On Dancefloors

The other night I was invited by some friends to go down to Tokyo to visit a nightclub. How's that for foreshadowing?

I wanted to go because I haven't really experienced a Japanese night club in the traditional sense of the word so later that night I was on the bullet train with some pals drinking next to a 6 year old strange American girl playing her DS. It seems the only people that will sit next to foreigners on the bullet train is other foreigners. I don't think the girl could read the Japanese on my can so I maintained it was soft drink.

The nightclub in question was a nightspot called 'Ageha' and a brief perusal of the website prior to arrival for the dress code (can I wear shorts? Yes I can!) revealed that the night was some kind of special event with a DJ I had never heard of playing songs I had never heard of. This 'special event' carried the hefty price tag of 4000yen entry which translates to ... wait for it ... no I can't even tell you how much that is in Australian dollars. It disgusts me.

Ageha is one of Tokyo's biggest nightclubs with a 3,000 person capacity and is separated out into a main hall and various other spaces around the place. Upon getting inside it seemed that despite the amount of people it still seemed quite spacious, almost like a warehouse, and the main hall was being DJ'd my an astronaut. The astronaut was playing the Japanese version of dance music described as 'candy trance'. I'll give you a key example soon.

Japanese people can't dance. They either break it down with ridiculous over the top performances or awkwardly sway from side to side. This is why the astronaut was playing music that never had a stable point and instead was always constantly leading up to some point to cause everyone to jump around. Jumping, it seems, is a valid form of dance for Japanese people.
Not being satisfied 'dancing' with the douchebags at the back some of us forced our way as close to the front as possible. We got about 5 metres from the front but from then on there was some kind of people-lattice to stop any kind of free movement beyond that point. We were happy enough dancing away to sickeningly poppy music until the astronaut was finished and all of sudden we were crushed to about 2 metres from the stage.

Cue Meg.

Meg was some lady who came on stage that suddenly caused the predominantly male crowd to surge forward in order to see her. Meg appeared to be somewhat famous. Meg was the reason my entry was 4000yen. Dancing to Meg was difficult with no room to move. Meg Meg Meg.
This is Meg and this is the sound she was producing.



For the rest of the night we mostly spent outside around the pool area. The pool was more for show and wasn't really meant to be swum in... and it wasn't! Because this is Japan and in Japan people do the right thing (that's why they can have beer vending machines). The DJ outside was playing some good music too. We mulled around the venue losing each other, finding each other and then losing each other again until the sky had turned a light grey colour and from there we each made our way homes on the first train.

All in all I would say it was a lot of fun but it was also quite expensive - not something I could do very often. I would also say that nightclubs in Australia are a lot better in terms of music and prices. On the other hand, the people in Melbourne nightclubs are often just awful so I'm afraid Tokyo trumps Melbourne in that respect.

So that was my night in Tokyo.