Akiko Yano
Great American Music Hall, San Francisco
October 19, 2024
Photo by Tyler King
When it comes to the world of music, few musicians have had the kind of career that Akiko Yano has had, both domestically and abroad. Gaining overnight success after the release of her debut album Japanese Girl in her home country of Japan, she would go on to collaborate with electronic pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra while fostering her own rapidly expanding solo career that has seen her release thirty albums so far. Her show at the Great American Music Hall was her first time playing in San Francisco in over a decade, and you could tell that the audience was made up of lifelong fans, as well as individuals who clearly had become fans since the French record label Wewantsounds began recently reissuing her back catalogue.
Coming onstage donned in a white and salmon-colored kimono to a rapturous applause, Akiko Yano sat down at the grand piano set up in the center of the stage and launched right into “Denwasen,” a song from her debut album. Although the original song features a full band, at the heart of it is Akiko’s piano and her vocals, and stripped of all of the other instrumentation it felt like it was being presented in its purest form. Which is something that can be said about all of Akiko’s songs, even during the period in the early 1980s when she was releasing more electronic-leaning albums like Tadaima and Gohan Ga Dekitayo: for as “weird” as some of her songs got, there was always a song at the core of it. And “Denwasen,” one of her oldest songs, was the perfect way to open the show. It was followed by “David,” another song that was stripped of its original production and instrumentation and laid bare.
What followed was a song that saw Akiko Yano spanning the entirety of her career. There were two songs from her 2021 album Music Is A Gift that were played back-to-back, “Nothing In Tow” and the album’s title track. Before playing the latter, she simply said, “This song is called ‘Music Is A Gift,’ and I like to think that it is.” The applause from the audience after she said that made it very clear that everyone in attendance thought the same thing. “I’m going to play mostly my own songs but also a couple of songs by other people,” she said before playing “Yokogao” by Taeko Onuki, a renowned Japanese musician in her own right that Yano has collaborated with multiple times in the past.
“Some people know me from Studio Ghibli and the movie Ponyo,” Akiko said later on. “I did the voice of Ponyo’s sisters in that movie, but I did the music for another Ghibli movie, My Neighbors The Yamadas. I would like to play the theme song from it now.” Soon she was treating the audience to the song “Quit Being Alone,” one of the more upbeat songs of the evening. She followed it up with one of her signature songs, “Harusaki Kobeni” from the aforementioned album Tadaima. The crowd, who had been quiet and respectful during her set so far and hadn’t interrupted any of her songs, broke out in a cheer that dwarfed her voice for a moment once she began singing the opening lines. After the song she remarked, “That song was my only hit.” An audience member yelled out, “Not to us!”
Later in the show, Akiko said that she was going to play a song that she hadn’t played in a number of years. “I was thinking of the victims of the hurricane that hit Florida, and it made me want to sing this song,” she said. What followed was a particularly emotional performance of “Hard Times Come Again No More” by Stephen Foster. The fact that she played it immediately after a playing a cover of “How Can I Be Sure” by The Rascals made it even that much more potent, and it was a particularly somber and powerful moment during what otherwise felt like a celebratory evening.
As much as I dislike reviews of concerts that read like, “This artist played this song and then they played this song,” it’s hard to not want to go song-by-song through the entire evening. Akiko Yano’s music has been something that’s been important to me over the last five or six years, to the point where it hasn’t been lost on me that I’ve returned from every tour that I’ve gone on myself with at least one of her records coming home with me, whether I got it at a shop in Oregon or New York, the city that she has resided in since the early 1990s.
The last section of her set focused on the earlier part of her career, starting with “Rose Garden,” the closing song on the Tadaima album and a song that I never expected to see her play live. One of her most experimental songs on the album, it was nearly unrecognizable without the layers of echoed effects that appear on the recorded version. Soon after Akiko announced, “I would like to play a song by my friend’s band, Yellow Magic Orchestra.” The crowd cheered again as she began a solo piano version of “Thousand Knives,” a song originally found on Ryuichi Sakamoto’s debut album that was re-recorded by Yellow Magic Orchestra on their 1981 album BGM. Much like the music of Akiko Yano, the music of Ryuichi Sakamoto is something that I’ve developed a kinship with over the years, and, seeing her perform one of Sakamoto’s most iconic songs, I couldn’t help but shed a few tears.
After the main set ended with “Hitotsudake,” the opening song from her 1980 album Gohan Ga Dekitayo, she came back onstage for a short encore. The first song was “Prayer,” a song that she wrote with jazz guitarist extraordinaire Pat Metheny. Before playing the final song, she said, “In New York it used to be hard to find a good bowl of ramen,” before being cut off by a monumental cheer from the audience. We knew what time it was. It was ramen time. Or, more accurately, “Ramen Tabetai” time, a song whose translation is literally, “Ramen Time.” The song is an ode to the noodle dish, as Yano sang about how she wants a piping hot bowl of the food with a mountain of garlic on top. It’s one in a long line of songs by Yano about the small things in life and enjoying what’s in front of you, and I enjoyed every single second that I was able to see Yano perform. Once the song finished she stood up from the piano, bowed to the audience, and took her leave offstage to a standing ovation.
If the musician Frank Zappa can trademark his mustache, then Akiko Yano should be able to trademark her smile, as it seemingly never left her face throughout the entire evening. The image of Akiko Yano smiling has graced various album covers of hers, starting with her 1977 album Iroha Ni Konpeitou, and her face wasn’t the only one adorned with a smile during the show. Looking around both during and between songs, audience members young and old had grins plastered on their face, including my best friend Aaron, who had first introduced me to Akiko Yano’s music years ago and flew down from Washington just to make it to the show. I had the opportunity to see Akiko in New York City in June with her trio of Will Lee and Chris Parker, and I know that I’m one of the few people in North America who has been fortunate enough to see her play multiple times. I think that I can speak for everyone who was in attendance at her show in San Francisco when I say that I hope it doesn’t take another decade for her to make a return to the West Coast. And until then, I’ll think back on the concert with my own giant smile on my face.
Links:
