Veteran musicians will visit the region to give performances starting early this year.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers, an American rock band, will come to Japan in February. It will be the first time in 16 years that the band has performed alone in Japan. It will be part of the group’s world tour marking the return of guitarist John Frusciante, who supported the band’s sound during its golden period.
The band’s album “Unlimited Love,” released last April, which was produced after the band welcomed back Frusciante for the first time in 10 years, became a big hit. Only six months later, in October, the band released its latest album, “Return of the Dream Canteen.” The group is in vibrant shape.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers will tour New Zealand and Australia from January to mid-February. It will then give a performance in Singapore on Feb 16 and will perform in Tokyo on Feb 19 and in Osaka on Feb 21.
English musician Sting will visit Japan for the first time in three and a half years, since the autumn of 2019. His last tour, “My Songs,” in which he sang his famous songs from his days with rock band The Police and others he released as a solo singer, was highly acclaimed around the world, including in Japan.
This time, on the latest version of the tour, he plans to perform his hit songs with his son Joe Sumner, a singer-songwriter, who will appear onstage as a special guest.
Sting will perform in Australia and New Zealand from February to early March. He will then visit Japan to perform in Tokyo on March 11-12 and also in Hiroshima, Osaka and Nagoya.
After performing in Japan, he will give performances in Manila on March 17-18, in Kuala Lumpur on March 20, and in Singapore on March 22, ending his Asia tour.
Many Western musicians, including Guns N’ Roses and the Pixies, started coming back to Asia for post-pandemic tours or spot appearances at music festivals last year. The inflow is expected to grow this year.
It is also a focus of attention that English rock band Deep Purple and American rock band the Doobie Brothers, both legendary groups that debuted more than half a century ago, will visit Japan. For the Doobie Brothers, the participation of Michael McDonald, who supported the group’s golden days, has sparked a lot of talk.
Deep Purple will perform in Tokyo on March 13 and then in Hiroshima, Fukuoka and Osaka. The Doobie Brothers will perform in Singapore on March 29, then make a tour of Australia, and later visit Japan to play Tokyo on April 17 and then Morioka, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kanazawa, Osaka and Hiroshima.
Among solo artists, Icelandic singer Bjork will give two quite different types of public performances – the newest staging of the Cornucopia show and the Orchestral concert that features music with only her voice and an orchestra – in March. She plans to give Cornucopia in Australia and both types of performances in Japan.
Also on the agenda for Japan are American singer-songwriter Jackson Browne and Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams. Browne and Adams are energetically producing new works at the age of 74 and 63, respectively.
Browne will put on performances in Tokyo on March 27, 28 and 30 and subsequently in Osaka, Hiroshima and Nagoya. He will visit Australia and New Zealand in April.
Adams will stage a performance in Seoul, South Korea, on March 2. In Japan, he will perform in Tokyo on March 7 and later in Sendai, Osaka and Nagoya. Thereafter, he plans to visit Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand.
In jazz, Wynton Marsalis, a famous trumpet player, will come to Japan in the second half of March. The American musician will perform in Tokyo for three days beginning March 23 and in Osaka on March 27. On March 23, Japanese jazz pianist Makoto Ozone will appear as a guest.