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Yazawa’s Budokan Milestone

Veteran rocker Eikichi Yazawa played his 100th concert at Budokan December 16, making him the first musician to achieve such a milestone at the hallowed martial arts venue.

The 58-year-old singer first performed at Budokan in August 1977, and has in recent years made a habit of appearing there every December.

Yazawa wore a white suit and black shirt for the occasion, the same getup he wore the first time he played Budokan.

He was also joined onstage by members of the Doobie Brothers, who reportedly flew to Japan just for the occasion. They’ve been friends since the iconic rocker first became a star in the 1970s.

Yazawa played for two-and-a-half hours in front of a capacity crowd of 10,000, and he did it two more times that same week.

 

Johnny’s Loosening Up?

For more than a year it’s been rumored that 35-year-old Masahiro Nakai, the leader of Japan’s biggest boy band SMAP, and 25-year-old Kumi Koda, the hottest J-pop singer of the moment, were an item, but rumors were about all you got.

SMAP belongs to Johnny’s Jimusho, the notoriously tight-lipped talent agency that keeps a lid on its clients’ love lives so as not to spoil their appeal among young female fans.

In fact, it’s said that, with one exception, the agency won’t even let its artists marry. And since Johnny’s has an iron grip on the media, show biz reporters toe the line.

However, it seems the agency has loosened up in the past year and may even have encouraged rumors about the Nakai-Koda romance. But a few show biz reporters suggested the relationship might have been staged as a kind of stunt to publicize the fact that SMAP earlier this year changed record companies and signed with AVEX, which is Koda’s label.

Koda was a guest on Nakai’s music-related talk show in September, where they basically laughed off the rumors.

However, a women’s magazine published photos of Koda and Nakai together at his new luxury Tokyo apartment in early December, which seems to confirm that they are an item, thus making it the biggest show biz news story of the year. Ironically, Nakai was also the co-host of this year’s New Year’s professional song contest on NHK-TV, the biggest musical event of the year, on which he handled the announcing chores for the all-female Red team, meaning he had to introduce his own girlfriend.

It’s unusual that this year marked only the second time in the show’s 50-year history a male was chosen to be the host for the female team.

 

Victor Signs American Singer

A black singer from Pittsburgh has recently been signed by Victor Entertainment in Japan as an "enka" singer.

The artist, who goes by the name Jero, is the first American to be signed to a major Japanese label to sing the traditional ballad form, famous for its dramatic performance style and sad tales of lost love and alcoholic misery.

According to Victor’s Web site, one of Jero’s grandmothers is Japanese. In 2003, he came to Japan to perform enka and landed a spot on NHK-TV’s long-running amateur singing contest, "Nodojimaku," as well as in various karaoke competitions.

Having studied computer engineering in college, he worked as an engineer in the Kansai region while pursuing his musical ambitions by taking voice lessons in enka. His official debut is slated for February 20.

 

HK Disneyland Attendance Down

Hong Kong Disneyland closed out its second full year of existence in a disappointed mood.

The theme park attracted 4 million visitors in 2007, a 20 percent drop in attendance over the previous year.

The government expressed disappointment at the news, saying the numbers were unsatisfactory, especially given the high hopes for the park when it opened in September 2005.