Rumble in Yoyogi

Check out the video at the end of the post.

The highlight reel for Tokyo Day 3 is forthcoming, but I just had to make a video for the incredible extravaganza at Yoyogi Park. We walked along the perimeter of the park on our way from Harajuku to Shibuya. To our great surprise, we came across a goldmine of entertainment (or was it more like a land mine?). The sidewalks of Yoyogi are littered with all sorts of performers. I've seen a number of street performers back at home, but I've never seen an array that was soclosetogether. There were rows of bands with no more than ten meters between each of them.

Alright, who am I kidding? I still can't guesstimate in metric units. I should have said: The bands were about three feet away from each other.

In my humble opinion, it seems more prudent to distance your band from the raging rock band immediately to your left, but in Yoyogi, it seems like the bands enjoy the literally close competition. Also, most of the bands come equipped with their own amplification system. Walking past the stream of rock bands, was akin to slowly turning the dial on a FM radio. There was a lot of noise, but you still managed to pick up some decent snippets of music.

My favorite performance was probably the street magician who turned a piece of paper into a potato. Unfortunately, I didn't catch his schtick on camera, because I was so enraptured with all the "magic."

I also enjoyed what seemed like a dueling gang of dancing greasers. I vaguely recall seeing some MTV News piece on this dance movement, where these Japanese men express their passion for '50s rock culture through impromptu boogie sessions. I just never imagined that they did this in such a public area.

I happily captured two separate dance gangs? on camera. In my opinion, the first group had more moves, but the second troupe, even though it was rather chilly, tried to make up for their lack of choreography by going shirtless. I call the rumble a draw, but you be the judge for yourself.