Japan | The Art of Parties | “Live” at the Hammersmith Odeon | November 1982

40 years ago this month, 17 - 22 November 1982, Japan were playing a 6-night residency at the Hammersmith Odeon, their final UK shows.

Here is re-edited and restored footage and audio from the Japan Oil On Canvas video and album, recorded “live” during those shows.

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On 1 October 1982, Japan commenced their final series of live concerts, the “Sons of Pioneers” tour. The band were at the peak of their commercial and critical success, and the tour was the most extensive they had undertaken, with shows in Europe, the UK - including the 6 consecutive nights at London’s Hammersmith Odeon - and the Far East. Prior to the tour, the band had already decided to split up, and the last ever concert by Japan was in Nagoya, Japan on 16 December 1982.

The Sons of Pioneers shows featured a well balanced setlist, that included most of the latest album Tin Drum, 4 tracks from the previous album Gentlemen Take Polaroids, and 4 “oldies” from the Quiet life era. The final song in the set was The Art of Parties, with the band turning the heat up to “Burning”. Guest musician on the tour, Masami Tsuchiya added both jagged funky rhythm and Adrian Belew-esque wild shrieking lead guitar (on an equally Belew-esque beat-up looking Stratocaster).

Oil On Canvas, the double album and home video, based on the Hammersmith Odeon Sons of Pioneers shows, were released in June 1983. Steve Jansen later stated that only the drums were actually live, the rest being recorded in a studio. The “live” footage is well shot, but I strongly suspect that a good deal of it is from rehearsals, not actual concerts. Moreover, the footage throughout has an out of focus “Vaseline on the lens” (Sylvian’s own words apparently) look about it. Other scenes have been heavily distorted with video effects, including heavy colorization. And some scenes are poorly synced, very obviously not matching the music. Lastly, the band scenes are intercut with footage of South Asian waterways, streets, temples etc. These scenes are nice, but personally I’d rather be watching the band.

A couple of tracks on the video were left almost completely unadorned by the extraneous footage and visual gimmicks. The Art of Parties is one of them, and unlike some tracks from Oil On Canvas, it seems to be made up of predominantly real live footage.

Here I’ve synced the footage to the remastered Oil On Canvas CD. I have re-edited some sections to try to make a more authentic match with the music, and to hopefully create a more exciting viewing experience. Moreover, I’ve applied various digital technologies try to lift the picture out of the vaselined murk and the snowstorm of noise of the poor source I had to work with. The Art of Parties footage was generally even more grainy and vague than that of Gentlemen Take Polaroids, which I used to make my previous video. Therefore, I was unable to get results as good as I did with that video.

Like I wrote on the notes for the Gentlemen Take Polaroids upload, we really need Oil On Canvas to be re-edited from scratch and re-released in a more complete and unadulterated way. In the meantime, I’ve tried to imagine such a release with these two videos.

Thanks for watching, hope you dig it!
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Credits

Audio and Video Source:
Japan | The Art of Parties | Recorded 1982 - 1983 | Produced by John Punter & Japan | From the album and video Oil On Canvas | Released 10 June 1983 | Virgin Records

Musicians:
David Sylvian | vocals, guitar
Richard Barbieri | synthesiser, keyboards
Mick Karn | bass
Steve Jansen | drums
Masami Tsuchiya | guitar

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Always more videos to follow, so please keep your electric eye on me babe!

I don't own the rights, and I'm not making any money out of this etc. Just a fan making videos for other fans.

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Видео Japan | The Art of Parties | “Live” at the Hammersmith Odeon | November 1982 канала Nacho Video