AL Airlines (advantage Lucy)

At the start of advantage Lucy's show at the Que on Tuesday night the static-y sound of an in-flight announcement buzzed out of the speakers and a voice suspiciously similar to Lucy vocalist Aiko's came on and said, “Welcome aboard AL Airlines. We sincerely thank you for flying with us and making this a fully booked flight”—giggles—“Today's captain is Ishizaka”—more giggles—“...during the performance we might hit some rough patches, and rapidly lose altitude, but there's no need to worry because we will soon stabilize”—big laughs—thus beginning the musical evening solo flight of Advantage Lucy Airlines, with Captain Ishizaka on guitars and Aiko, serving, I guess, as the musical co-pilot, navigating a jam-packed Que cabin through two hours of their old hits and some new songs. There was one brief period of turbulence, but otherwise the flight was smooth and pleasant.

In spite of the intro there wasn't any airliner cosplaying or anything like that, and I speculated that maybe the idea came to Aiko because she had just vacationed in the Maldives, a long plane ride away. During a break she talked a long time about the islands, saying how there there's only the sound of the waves, wind and birds, a refreshing change from noise-overflowing Tokyo. Aiko also talked about an inter-island volleyball match she went to watch, with the islanders pounding on drums on the boat over to the competition, and how the two teams feasted together after the game but she noticed that many of her (hotel) team's players were quietly shedding tears of frustration because they were defeated, which suggested a straight emotional quality that we city slicker types may have lost...

Anyway...good news for Lucy fans (or, as we call ourselves, the Lucy-min): they are releasing a new 3-song single on May 20!! At the show the band played all three, and they were great: a pop song, a rocking number, and one gorgeous ballad called “Shiroi Asa (A White Morning)”, which sounded like it was infused with emotion, if not created, in the beautiful Maldives.

(Photo credit: Plectrum Takata's blog)