Double Black

battle of the bands

Yokohama had quite a lot of local bands, as most of the residents knew. Some of them just happened to be more popular than the others. There was the Armed Detective Agency, the Guild, the Port Mafia, The Angels of Decay, Order of the Cross and many more. And most of the bands made their own music, along with covers by other artists.

Every year, an organisation hosted the Battle of the Bands, which had a competition system similar to sport tournaments and such. Registered bands were divided into brackets, and there was a competition between two bands at one time. Whichever band gained more votes from the live audience and the people who were watching from home, advanced to the next round.

The rules were simple. During one bracket round, each band had to perform a thirty minute set. So, the competition/concert was for an hour, after which voting lines were left open for one hour. It might not sound very popular, but this competition actually gained a lot of supporters and sponsors over time.

It started out as just a fun thing between bands, but eventually, it became a proper musical tournament of sorts. Currently, whichever band won the final battle got rewarded with lots of various prizes; courtesy of their sponsors. 

This year's competition had started three weeks ago, and a total of 200 small bands had participated. Some were from schools, some from universities, and others happened to independent musical groups. There was almost no restriction criteria for the participants, after all.

Over hundreds of competitions, four bands had made it to the semi-finals; Armed Detective Agency, Guild, Port Mafia and The Angels of Decay. The Detectives won against the Angels to go up to Finals. Similarly, the Port Mafia won against the Guild to assert their spot at the top.

Now, for all band music fans in Yokohama, it was a known fact that the Agency and the Mafia were rival bands. Both had been established around the same time, around three years ago, and their rivalry had been instant, ever since they participated in their first bracket match, and Port Mafia had won against the ADA. They had lost in the very next round, but it didn't matter. The seeds of their rivalry had been sown. 

Ever since then, both bands made a huge show of dissing each other, some of their songs being about the other bands. They made it very clearly that they couldn't stand each other. In fact, as soon as both bands had found out that they had made it to the finals, they had announced their ultimate showdown- the Battle of the Bands Finale of this year.

And today just happened to be the day of the Battle Finale.

Both of the bands were assembled in the backstage, two hours prior to the concert. They had lots to do after all; equipment check, last-minute rehearsals, vocal warmups, stretching their body in preparation for their dance routine. There was just a lot to do.

Since the budget for the competitions wasn't great enough to have two separate rooms, both bands had to share the same decent-sized hall for their pre-show ventures. The Agency and Mafia had come to an unspoken agreement about keeping to their side of the hall. 

Hence, on one side stood Dazai Osamu, lead singer and guitarist of Armed Detective Agency, age 22, with the rest of his bandmates; Nakajima Atsushi (singer), Edogawa Ranpo (saxophone), Izumi Kyouka (singer and guitarist), Tanizaki Junichiro (bassist) and Miyazawa Kenji (drummer).

On the other side stood Nakahara Chuuya, lead singer and guitarist of Port Mafia, age 22, with his bandmates; Tachihara Michizou (singer and bassist), Higuchi Ichiyo (drummer), Akutagawa Gin (guitarist), Kajii Motijirou (guitarist) and Akutagawa Ryuunosuke (guitarist).

Both the bands had clearly different colour themes as well. Armed Detective Agency always went for blue lighting, blue equipment and costumes with blue undertones. Port Mafia on the other hand, were all about fiery red. Equipment, costumes, lighting, you name it.