Happy Lunar New Year!

新年快樂 - Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!

Did you do anything fun for Lunar New Year?

Hubby and I celebrated our Lunar New Year's Eve with a Mogwai concert in Ebisu, Shibuya, Tokyo. It was our very first concert in Japan and it was a really neat experience. The music was great and the crowd was shockingly civil and orderly. I've only been to 2 other concerts, Radiohead and Big Head Todd and the Monsters and the crowds were quite different and definitely a lot more obnoxious then. The Mogwai concert, on the other hand, was on a much smaller scale than those grandiose stadium ones. Somehow, they fit everyone into a regular size dance floor with standing room only on the ground floor of some club. Our tickets had numbers on them, and based on that number we guessed there must have been a thousand tickets sold. How they managed to fit a thousand people onto that dance floor is another mystery to me.

When I showed my friend M. my ticket, she told me in Japan the number 7 is considered luckiest (as opposed to the number 8 in Hong Kong) ^.^ Hubby got 7's and 8 on his ticket!

While the Mogwai concert had general seating (or rather, standing), the numbers on the tickets actually served a purpose - they determine when you actually get to go in! I'm not sure if every concert in Japan is like this, but in this particular case it wouldn't have mattered if hubby and I were the first people in line. When the time comes, they actually read the numbers aloud, at first by the tens and later by the twenties, from 1 all the way to 1,000. Nuts, but at least it was super orderly.

When their numbers were read, people went in and found themselves a standing spot somewhere on the dance floor. Hubby and I got lucky with a really good corner spot with seats on a wooden platform that gave us a clear view of the stage. Otherwise, with my height (or lack thereof), I wouldn't have been able to see the stage at all standing on the dance floor with everyone else! After the concert was over, the exit was just as orderly, even when there wasn't any number reading (thank goodness...). No one pushed, no one shoved. The whole crowd just moved inch by inch until everyone was out of there. Amazing.

Another neat thing they did was printing out a play list of the concert with all the band members' signature on it! Just a photocopy, but still it's a nice souvenir.

Our ticket was sold in a package that includes a t-shirt and the band's brand new CD release, so we have souvenirs other than just this print out. How's that for a Lunar New Year?

Anyways, there's supposedly something going on in Chinatown from February 3-17, so hubby and I are going hop over there this weekend to check things out. Will post pictures, should there be any.