Club AIR in Daikanyama
August 27th, 2006 by cloudysunshine
Another one of my co-workers is leaving to move back to America in a few days, so I went to his going away party last night. He decided to have it at club AIR in Daikanyama, near Shibuya. It was my first time going there, and the place took forever to find. It was tucked away off a side street, and looked like a restaurant from outside. As I stood around trying to figure out what to do, one of the staff came up and asked me if I was looking for AIR. I said, “Yeah,” and he told me to go in the restaurant and walk down the stairs inside.
Sure enough, off in the left-hand side of the restaurant, I saw a small sign labeled, “AIR,” that had an arrow pointing to the stairway. I walked down and saw a staff member standing at a podium with the guest list. People were telling him, “I’m DJ So-and-so’s friend,” and all that…trying to get in for free.
Finally, I got up to the front of the line, and he completely ignored me. I’m used to people at a club telling you the price when you try to walk in, but this dude wouldn’t even look at me! The people behind me walked up and tried to get in on the guestlist. He talked to them for awhile, and continued ignoring me. Finally I said, “Ikura desu ka?” (how much?), and he told me I had to pay downstairs. ‘Thanks a lot, bigshot,’ I thought, as I walked on down.
The next group of staff were really cool though, and I payed them and entered the club. The place was packed and reeked of cigarette smoke mixed with sweat. I spotted my friend right away and we made our way to the bar. I ordered an Oolong Hi (Oolong Tea and Shochu), and my buddy got a bottle of water.
“What a rip-off!” he said…for a super-small, half-bottle of water, it cost 500 yen (that’s almost 5 bucks)! My Oolong Hi had as much water (in the form of ice) as his bottle did, and was only 600 yen. ‘Damn, I better stick to the alcoholic beverages!’ I thought.
We made our way to the dance floor, but nobody was dancing. A show was about to start, and the crowd was gathering around. The DJ dropped a beat, and some dancers came out and started doing their thing. The crowd went wild, and a couple of groupies started pushing and shoving to make their way to the front. There were a few different dance shows, and most of them were pretty good, but nothing to write home about.
But the last group had some serious skills. These guys were busting out head spins and windmills like there was no tomorrow. People started whipping out their cellphone cams to catch it all on film. I just got a new phone a couple of weeks ago, but it’s all in Japanese, so it’s taking me forever to navigate through all the options. I haven’t figured out how to shoot video clips yet…but I did manage to take some pics.
Yeah, I know, these pics are super blurry. But hey, these guys were moving at breakneck speed, and it was pretty dark in there! Next time I’ll try to get the action on video.
One of the concerts impressed me most of all! It took place in the Emirates, which I visited two years ago!!! Near the Dubai hotel I stayed in a concert for Dubai visitors was organized!!! The most important feature of this concert was that all the songs were of native color, combined with local dances and interesting stories!!1 It was really unforgettable!!!