Well... this isn't nice news. But we'd rather you hear it from us than The Net.
As of about 9:30 this morning, Buck-Tick were all ready set to go on tour to Fish Tanker's and Love and Media Portable (minus everyone overseas) in Nagoya... and then a little past noon, the fan club announced via email that Mr. Sakurai was not feeling well, had been examined by a doctor, and had tested positive for Covid-19. So, the tour is postponed, or possibly cancelled. The management have not yet made the call on whether to cancel or postpone the show, but have stated that due to issues with the venue, cancellation may be the only option.
How much does this suck? A lot. It sucks of lot of ducks. Will this affect next week's fanclub only show at Toyosu Pit, and the recently announced livestream? That depends on a negative test, most likely. Given Buck-Tick's celebrity status, we expect the management will err on the side of caution.
However, one thing we'd like to say is that the level of medical care in Japan is extremely high. The level of serious illness and complications in this country is much lower than in many other countries, most particularly the USA. Many of our friends and acquaintances here in Japan have tested positive in recent months and in most cases, they have either been minimally ill, or they got ill, but it hasn't been cause for serious alarm, though getting sick is never, ever fun. Mr. Sakurai has certainly been vaccinated and boosted, as per the needs of his job, and there is no question that he will receive whatever support he needs to get well as soon as possible.
At the same time, after two years of cancelled tours, now this? We can imagine he's feeling very upset, disappointed and grumpy (at least that's how we'd feel if we were him right now). So, y'all, please, send prayers and positive energy his way. The power of prayer is huge. It has even been scientifically verified. Let's get him out of bed and singing again as soon as is feasible (though of course, he needs to take the proper amount of time to recover).
And y'all... I feel extremely the opposite of happy about this and if you could leave a comment with some good vibes, please do it, for Mr. Sakurai, for the band, for the blog, and for little old Cayce. Frying pan into the fire, rock and hard place, come the fuck on, I want us all to be happy floating on cotton candy clouds riding unicorns and it's like sucker punch after sucker punch and just, [insert word of exasperation here].
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Update: The Fish Tanker's Only show on August 11th at Toyosu Pit has been postponed, pending possible rescheduling. For everyone looking forward to the live stream, it sucks, but I don't believe it's cause for concern as the general Covid policy in Japan is at least seven days of isolation, and really, having Acchan go onstage one week after testing positive just doesn't seem like a great idea even if he feels totally well and chipper by then. Health is first priority. For what it's worth, I do believe that even if the other shows are cancelled, Toyosu and the live stream will be rescheduled. If you're in FT, go ahead and write to their absolutely horrible Kafkaesque nightmare feedback service and tell them how much you hope the show will be rescheduled along with the live stream. The show scheduled for August 14th has also been postponed. Everything else depends on Mr. Sakurai's status of health... so what are you waiting for... if the postal service in your country still works (haha lol what a big IF, but yeah), send him a get-well card! Get-well cards can be mailed to the Fish Tank office, addressed to Sakurai-san. He might not be in the mood for reading mail but I'm sure a stack of get-well cards from overseas will give him some warm fuzzy feelings, even if he's totally recovered by the time he gets them. These last few years have been hard on us all. If you need the address, drop us a line.
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