INDEX
Selling out all shows that brought 15,000 fans in total. Embracing the band’s evolution through 2019’s China tour
-In 2018, you performed on the main stage of the Strawberry Music Festival, one of China’s biggest festivals in Beijing and Shanghai. How big was it?
Yamazaki: Beijing has a daily attendance of 80,000 people.
Yuto: The stage was bigger than the main stage at Fuji Rock.
-Why do you think The fin. reached that level?
Yamazaki: Until then, our songs had been posted online for free, but Jeff talked to NetEase (a major music distribution service in China along with Tencent) at the time of our 2018 tour, and “There” was officially distributed, and we became the first Japanese band to make it to the top banner. I was the first Japanese to be on the top banner. Nowadays, the banner changes in a day or even a few hours, but at the time, there were not that many releases, and it was the top banner for two weeks.
-Jeff from New Noise is quite a key person, right?
Yuto: The fin. has made it easier for young people to come to China because the ticket price is much cheaper than other gaitales in China. The fin. has taken into account the Chinese culture and various situations, and they have built a plan for how the fin. will proceed in China. The secret of our success may be that the team over there does a lot of the work for us, rather than a Japanese team going into China to do it.
-2019’s tour scaled further and sold out all 13 shows, bringing 15,000 fans in total. Again, it shows that The fin. built a steady fan base in China.
Yuto: 2018 was pretty tough and I honestly don’t remember much about it, but I remember the 2019 tour was really good; it was a lot more exciting than 2018, and as a band, we were finally able to enjoy our live shows in 2019. Playing 13 live shows day after day was like a training, but I could feel that we are becoming a better band by going through it.
-Initially, The fin. focused on recording, and live performance was something you were exploring, wasn’t it?
Yuto: That’s right. But around that time, I gradually came to like live performances. …… and I also came to like Chinese food (laughs). I didn’t like Hakkaku at first. When I first went there, I thought “I can’t do this,” so we all went to McDonald’s. In 2018, I think I ate nothing but bean sprouts. ……In 2019, everything I ate was delicious, and I came to think that Chinese food was delicious, too. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to go on an international tour to experience a different food culture.
-Food is also essential for touring abroad.
Yuto: It is no good if you lack food, clothing, and shelter. When I lived in London, I was traveling all over the world, so “housing” was too unstable. In China, I now have a decent hotel, but in the beginning, there were two people in one room, and I couldn’t even eat properly, which was exhausting.
-But the environment improved over time, which is why 2019’s tour was so fulfilling.
Yuto: It is a very basic thing, but I think it is the dream of every musician to be able to go overseas with your own music, have people waiting for you there, and deliver your music directly to them. I think it is almost a miracle to be able to do that, so I feel overwhelmingly happy, and I am moved every time, no matter how many times I go.
-How would you describe performing in China compared to other countries?
Yuto: Every country is totally different. China and Thailand are totally different, England and France are totally different, and even within China, each place is totally different. That is why we think about the set list every time. The same setlist in Japan, China, and the UK might not work well, so we always think about how to structure the setlist, how much MCing to do, and so on, based on the feeling of the local audience.
Yuto: In China, the audience is very passionate, so we are able to be more physical. Nowadays, it is possible to do physical live shows anywhere in Japan, but the fact that we were able to do physical live shows in China before was probably very important for The fin. to change.
-You had to pause touring during the pandemic, but about 200,000 people in China watched the live-streaming performance in 2020, another proof of how well The fin. is received in China.
Yamazaki: Talking about after the Corona Disaster, instead of New Noise not being able to tour anymore, they started making analogs, and I heard that The fin. also became the spark for the popularity of analogs in China. The power of social networking is strong in China, and uploading videos of analog records spinning on turntables has become popular, which also seems to have contributed to the rise in their popularity.
*The second part will be coming soon.
The fin.
In April 2012, the four-piece band started full-fledged activities in Takarazuka City, Hyogo Prefecture, with Yuto Uchino and Kaoru Nakazawa as the core members, They feel loneliness, loneliness, joy, and sadness in foreign pop music such as Metronomy, Tame Impala, Washed Out, and Friendly Fires, which they can relate to as Japanese people. They are active both in Japan and overseas, using the Internet and other media to communicate their music to the world with a sense of synchronicity.
