Yuka and Miho @ Japan Society

It's crazy how many people want to go into the city at the exact same time. Since Lisa was already heading towards the city, I thought I'd take NJ Transit's bus to the Port Authority terminal and wing it from there. Well, the traffic getting into the Lincoln Tunnel produced a 30-minute delay in arrival time, hitting the streets at 7pm, with a show time of 7:30. Finding a cab was an additionall challenge. I walked (briskly) to either 7th or 6th before I was able to flag down a cab to take me to 1st. I arrived, rather winded, at Japan Society right when everyone was being ushered into the auditorium. Major score.

Yuka Honda was first to hit the stage. As a Pink Floyd worshipper and prog-rock fan, I was very much in my element with her set. Sean Lennon started off the set on guitar and then moved to bass for the rest. He was quite the conductor, giving clear signals to the rest of the band when the changes were happening. While I thought the drummer was really good, it appeared as though he didn't get in as much practice time as everyone else. The bottom line is that there wasn't one song in the set list that I didn't like. I especially loved the fact that Yuka provided a live soundtrack to her own ending credits projected on the screen. That was a nice touch.

Next up, Miho Hatori. We knew the vibe was going to be completely different when we saw the stage set get populated with a ton of white balloons. Eventually, Miho and her band came onstage all dressed in white attire. Perhaps I should've worn my boiler suit last night. Miho still has quite an amazing voice, and a very percussive and trance-inducing approach to her music. It was all about the beat. With the events earlier in the evening, I was especially happy to hear her scream out against yellow cabs in one of her songs. She came out for an encore and did a fantastic job with a song she admitted to not having rehearsed.

After the gig, Yuka and Miho came to a little reception room to do a little Q with the folks there. I snapped a few pics during that session, so I'll have to review them and then post them up if they seem acceptable. Once the Q was over, Miho stayed to chat with folks and Yuka fled the scene, my assumption being that the meet greet was a bit too overwhelming. There were a lot of people in a fairly small space, so I could certainly understand that. We did manage to run into Sean for a brief moment to say hi and hand him some photos that I took during the Attic gig at Joe's Pub last month. He was very appreciative and greeted us warmly before proceeding on.

I'm definitely going to keep my eyes open for more Yuka and Miho gigs, if they ever pop up again in the area. The one feeling I came away with from this show is the wish to see them perform more of their music.