Happy 31st birthday, Taka!!
Our favorite vocalist turns 31 today! Hope he’s having a good time in Hong Kong.
To celebrate Taka’s birthday, I’ve translated his answers to MTV’s 100 questions which aired in February. Check it out here!
Yesterday was Ed Sheeran’s concert at Tokyo Dome! ONE OK ROCK is supporting Ed on the Asian leg of his Divide World Tour and my friend was lucky enough to get a couple tickets for us in the last lottery. The results literally came out the day before the actual concert. Phew!
Read up on my report here! I’ll also be attending the show in Osaka later this month, and that will be my last time seeing ONE OK ROCK as a resident of Japan since I’ll be moving back to the States in May. I do, however, plan on hitting up Warped Tour in July (Bay Area represent!!) and if things go right, maybe I’ll be able to make it back to Japan for their Japan Tour in the fall. (Wish they’d announce the schedule for that already…)
It was announced that ONE OK ROCK will be performing at this year’s Vans Warped Tour in Mountain View, CA on July 20. I’m from San Jose so this means they’ll be performing in my hometown area and there’s no way I’m going to miss it! I already got tickets for myself and my friends. Excited for July!
…It’s also hard to imagine that the band would come all the way to the U.S. just to do a short 30-minute or so set, so there’s some speculation that they may be doing a second round of touring in the U.S. in the summer. We’ll just have to wait and see!
This is more of a personal announcement, but after 9 years in Japan, I will be moving back to the States in May. That will make it easier for me to catch them at Warped Tour and if they do come back to the U.S. again later in the year, but that unfortunately means that there’s no guarantee I will be able to see them on their Japan Tour in the fall. (I’ll be keeping my phone service active just in case though!)
The Asian leg of Ed Sheeran’s tour starts today and the boys are already in Taiwan. Taka has started a Weibo account and made his first post yesterday. I plan on attending the Osaka show and hopefully the Tokyo one too, so look out for those reports!
Only one more performance left on the North American leg of the Eye of the Storm Tour! It looks like the boys are having fun in Hawaii. It’s too bad my business trip to Hawaii is the week after… Oh, what could have been.
I’ve added a report of my VIP experience in Vancouver.
3.11: Be the light
Today marks the 8th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake. It happens to be the first anniversary of this website as well, and it’s a total coincidence but the first song I added to this site was also Be the light. I had selected the song simply because I had the Jinsei x Boku = album in front of me and I wanted a song that had only English lyrics so I could quickly type it up and test the look of the site. It was after I began tinkering with the settings and added a hit counter that I realized what date it was. Funny how things work out…
In commemoration of the website’s first anniversary, I’ve put up a translation of an interview with ONE OK ROCK’s manager Yoshitaka Goto. It was published nearly two years ago but I think it has some interesting information. Read the translation here.
The Eye of the Storm North American Tour is in full swing and we’re already halfway through! I saw them in Denver last month and they were amazing, even though the set list left a bit to be desired considering they only played half the songs off the new album. Still, it was great fun and I look forward to seeing them again in Vancouver (VIPPPPP)!
Today I’ve got another interview for you guys, this time with Wasted Nights MV director Kyle Cogan. Kyle was so kind to take time out of his very busy schedule to answer my questions. Check it out here!
New album, new photo of my collection! The front page has been updated with a new photo.
Yesterday, Ed Sheeran posted about ONE OK ROCK opening for his tour in Asia, to which late night host Jimmy Fallon responded, “Come to New York. Come on. One song?” He was obviously talking to Ed, but that didn’t stop Taka from replying to Jimmy, telling him to contact him whenever he wants, haha. Inspired by this, I decided to create a Change.org petition to get ONE OK ROCK invited as guests on The Tonight Show. I posted about it on my IG and Taka–the Taka–actually liked the post! Yeah, I lost a lot of sleep because of that, haha.
Anyway, please go sign the petition and help spread the word about it on social media! These boys deserve the opportunity to show off their talents in front of a national audience.
Lyrics for the international version of Eye of the Storm are now up on the website! You can find them over here!
Also, yesterday ONE OK ROCK announced that they will be special guests on Ed Sheeran’s Asia Tour, and today they announced their European Tour for May! Go check them out if they’re playing at a location near you! FYI, Taka has mentioned on the radio several times that their Japan Tour will be in the fall.
Eye of the Storm has been released!! All lyrics and translations for the Japanese release can be found here. There may be some tweaks made to the translations within the coming days.
Just a few more days until the release of Eye of the Storm! From February 9 until the 11th, the album’s cover art by JonOne is being displayed at the “One Museum” at Omotesando. I went the first day and have written up a report here. So excited for EotS!