The farewell tour: Amid rising costs, a Canadian doctor ends his Japanese music festival

After 13 years, this was not the ending Steven Tanaka envisioned for his last music festival.

Up to this point, the Japanese Canadian anesthesiologist had all cylinders running, touring five Japanese indie bands across Canada through the Victoria Day long weekend last month.

He’d sold out shows in Toronto and Vancouver, and gathered a good crowd for the one in Montreal. Performing on a long weekend that marks the unofficial start of summer for Canadians proved to place a small dent in attendance but the turnout was the best thus far.

A legion of fans show up, refusing to believe Tanaka’s self-financed passion project Next Music From Tokyo (NMFT) — an annual, week-long tour of lesser known Japanese bands cherry-picked by Tanaka — was coming to an end.

Between sets at Petit Campus in Montreal, fans are overheard saying Tanaka was “bluffing” or “not serious” about this tour, aptly named Volume 15, being the last one. As a solution, they put forward, he should “fly over less bands” to save money. Tanaka, who you’ll find moshing with the crowd, debated this, too.

After his first underground concert at Shinjuku Motion in 2008 in Tokyo, Tanaka was hooked on Japanese indie shows. “I’d never seen anything like it,” he says, describing how he saw eight bands of different musical genres play back-to-back sets from 5 p.m. till midnight, which he thought was “pretty weird.” However, he was “blown away by each band” and wondered how he could export this experience to Canada.

Since 2010, Tanaka had done just that. He’d fly to Japan several times a year to scout for bands. He’d bankroll the tour once, sometimes twice, a year. The Japan Times once called him the “patron saint of Japanese indie.”

NMFT went on a hiatus during the pandemic, but even then Tanaka didn’t have time to spare; he was busy on the frontlines at St. Joseph Health Centre in Toronto, intubating COVID-19 patients.

Depending on his mood and when you asked about NMFT’s future, Tanaka, 49, wavered between “we’ll see” to “this is definitely the last tour.”

Each NMFT was a rinse and repeat process — there’s no staff, no sponsors. A group of volunteers are tasked to help the bands but “don’t make my life easier,” Tanaka jokes.

He’s a self-taught, one-man, do-it-yourself show promoter, preparing everything six months in advance, from booking venues to designing posters. In the early years, he had a steep learning curve, having to pay for expensive and unnecessary working permits and sharing a percentage of ticket profits for music licensing fees. “Sometimes ignorance is bliss,” Tanaka says.

Though he has no regrets, he thought things would’ve gotten “easier after five years” from building momentum. It hasn’t. Each year required the same, if not more, energy and resources from him. Considering the amount of sweat equity he’s put in, Tanaka felt “underappreciated by the bands and fans” alike. Some bands would ignore him after the tour and others racked up costly tabs on food and drinks on the road that led to unexpected costs. He’d hoped fans would’ve shared more about the shows on social media to create buzz. Looking back, establishing a dedicated “street team” might have helped, but he admits his reluctance to outsource certain tasks, fearing disappointment.

Above all, inflation has forced Tanaka’s hand in retiring NMFT. Hotel and airfare prices have soared and the cost to run the tour has nearly doubled in recent years. He’s losing $50,000 CAD (more than ¥5 million) each tour. To date, Tanaka estimates he’d spent up to $700,000 CAD (roughly ¥70 million) on his passion project. Moreover, a third of the bands he’d brought over have disbanded and the changing music scene in Tokyo isn’t as aligned with his tastes as before.

“Most of my colleagues have houses and cottages, but I live in a modest apartment,” says Tanaka, explaining that he still values experiences over material things. The bands, some of whom never left Japan or owned passports, are given the chance to perform abroad since music is not their full-time gig. They work as engineers, salespeople, security guards or in hospitality during the day and moonlight as rock stars on the weekends.

After their performance, female duo Furutori’s Aisha Kawanishi and Maki Takada, both 27, greet fans at the merchandise table. It’s their first time in Canada and they love how Canadians express their emotions directly. “In Japan, people are more reserved,” Takada says. As for Kawanishi, she was nervous to perform but elated by the response. “It’s our first gig in Canada and we (didn’t know how we’d be received in a foreign country).” The women say Tanaka is popular among local bands in Tokyo and many dream of participating in NMFT.

The breakfast snub

The morning after the Montreal show, Tanaka is a candle burning on both ends, but he is determined to show the 18 musicians around Old Montreal.

He’s less jovial than usual. In fact, he’s a bit annoyed.

Tanaka was snubbed an invite to a homemade breakfast at the bands’ Airbnb. “They didn’t even think to invite me,” he says, feeling slighted.

The five bands, also sleep-deprived, descend from their Airbnb atop a cafe in the artsy Plateau neighborhood schlepping their equipment and luggage on foot from the lower Plateau to the first gates of Chinatown, about 15 minutes, to Tanaka’s hotel to drop off their bags before exploring Montreal.

At 6 feet, 1 inch tall, Tanaka towers over the group. Before reaching the Old Port, 18 people quickly halve, as some slink away to hunt for vintage clothes or records.

In each city, Tanaka dedicates time for sightseeing. In Toronto, he toured them downtown and to Niagara Falls. In Montreal, they explore Old Montreal and the Plateau neighborhood, and eat poutine fries and Schwartz’s smoked meat sandwiches. In his hometown of Vancouver, he plans to treat everyone to a speed boat ride in Howe Sound to marvel at the majestic West Coast mountains and sea life.

Outside Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica, Tanaka reminisces about his favorite moments over the years. He talks about Ryogo Kobata, the guitarist and violinist of Goomi who was electrocuted while performing in Toronto. He was unconscious briefly but got back out the next day and played the second show with gusto. There’s also his favorite, Akai Ko-en, an all-female Japanese rock group who were high school students at the time, “when they made their best music,” according to Tanaka. As they were 18-years-old and underage, they were kicked out after playing their set. The band eventually signed to a major label, but in 2020, songwriter and guitarist Marisa Tsuno committed suicide. She was 29 years old.

Van City crash

Following the tour is Sebastian Ko, a videographer and data scientist at Google, who spends the week documenting NMFT. He describes how one band spent all its time hunting for magic mushrooms in Vancouver. “I’m not even sure they even found any,” Ko says.

Running NMFT isn’t easy. “I don’t know anyone in my life who can do what Steve does,” Ko says, adding he understands Tanaka’s frustration but wishes he had more help.

“Managing bands, it’s kind of like herding cats,” Ko continues, describing the tour as “chaotic” because of the tight schedule.

On the last day in Vancouver, Tanaka is en route to deliver a carload of luggage for the bands who are headed home to Tokyo when the frontman of Batroica Metal Summer Jacket, Yuki Kawamoto, 33, exits the Skytrain airport platform and collapses from dehydration and exhaustion, hitting his head on a ticket booth. Luckily, his luggage mitigates the impact.

Tanaka calls an ambulance and accompanies him to the hospital where Kawamoto undergoes testing. The musician misses his flight, along with another band member, but is cleared to fly the next day. This was Kawamoto’s third time in Canada and he has written songs about both the country and Tanaka.

“It was a bit of a downer to end it off like that,” Tanaka says, explaining he’s glad the injury wasn’t worse. Tanaka pays the medical bill and sends them home.

When asked how he feels after everything: “I don’t know. It should be it, I’m almost 50. I’m too old for this. It’s getting too expensive ... that’s how I feel right now,” Tanaka says, adding how he plans to spend more time with his girlfriend and maybe buy a house. “That’s what people do at my age, right?”

For more photographs from Next Music From Tokyo Vol. 15, visit @jtph0t0s on Instagram.