Texas Pandaa Live Report

Texas Pandaa completed their tour for their new album DAYS on February 18, 2008. Therefor it was very fitting that their first song was the song DAYS featuring Su”naan”guchi from Naan , who played the trumpet. The first song had a very slow start but picked up in intensity and volume at the end.

The setup of the show featured the two female vocalists, Asako and Mikiko on opposite sides of the stage while the guitarist and drummer were in the middle. This locational setup suited their music as the vocals bounced from one vocalist to the next like a game of pong. But instead of beeping noises there were their sweet voices. The next song was blind. While Mikiko mostly did backup vocals, Asako did the main portions of the singing. For this song the guitarist, Kazutaka used a metal guitar slide creating the sound you hear on the album.

The overall sound of the concert was great and the two vocalists voices blended together beautifully and their English pronunciation was as good as their album recording. The only draw back was there was a loose cord somewhere in the system causing sporadic loud noises to come from the amps. This problem was fixed halfway in the show, but was definitely noticeable in most of their songs.

The band took a brief interlude between songs to thank the fans for staying to the very end of the concert. They were the last band of a 5 band concert that ended up ending much later than initially planned. Later on, Uno from Nano Machine joined the band to play violin on one of their tracks. During this song the guitarist used a certain device on his guitar which was not recognizable from my distance, but it created a rather warm filling sound. The last song was great. The entire audience was clapping their hands and Asako had a huge smile on her face throughout the song. It was a feel good moment.

After the band finished their set, the audience demanded an encore so the group came out and played one last song. After that every member held hands and stood in a line and bowed to the audience. Each member had a grand smile on their face and you could tell by the look on their face that they truly enjoyed what they are doing and aren’t afraid to show it. A rare quality in today’s music scene. Or maybe after a grueling Japan tour and album release they were looking forward to taking it easy, their specialty.