The pioneers of Japanese boy idol groups, and the first big success of Johnny’s Jimusho, フォーリーブス played the first of 6 concerts at the Hakuhinkan Theater in Tokyo’s Ginza district today. For those of you who weren’t around at the time, Four Leaves debuted in 1968, were disbanded in 1978 and revived in 2002. They’re with Sony Music now, and they played a total of 15 songs today, including Bulldog, which was recently performed by Chinen and Yamada in the Heisei Families 2008.01.13 Live Stage medley. Four Leaves still seem to be rocking, even though 北公次 refused to do any of the backflips he used to be so famous for. Well, you can’t blame him, he’s 59 now. His fellow group member 江木俊夫 expressed his desire to have a couple of young backdancers, specifically mentioning his fondness of Hey!Say!JUMP. Yeah well, I guess that’s not gonna happen, seeing that Kita Koji wrote that book in 1988 in which he accused Johnny Kitagawa of sexually molesting him.
So anyway, the reason I’m telling you all this is because I think it’s so interesting how all the old folks are still active today. Four Leaves are playing concerts, Shonentai are doing stuff all the time, Matchy has a single out, and even SMAP are still around. The next thing we know might be 光Ｇｅｎｊｉ going on a nationwide tour or something.
And all that makes me think of a wonderful spring day in 2058 when Hey!Say!JUMP will play a concert to a raving crowd of 60-somethings. Keito will be 64 years old, and Johnny Kitagawa, who will be 129 and still alive and kickin’, will drag not only Keito’s dad Kenichi onto the stage, but also his son Kenta (40) and grandson Kenji (18) to show four debuted artists from four generations of the same family off to the world. Yup, that’s what’s gonna happen, and when you finally see it remember you heard it first from Kamichan.
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