Welcome again to “No Skips,” where I review albums that I consider to have no skippable tracks. This week, we’re taking our first foray into live music, an underappreciated medium when discussing the best music of all time. You’d be surprised at how well artists and bands can lock in for hours at a time to deliver renditions of their studio songs that are on par or sometimes superior to the originals, and as of right now, I know no better example than Fishmans’ “98.12.18 Otokotachi no Wakare,” officially released on Sept. 29, 1999.
As the title of this article hints, the translated title of the performance is “A Farewell of Men: December 28th, 1998.” I’ll also be using the translated song titles throughout this review.
Bassist Yuzuru Kashiwabara was projected to leave the band soon after the date of the performance at Akasaka Blitz in Minato, Japan. The band didn’t know, however, that vocalist Shinji Sato would pass away three months after the performance, changing the significance of “A Farewell of Men” entirely. What was initially a celebration of the band’s efforts up to that point would be their untimely finale, which happened to be among the finest climaxes of any music act ever.
I suppose it should be noted that “A Farewell of Men” features many separate Fishmans tracks from their various albums, such as “Kūchū Camp,” “Uchū Nippon Setagaya” and “Long Season,” the latter of which closes this performance for an unrivaled 41 minutes of live music. Therefore, Fishmans may get an edge on “No Skips,” since the full experience of “A Farewell of Men” consists of sitting down for over two hours to hear every track in its full glory. I’ve tried throwing individual tracks on playlists, even splitting an audio file of this album’s version of “Long Season” into six parts, but it just diminishes the emotional impact and the quality of this performance, where each song segues into each other.
“Oh Slime” kicks off the performance with Sato belaboring the band’s name while he recites his peers’ names as a delightful guitar melody leads into strings just six minutes into the album. I won’t make comparisons to the studio versions of the songs too much, but the live version of the next song, “Night Cruising,” gives Sato’s vocals an airy quality that produces a more impassioned song. A standout comes during the track’s post-rock-influenced closing moment with plenty of guitar feedback and a yelp from Sato.
The lush “What Was That” is more rhythm-focused with the reggae-inspired drum break, but a simple piano part keeps the track feeling somber, sticking to the theme of a farewell performance. The language barrier is mostly going to dissuade me from covering any lyrical content, though the repetition of “banana, melon” on the upbeat “Thank You” is bizarre (in a good way) and a welcome change of pace for the performance thus far. And I’m torn on whether the intricate studio version of “A Happy Person” is better than the live version or not. Sound effects and low-pitched humming around the third minute on the “Kūchū Camp” version are lost on the live recording, yet the live vocals simply hit more when Sato is singing at a venue.
Following more cuts housed in reggae, two notable tracks from their final studio album, “Uchū Nippon Setagaya” make the setlist. Once again, while it’s hard to replicate the high fidelity of a studio recording with a live album, “In the Flight” has new life breathed into it with an extended outro at the four-minute mark, converting an originally quiet cut into a cinematic masterpiece before rapidly speeding up at the six-minute mark. A condensed version of “Walking in the Rhythm” is, unfortunately, missing the piano that defined the studio version. However, after the first three minutes, the band dwindles the track down just to the guitar before reinstating vocals and (coincidentally?) increasing the tempo again at the six-minute mark. This show did have a crowd, so these moments must’ve been quite exhilarating for them.
“Smilin’ Days, Summer Holiday” arguably boasts the album’s most infectious chorus, parroting the song’s title. Moreover, multiple instrumental breakdowns occur before Sato comes back reinvigorated at the three-and-a-half-minute mark to close out the track. In the interest of brevity, I’ll glance at the two longest movements on the album: “Flickering in the Air” and “Long Season.” The former begins with an interlude of noise before Sato steals the show. The man had an incredible voice, so the band prepared an elaborate sonic backdrop for him to sing his heart out for much of the 16-minute song, although this is basically what they did for the whole album.
“Long Season” is an album on its own, so I won’t do a review within a review, but essentially every aspect of the original composition is extended and enhanced here, from the piano melody to the variety of harmonizing throughout the piece’s 41 minutes. The setting makes the chime section that much more enveloping and when taking in the context of the release, the moment makes the whole piece a tear-jerker. Somehow, everything that came before it also feels extra rewarding. I know that truncating their magnum opus just to a sentence or two here is bound to bring some backlash, so maybe I’ll do a standalone review of the studio version at some point.
The remaining members have done occasional tribute performances since 2005 under the same name. Fishmans+, a one-off tribute band with the original members, also featured other artists and is certainly better than Google+ ever was. Regardless, considering either of these to be comparable to the full ensemble is like saying Linkin Park is still intact without Chester Bennington, which just isn’t the case. But if you’re in Japan this February and want to see the current incarnation of the band perform live, then the option is there for you.