kanekoayano arrives at None's solo report: Unleashing an ironclad band ensemble into the night sky of Hibiya

The solo live performance of Kanekoayano, a band led by singer-songwriter Kanekoyano, will be held in Tokyo and Osaka. This article is a live report from the Hibiya Open-air Music Hall on Saturday, April 12th.

It was on August 3rd last year that Kaneko announced that she would be performing musical activities at her solo name, Kanekoyano, and the band name, Kanekoayano, on August 3rd, coincidentally, at the last Tokyo performance of “Noon One Man Show 2024”. I still vividly remember when I left after all the performances and was told, “I have an announcement from you, and we’ve become a band.” Even before that, every time I saw her live performance on the band set, I thought, “This is a band called ‘Kanekoyano’,” so I wasn’t surprised at all, and I felt that it was a natural progression.

It’s been about 8 months since then. This is the fourth “Nono One-Man Show.” On this day, the band members Kaneko (Vo., Gt.), Hayashi Hirotoshi (Gt.), and takuyaiizuka (Ba.), along with SEI NAGAHATA (Dr.) and Miyasaka Ryotaro (Per.). NAGAHATA was sick for a while and did not attend the most recent live performance (the remaining members’ sudden performance was also a valuable performance in the band event with LANDOKMAI), but he returned safely that day. The group unleashed an ironclad band ensemble into the night sky of Hibiya, interweaving new songs that could be considered new inspiration.

Hibiya Park is filled with a blue sky that makes you want to say “Noto Day.” However, once the sun sets a little, it’s still a chilly season. Wearing a fleece jacket, the audience filled with all the content of the venue, looking forward to their appearance, as Hayashi, iizuka, NAGAHATA, and Miyasaka appear from the sleeves of the stage, as if they had just entered a rehaster. Kaneko appeared as she was setting up the game, and first started off with a “gentle guitar.” Hayashi’s wow guitar and Kaneko’s light cutting are organically intertwined with a groovy 16 beat, with tambourines and congas. The next “Spring” is a light alternative folk rock based on two beats. This song is perfect for this season, with a voice that has a subdued intonation, sings “Winter is almost over.”

It’s “rambling” for a man to stroke a chord with a twisted chord. This song is packed with highlights, from simple 8 beats to NAGAHATA’s drums that gradually turn out to be chaotic, and forest guitars that make use of arms, like the roar of a beast, and you’ll be overwhelmed by the walls of noise guitars that surge in in the second half. Saison, which began with Kaneko’s guitar playing and singing, is a heavy middle tune that reminds me of the mid-term Beatles. Hayashi sharply tunes the rhythm of the backing, but then he tangles the melody with a suspicious phrase with plenty of tremolo. Furthermore, it was impressive that Miyasaka’s conga added a new sense of dynamism to this song.

Without a second thought, “To Us” began, and the intro poured through the dense, roaring guitars down on the wild sounds, swallowing the audience’s consciousness. After that, Kaneko’s vocals sing “I want to change/I can’t change/I can’t change” while sing in falsetto, and the beautiful chorus work that envelops it is touching my heart. At the end, the metallic, twisted swells of the guitar engulfed the wild sounds, and Hayashi and Kaneko responded with their hair shaking, almost like lightning intersecting in thunder.

After reaching its first peak of the day, I took a break and got a good mood from the drum count. I am captivated by the cool guitar strumming by Kaneko and the ensemble of Hayashi’s slide guitar that entangles it, but for a moment the rhythm changes from four to three times, and the tempo continues to be faster and slower. From incredible shouts to fragile falsettos, I felt like I was in tune with the ensemble that showed Kaneko’s “mood” as she sang “the mood always goes up and down” as she expressed her full range of emotions, and before I knew it, I felt like I was in sync with my own breathing.

The development that leads to “the towel blanket is calm” overlaps with the previous None. iizuka’s hard bass sound stirs my heart, and Kaneko’s voice sings like, “It’s okay, it’s okay/A vague love” squeals in the folds of my heart. However, the band ensemble seems simple but is refined, yet still retains the margins of improvisation, and the more you listen to it, the more you listen to it, the more you get it tastes. There is no repeating simple sections at all, and for example, in the first A melody and the A melody after the chorus, the way the instruments overlap and the sound are resonated slightly, so you can’t be careless.

It was completely dark around, and from here we headed straight to the deep world of kanekoayano. “Only on days like this,” sings “The wounds that will disappear to the point of extinguish sadness,” and a chaos awaits as the middle break is prolonged with a break from spacey dubed guitars and drums flying around freely. The hypnotic repeating bass echoed like a mantra, and while it was thought that None had warped into another space, he returned to the song as if he had woken up from a dream, and the venue was filled with almost clattering applause and cheers.

Furthermore, in “Lucky,” the lights are turned down and dope psychological blues unfolds in almost darkness. As vision is restricted, each sound emitted by the five people seems to be more clearly visible. Personally, the “what if” that is reminiscent of the “silence” of The Velvet Underground’s third album is also reduced by reducing the volume, making it seem as if you can even hear the “breathing” of the band itself. Furthermore, the arpeggios of guitars, like the surface of the moonlight, passed through a pleasant “moonlight,” and then the new song “Stone and Butterfly” with pale, dream-like colors, and the authentic rocka ballad “non-rusty” and “grapefruit,” gently lifted the audience’s heat.

As they plunge further into “car stereo,” cheers erupt from all over the audience as Kaneko finishes singing the chorus. And finally, the new song is “difficult.” Under the bright red lights, the band sound was radiant like Pixies and Sonic Youth, bringing the curtain to the day’s live performance.

As far as I listen to the new songs “Stones and Butterflies” and “Difficult”, I think kanekoayano is playing the sound while feeling even more deeply the inevitable nature of being a “band.” It has also been announced that YouTube Live Performance 2025 will be streamed from 9pm on Thursday, April 24th. What kind of performance will they be able to listen to there and will there be any new announcements? We will continue to keep an eye on their trends in the future.

Text by Kuroda Takanori
Photo by Yuichiro Noda