Even the rain couldn’t cool down the fans at yesterday’s “Matsuriina 2007”, one of the summer’s many outdoor music festivals. With blistering temperatures across the country, a lineup of eleven Sony Music acts led by Orange Range headed for the coast and the Riviera Zushi Marina in Kanagawa Prefecture. The event had started off under sunny mid-morning skies but turned cloudy and then rainy as a succession of young artists including Nakagawa Shoko (photo, 23), Kato Miriya (19) and Yui (20) took the stage. But the majority of the 5,000-strong crowd were there to see the chart-topping rock band from Okinawa, who are giving sales of their two recently released hits albums a bit of a boost. Five years after their debut, sales have cooled for Orange Range this year, and their last two singles “Ika Summer” and “Ikenai Taiyou”, failed to reach the top of the Oricon chart. The hits albums made No.1 and No.2, but combined sales are still short of half a million. Nakagawa is particularly popular among otaku, who call her “Shokotan”, and is referred to as the idol “Blog Queen”. She’s the daughter of the late singer Nakagawa Katsuhiko (1962-94), who as one of the few visual kei artists of the early 1980s was (generously, in my opinion) called the “Japanese David Bowie”.
• To mark the upcoming visit by Carole King (65), her entire album collection and a new hits collection are to be released in a Japan-only paper jacket format. Five albums, including the classic “Tapestry” will go on sale from September 26, and five more albums on October 31. A Japan-only collection of hits, “The Best of Carole King”, will be released on September 19. Together with Fergie (32) and Mary J. Blige (36), King will perform in the “Three Great American Voices” shows at Osaka Castle Hall, Saitama Super Arena and Nippon Budokan in November.