Pop Japan

“Can you hear me? I'm trying to hear you. Silence strikes like a hurricane. I'm singing for you, you're screaming at me.”

This is a line from the song Take What You Want by the Japanese rock band, ONE OK ROCK. Last January 29, 2018, they performed this song in Manila, as part of their Ambitions Asian Tour.

The Song

Take What You Want is the last track from the band’s eighth album, entitled, Ambitions. The lyric video of the song was uploaded on YouTube, by ONE OK ROCK’s current international record label, Fueled by Ramen.

The song featured a collaboration with Australian rock band, 5 Seconds of Summer.

Looking into the lyrics, the song is somehow a release of intense emotions from a not-so-good break up, especially with the line, “Take what you want, take what you want and go!”

The Saitama Experience

In my last blog here in Pop Japan (https://pop-japan.com/blogs/one-ok-rock-live-in-ph-and-jp-are-there-differences/), I wrote about the observations I noted, especially with the song Take What You Want, from the Ambitions Tour in Saitama last March 2017, and the 35xxxv Tour in Manila last January 2016. Let me talk about Saitama here in detail.

As written on the previous blog, I think, one of the things that make the Japan live different was the ability of the Japanese people to listen. This was best portrayed in the broadcast version of the Saitama live.

Aside from the silence that really struck me like a hurricane, I could deeply feel vocalist Taka Moriuchi’s emotions, not just through the song, but also through his facial expressions. Though far away from the stage, with the help of the big screens, I saw the heavy feeling, complete with the hand gestures, while he was delivering the line “Take what you want, go!”

And with an audience so quiet, I couldn’t help but feel that somehow, Taka and the audience were like a couple quarrelling: with Taka being the only person speaking, while the other party was simply still, listening.

The Manila Experience

However, the Take What You Want experience in Manila somehow showed a different kind of arguing couple: the speaking Taka, and the other party, who was yelling back at him.

The experience could be best described with the line in the song, “I’m singing for you. You’re screaming at me.”

The song started, as expected from being one of the happiest people in the world, with cheers from all over the arena. Taka soon sang, “Come and gone, the perfect storm. On and on, never ending.” The crowd sang along, while the cheers continued.

Taka finished the line, “Not the picture of us on the wall so take what you want.” He, and the rest of the band, soon turned quiet, while the cheers continued. Going back to the disagreeing couple, this was the time when one of them, Taka, turned quiet, which then became the chance for the other party, the audience, to talk back. It actually took the audience some time to calm down and finally give in to the silence.

When Taka sang again, he said, “Can you hear me? I'm trying to hear you. Silence strikes like a hurricane.” And as expected, the crowd sang along again. Continuing with the song, Taka’s facial reactions seemed like he was really trying to tell these words to someone, who went away. And the audience was there to fight back, by singing along and cheering all throughout.

It seemed like the Filipino crowd was not struck like a hurricane by the silence.

Nonetheless, Taka’s resonating, “Take what you want, GO!” remained as powerful as ever.

It is interesting to know that different cultures and different venues can give one a different experience of the same song from the same band. This realization suddenly wrote itself on my bucket list. Maybe the Japan live is not the only thing worth watching. Maybe catching this band in other countries as well, will make me understand more the versatility of this band and its ability to capture the hearts of a wide variety of audience.

Banner photo by Sheen Irerick Seeckts.