CK, Rad at H!P’s Winter 2008 Yokohama blast!

Now that the smoke has cleared, it’s time to take another, more coherent stab at this. Sorry about it being so slopped together the other night. Too much and too late! In any event ...

CK1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >

Yes, Chris of CK’s H!P Blog and Radicalipton did make it to Yokohama Arena on Jan. 26-27 and got more than either bargained for – including this glimpse at themselves during song No. 31, “Yeah!” It is a classic with Ayaya, CK's favorite, doing the honors.

CK2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ^

CK3 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ^

Note, in CK1, that Chris’s clearly Anglo head – emerging like a serpent from an ocean of Japanese faces – can be seen at right, straight across from Momoko’s elbow about two-thirds of the way across. CK2 and CK3, with primitive efforts to arrow the precise location of Chris’s striking countenance, including a scruffy beard, close in on the target. Chris is facing at a right-side angle away from Momoko.

Rad 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >

As for Rad, note that in Rad1, he shows up facing the opposite way from Chris, right as Chris’s head is being eclipsed by a Japanese fan. Rad is wearing a sleeveless black muscle shirt, with white strikes going down from either shoulder, and a Kagome anime tattoo plainly in sight on his left shoulder. Rad is farther right than was Chris, and in Rad2 and Rad3, he is wearing a well-worn black Nike tam hat backwards with “scary old man” gray left sideburn and ugly long Ben Franklin-like hair stringing down his back.

Rad2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ^

Rad3 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ^

Chris, in contrast, is quite clean-cut save for the couple-day, Miami Vice-style scruffies. He also stakes the claim, proven out by a painsataking magnifying-glass inspection, that he clearly appears on the inside DVD box-set arena crowd photo. Don't worry. A security guard was in CK's hip pocket the entire show.

For some perspective, the main stage is out of view off to the right, and Momoko and Suzuki are on the right-side launch pad as you face the main stage. The left-side launch pad can be seen in the deep background.

This was a hell of a rush to see Chris’s head just pop up there on this DVD. Thanks to the 50-inch Vizio HDTV monitor that was stolen (uh, purchased) from Circuit City last month, it was possible to capture this millisecond in time.

This is Radicalipton signing off – for now.