Southern All Stars vocalist Kuwata Keisuke (52) gave an historic concert performance on Sunday night. His acoustic concert on the Okinawan island of Ishigakijima was the first ever live show broadcast on all 53 FM radio stations in Japan. In a career that now spans 30 years, it was also Kuwata’s first performance on the island, a remote but popular tourist attraction in the far south of the country. Included in the 20-song set was a duet with Begin, the most famous band to have come from the island. They performed their song “Nada Sousosu”, which was a hit for local singer Natsukawa Rimi and is perhaps the best known song to have originated in the southern islands. There was also a surprise appearance from Kuwata’s wife and fellow SAS member Hara Yuko (51). The audience of about 1,000 included 800 inhabitants of neighboring islands who were invited to the show free of charge.
• A busy schedule meant that actor Enari Kazuki (23) was unable to attend his university graduation ceremony yesterday. The popular young star of the long-running TBS drama “Wataru Seken wa Oni Bakari” majored in cultural history at Seijo University in Tokyo. He has already started to further his studies of world history and plans to attend another college.
• He may not have been in the crowd to see his old school make their first appearance at Koshien, but X Japan leader Yoshiki made sure that just about the whole school was there. Chiba Prefecture representatives Awa High School won their debut at the national high school spring invitational baseball championship on Saturday. And they were cheered on by most of their schoolmates, thanks in part to a donation from Yoshiki that paid for 15 busloads of students to make the trip halfway across the country. The spring and summer tournaments are held every year at the venerable Koshien stadium in Hyogo Prefecture, which is also home to the Hanshin Tigers. Another victory for Awa in the second round on Thursday would set the right mood for X Japan’s long-awaited comeback concerts in Tokyo this weekend.