Walkings

I give Walking’s fans a lot of credit for getting totally wasted and yet still being able to stagger around and party it up as the band as it closed the Rookie-a-go-go stage with a 3am set on Friday night. The trio of guitar, bass and vocals played happy J-pop melodies that morphed into machine-gun paced blues rock, with shredding guitar solos. If this sounds like two bands, it is also possible that I was just doing the aural equivalent of “seeing double,” though I kind of doubt it. I was only drinking gin mixed with Pocari Sweat, which left me relatively lucid, much more than the acquaintance who was standing next and telling me he had been ingesting something called “green dragon”, which seemed an altogether dubious endeavor. Meanwhile, a girl who called herself Rikako and claimed to be a former band member of Walkings said the group was formed three years ago. Before that, the trio were already playing together as part of another band, To Yesman, which also included Taro Kobayashi. When Kobayashi left to start a solo career — he’s a reasonably big deal in the world of J-pop these days — they picked up the pieces and started Walkings.