In April 1979, Bob Marley and the Wailers visited Japan as part of a world tour through Asia, Oceania and the U.S. to promote their live album Babylon by Bus. In Japan, they gave eights concerts, six in Tokyo and another two in Osaka. Almost 33 years after these events, I decided to visit the venues in Tokyo where Marley and the Wailers wrote Japanese reggae history and laid a solid foundation on which homegrown Japanese reggae would flourish in later years. Being in Tokyo for three weeks, I spent one day traveling through Japan’s capital in search of the three venues were Marley and the Wailers played in the early spring of 1979.

The first Japan gig, which was incidentally also the first Wailers concert of 1979, took place on April 5 at the Shinjuku Kosei Nenkin Kaikan, a theater in Shinjuku (one of the 23 wards of Tokyo) which could accommodate a little over two thousand visitors. The next day, Marley performed again in the same venue. Kweku Ampiah studied in Tokyo at the time and was present at one of these concerts. He recalls that “the experience was electric in part because the venue was so small”. As I had decided to visit the venues in Tokyo in the same order as the Japan tour of 1979, the Kosei Nenkin Kaikan in Shinjuku was the first place to visit…

No Woman No Cry – live in Japan 1979. Recommended for listening while reading this article:

The ‘Tokyo trail’ of Bob Marley and the Wailers, April 1979

Just before noon I walk through the bustling streets of Shinjuku, home to enormous and luxurious department stores, shopping malls and skyscrapers. It being a weekend, the streets are extremely crowded with Tokyoites (window) shopping. During the twenty minute walk from the station to the place where the venue should be, I suddenly remember a story I have read in the August 1995 Japanese edition of Esquire magazine. It featured an article by music critic Noboru Yamana called ‘A Herb Story’, in which a certain Hiro and Masahito shared their memories of those days in early April 1979 when they met Bob Marley…

It is April 7, 1979. Marley and his fellow Jamaicans have been in Tokyo for three days and have already given two concerts in Shinjuku. The king of reggae and his band have been received very enthusiastically by the Japanese press and fans. That day Marley is visited in his hotel in Shinjuku by Hiro, a craftsman, and Masahito, a leather artist. They are allowed into the hotel where Marley is staying as they are not just paying a visit, but are also carrying some in Japan highly illegal ‘herb’ to give to Marley as a gift. As a precaution and to have more privacy and smoke in piece, the Jamaicans have booked the entire floor of the hotel as well as the floors directly below and above. Hiro and Masahito end up talking a bit with Bob, who says he wants to go to the sea the next day. The two fans come back to the hotel the next day to find Bob being interviewed. However, the interviews take three hours, so that there is no time left to go to the sea. Perhaps as a sort of substitute, Bob wants and gets seashells which Hiro and Masahito buy at a market. At this point Bob finally shows interest in the herb which they had brought him the day before. It comes from a friend who lives in Shimo-Ochiai, near Shinjuku. Eventually, they take a taxi together with Bob and visit the friend at his apartment, where they drink Japanese green tea, listen to some records and of course enjoy the Japanese herb…¹

I wake up from my thoughts as an ambulance speeds by with blaring sirens. As I walk further away from Shinjuku Station, the busiest train and subway station in the world, shops become less frequent and there are clearly less people on the streets. I know that the Shinjuku Kousei Nenkin Kaikan changed its name to the Tokyo Kosei Nenkin Kaikan (Welcity Tokyo) a few years ago, but I still don’t know exactly where it is. Still, I prepare my photo camera as I approach the place where I think the Kosei Nenkin Kaikan is. The camera is ready, but there is no theater to photograph. Walking around the neighborhood I see a local branch of TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), which has come under severe critique and in big problems after the March 11, 2011 disaster with their Fukushima nuclear power plant. According to the map, the venue where Marley and the Wailers played twice should be next to the shiny TEPCO building. However, there is no building, just a three meter high white fence. Wanting to make sure I enter a so-called ‘koban’, a small police box. In my best Japanese I explain what I am looking for. ‘Tatemono nai‘, the police offer replies. ‘No building’. As it turns out, the theater was demolished quite recently, the land on which it stood now being readied for development. With nothing to see, I turn around and walk back to the station to visit the next venue, hopefully with better luck… As I walk back, I wonder how the area had looked in 1979. How many people would have been standing outside the theater, eager to enter to see the reggae king of the world with their own eyes?

The now demolished Shinjuku Kosei Nenkin Kaikan in May 2009. Photo by Kentin (ja.wikipedia.org).

On the same day that Hiro and Masahito first meet Marley, the Wailers perform twice almost back to back (4PM and 6:45 PM) in the Shibuya Public Hall. About thirty minutes away from Shinjuku Station by train and foot, the hall, which still exists today and is now known as the Shibuya C.C. Lemon Hall, can accommodate 2084 visitors. It is very easy to find as it is situated in Shibuya, one of the major fashion youth centers of Japan and home to the famous Shibuya Crossing which appears in every tourist guide. After making some photos, I try to enter and look around a bit, but alas, I am told by staff that they are preparing for a concert and that it is therefore impossible to look around inside. Again a bit disappointed, I try my luck at the third and last Tokyo venue of the 1979 Babylon by Bus tour…

The Shibuya Public Hall in Shibuya on a sunny day in early 2012. Photo by Martijn Huisman

After a two day break, Marley and his fellow Wailers give two more concerts in Tokyo on the 10th at the Nakano Sun Plaza, a concert hall with a capacity of 2200 seats attached to a large hotel. Recordings made on this day have been used for various bootlegs such as Tokio Rasta, A Man In Tokyo and Sunplaza Show. In 2001 an official live-CD simply called Japan was moreover released on the Japanese market, containing an interview with Marley and twelve songs recorded at the Sun Plaza.

In the here and now, Nakano is also my last stop. Being three stations away from Shinjuku Station, it only takes fifteen minutes by train to reach Nakano, another of the 23 special wards of Tokyo. Stepping out of the train onto the platform it is almost impossible to not immediately notice the Sun Plaza. Towering above all other buildings in the vicinity, the Sun Plaza is only about one hundred meters away from the station. Making my way to the venue I again take some photos. And again I am disappointed when I get inside and ask if it possible to see the concert hall itself. Unfortunately, there is some big winter event going on, so I can’t take a look inside. ‘Shoganai‘, the Japanese would say. ‘Can’t be helped’…

The Nakano Sun Plaza in Nakano on a sunny day in early 2012. Photo by Martijn Huisman

On April 11, Marley and his entourage leave Tokyo with the famous ’shinkansen‘ (bullet train). Their destination is Osaka, the third biggest city in Japan some four hundred kilometers west of Tokyo. There they will conclude their visit to Japan with two concerts, after which the world tour continues immediately with gigs in New Zealand and Australia. Marley’s visit to Japan did much for the popularity of reggae in the land of the rising sun: the Japanese loved Bob according to his wife Rita. Mitsuhiro Sugawara was the official photographer during the tour and later said that “you could tell the man was sent by God to deliver God’s message. Bob Marley represented a new way of life – to be with nature, to be loving, to be yourself”.²

The sun has gone down in Tokyo, it is rapidly becoming more cold as the streets are lit up by thousands of neon lights. Tokyo, truly a city – no, a metropolis – that never sleeps. As I take the train back to Shinjuku, I wonder whether Marley tried Tokyo’s crowded public transport. What did he and the Wailers think of Tokyo? How did he and his fellow dread locked Jamaicans, who definitely stood out in 1970s Japan, experience their stay in Japan? I do know that Bob liked sushi very much, which he ate here for the first time. As I take another train to get home after a long day of traveling through Tokyo, I imagine what it must have been like so many years ago, before I was even born. Although difficult to imagine, one thing is for sure. In such intimate venues, the Japan concerts must have been truly magical. Lucky Japanese…

To read more about the visit of Marley and the Wailers and the history of reggae in Japan, see Jamming in Japan. A History of Bob Marley and Reggae by Martijn Huisman.