Japan
Live 1981
"Polaroids"
Tour
- 15/2/81 -
Yashima Theatre (?)
- 18/2/81 -
Sapporo Koseinken Hall
- 20/2/81 - Osaka
Festival Hall. Bootleg tape exists.
One of Rob's favourite shows
- 21/2/81 -
Nagoya, Shi Kohkaido. Bootleg tape exists.
Set list: Burning
Bridges, Swing (with a
different intro to the album version), Gentlemen Take Polaroids, Alien,
...Rhodesia, Quiet
Life, My New Career, Obscure Alternatives (new arrangement, very
different), Taking
Islands In Africa, Methods Of Dance, Aint That Peculiar, Sometimes I
Feel So Low,
Halloween, European Son (new arrangement), Life In Tokyo, Adolescent
Sex (new arrangement,
very different), Automatic Gun. A lot of bootleg tapes for this tour
give dates from April
1981, but they are all wrong.
There was an
equipment problem at one of
the dates (Sapporo?) and so some acoustic, piano and vocal numbers were
played e.g. The
Other Side Of Life.
Japanese tour souvenir programme
View images from
the tour here
"The
Art Of Parties" Tour
- 7/5/81 -
Nottingham Rock City
- 8/5/81 -
Norwich East Anglia University
- 9/5/81 -
Manchester Apollo
- 12/5/81 -
Edinburgh Odeon (called 15/5/81 Edinburgh
Playhouse on bootleg)
13/5/81
- Liverpool, Royal Court Theatre
- 14/5/81 -
Birmingham Odeon
- 16/5/81 -
Hammersmith Odeon
- 17/5/81 -
Hammersmith Odeon. Bootleg tape exists of
this show.
This was the last
tour with Rob Dean on
guitar.
Set list: Burning
Bridges, Swing, Gentlemen Take Polaroids,
Alien, ...Rhodesia,
Quiet Life, My New Career, Obscure Alternatives (re-arranged again,
almost sounding like
Ghosts), Taking Islands In Africa, Methods Of Dance, Aint That
peculiar, The Art Of
Parties, Halloween, European Son, Life In Tokyo, Sometimes I Feel So
Low, Fall In Love
with Me.
The ticket prices
for this tour ranged between £2.50
and £3.50, while Gary
Numan was charging £5.00 per seat at his concerts!
View images from
the tour here
Flyer promoting the tour and single distributed to record shops.
Tour programme
"Daze Of
Future Past" Festival, Leeds 27/9/81 (Cancelled)
Japan
were supposed to headline this festival which was held at the Queens
Hall. The band pulled out shortly after the first press adverts went
out; they were still working on "Tin Drum" and had yet to recruit David
Rhodes to play guitar. Interesting that members of Japan ended up
working
later on with Bauhaus' Peter Murphy and Matthew Seligman who was a
member of The Thompson Twins.
"Visions
Of China" Tour
- 7/12/81 - St
Austell, Cornwall Coliseum
- 8/12/81 -
Portsmouth Guildhall
- 10/12/81 -
Leeds Queens Hall (see photos)
- 11/12/81 -
Lancaster University
- 12/12/81 -
Liverpool Empire
- 13/12/81 -
Manchester Apollo
- 14/12/81 -
Newcastle City Hall
- 15/12/81 -
Edinburgh Playhouse
- 17/12/81 -
Birmingham Odeon
- 19/12/81 -
Brighton. Bootleg tape exists - whoever
was playing the Marimba in "Ghosts" manages to drop something on it
during a quiet part of the song, much to the amusement of the audience.
Also circulating on CDR.
- 20/12/81 -
Leicester De Montford Hall
- 21/12/81 -
London Drury Lane Theatre
- 23/12/81 -
Hammersmith Odeon 6pm show
- 23/12/81 - Hammersmith Odeon 9pm show. One of these shows is the source of the bootleg CD "Methods
Of Tin Drum" and the other show is the source of "The Art of Parties (version)" that was the b-side of "Ghosts".
- 27/12/81 -
Hammersmith Odeon. Bootleg CDR in
circulation.
David Rhodes was
the guitarist for this
tour and the group supporting Japan was Blancmange, who he went on to
play with.
Set list:
Canton, Swing, Gentlemen Take Polaroids, Alien, Talking Drum, Visions
Of China, Quiet
Life, My New Career, Ghosts, Cantonese Boy, Methods Of Dance, Still
Life In Mobile Homes,
European Son, The Art Of Parties, Life In Tokyo, Fall In Love With Me,
Canton (finale).
Tour programme, including the lyrics to songs on "Tin Drum".
View images
from the tour here
According to Mick,
this is known within Japan as "The Shit Tour"!
