaka in five minutes was overwhelming and I kind of wigged out. I was determined to do some shopping and find some presents, but I found myself just standing in shoe shops blinking and not knowing where I was. Luckily we bumped into Carl, Pauls friend from university, so he had someone to talk to while I staggered around and mumbled in tongues. It was even weirder when we realised we were being stalked by an uber 65 fan...
The show was excellent - I totally owned the visuals this time round. Paul and I realigned the Midi triggers and everything fell into place, I even nailed New Song No.1 which is rarely exactly right. The crowd responded really really well, especially when we dropped all the lights out during Robs drum solo in Arabic and just had the flashing video screen. The roar from the crowd at that moment made pretty much everything we've done up to this point worthwhile... it was extremely satisfying, and much appreciated!
After the struggle to get past the autograph hunters at the end we made our way to the famous Rock-Rock bar where we hung out with a whole bunch of people including Ace, our resident tech manager who is the very definition of the word ROCK. Things turned messy, as they always do, and when I realised Ozzy was competing with a professional air guitarist to the strains of Motorhead I decided to head home. On the way Joe and I managed to get lost on the side streets... but we found our way eventually thanks to a very helpful golden Buddha.
Slept. Woke. Taxi. Bullet train. Tokyo again. Feel brilliant. Huzzah.
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