Ben Kweller concert

A couple of weeks before I left for Japan one of my favorite bands/singer was playing in Dallas, Ben Kweller. So I called a couple of friends and we bought tickets to go see him at the Gypsy Tea Room in Deep Elm. A couple of days before the concert I looked on his website and noticed that he announced a Japan tour in April. Amazingly he was gong to be in Osaka on April 16th, and at that point I knew I would already be in Japan by then. So I went into the concert in Dallas with the mindset of trying to meet Ben or someone associated with him who might be able to get me a free ticket to the concert in Osaka.

The night of the concert we ended up being a little late, so we walked in while Ben was playing. I was a little bumbed that we 1. missed some of his show and 2. we had to stand in the back since the place was already so crowded. We walked to the back and stood for a few minutes. Then this girl came up to me and goes, "I just wanted to say that I think you are a really attractive red-headed guy." I was like wow ok thanks, then realized her husband/boyfriend was standing next to her, so it actually was making me a little uncomfortable. Then she said "me and my boyfriend just had a baby with bright red hair, and its nice to know there are some good looking red-headed guys out there." Wow what a great compliment. So I responded with "So does anyone in your family have red-hair?" She paused for a second then said, "Well my grandfather goes, and so does my baby brother... hes on stage right now" (as she points to Ben Kweller). Oh my gosh this is Ben Kwellers sister! So I make conversation for a couple of minutes then drop the bombshell, "So I'm moving to Osaka in 2 weeks, Ben is going to be there, you should tell him to hook me up with some free tickets." She tells me to give her my email, so I write it on a piece of paper and hand it to her.

A few weeks go by without hearing anything and I'm starting to think, well its prob not going to work out. Then right before I leave for Japan, Heidi Kweller (Ben sister) emails me and tells me I'm on the list for the Osaka show. Wow I'm so pumped, I've never been "on the list" before.

So fast forward to yesterday. I email one of my friends who also likes Ben Kweller, we meet up and decide to head towards the concert. First of all I felt a huge sense of accomplishment that I actually found the concert since I had to look at a map in all Japanese to find it, and also that I was able to meet up with my friend Robbie without having a phone. We decide to meet at the Osaka Umbeda station, which is like saying, "hey lets meet at DFW airport". However since he is like 6'6 and I have red-hair we are pretty easy to find in a crowd.

We head over to the concert, also luckily my friend Robbie speaks Japanese, so we go up to the front and he says, "Watashitashi wa namae ga geesto listo". Actually it was prob something different but thats what I heard. Anyway this guy tells us to wait outside for a minute. Its raining so at this point I'm thinking, ok if I really was on the list I don't think this guy would make me stand out in the rain. But also this is Japan so you really just never know what is going on. After a few minutes he brings us in, they look at the list and it has one name on it: Chad Huston + 1 VIP guest. Sawweeet. So we got these cool VIP passes...




The concert was awesome. We weren't allowed to take pictures so I have nothing to show for it other than the pass. Ben played an entire concert by himself, guitar for half and piano for the other half. There were some pretty funny moments that reminded me I was in Japan. First the entire crowd was so silent during the concert. Between songs I swear you could hear the air conditioner. Secondly at one point he goes "Is everyone having a good time tonight", which was followed by 5 seconds of silence. I guess he didn't realize that there were only 2 people in the crowd that spoke english well enough to understand that, or maybe they did understand but didn't want to respond out of respect (who knows). Also all thru the concert he would try to get people to sing, which was so funny because you could hear a chorus of japanese accents singing things like "I'ma jusuta pennaya ona trainu tracuku".

So afterwards Ben went out front to sign some t-shirts and cd's and stuff. I walked up to him and he goes "So you must be Chad". I was like "yeah man thanks for the free tickets". We talked for a few seconds about how I meet his sister and what we were doing in Japan. He signed me and Robbies press pass. And then we left since there was a long line of people wanting to get stuff signed.

All in all it was an awesome concert and it was free.

Chad