Forem: manabu neko

January 30, 1997 Osaka Bayside Jenny: Review of Aphex Twin’s First Live Performance in Japan

manabu neko — Mon, 04 May 2026 08:58:07 +0000

This post is the English version of one I wrote on the Japanese blogging platform “note”

◉About Osaka Bayside Jenny

First off, Bayside Jenny was a medium-to-large-sized club and live house. As others have mentioned online, the acoustics there were simply excellent.
Since it was a club and live house converted from a waterfront warehouse, the ceilings were incredibly high. Even though it was a two-story structure, the acoustics were really top-notch.
Some articles (like the one from Tower Records) list the capacity as 1,200 people, but they’re forgetting that it was a two-story building… Everyone’s memory is just too fuzzy.
There are tons of people online saying “Bayside Jenny was in Nanko,” but Bayside Jenny was actually on the opposite side, closer to Chikko.
It easily held 1,800 people, and if packed to the brim, it had a capacity of about 2,000.

◉Live performance (opening act)

The opening acts were:
DJ: Grant
LIVE: CYLOB

Even though they were billed as opening acts, their role was really just to adjust the PA and warm up the sound system. They were made to spin their sets at such a low volume that it was almost pitiful, and there weren’t many people dancing.

◉The Arrival of Aphex Twin

There was a sofa on stage big enough to lie down on, and Richard D. James was sprawled out on it, just fiddling with his laptop—a truly surreal scene. I read in a post-show interview that it was apparently a laptop he’d built himself.

The first song was “Pulsewidth.”
It’s not a particularly intense track on the recording, but the moment the hi-hat and intro pads kicked in, I thought, “Huh?” The rich timbre and range were on a completely different level from what I’d heard on the recording, so the audience seemed taken aback.
It was a sound I couldn’t have imagined from the recording at all—it made me wonder if he’d composed it with such meticulous calculation, or rather, if he’d been so particular about every single note.

Just that hi-hat sound alone sent the venue into a storm of cheers. By this point, Richard had completely taken control of the atmosphere, so he didn’t even need to hype the crowd up—he just silently fiddled with his laptop. He never once looked out at the audience the entire time.
Richard knew full well that “Pulsewidth”—a song that sounds weak on the recording—could really blow the roof off, and he deliberately chose it as the opening track.
With just a few notes, he pulled us completely into his world, and from there on out, it was his show all the way. It was like another dimension.
He’s a genius on the recording, but when you hear him live, every single note is genius.
It felt like I was being shown “genius” in the most vivid way possible.
It was almost violent.

Anyway, in “Pulsewidth,” the four-on-the-floor kick drum kicks in partway through the intro, On the recording, the kick drum is pretty weak—it has none of the impact you’d expect from a standard club-style techno kick designed to get people dancing—but hearing it live, the sound was deep like nothing I’d ever experienced before, and the sound pressure far exceeded the audience’s expectations. The crowd wasn’t even in a state of thinking anymore; it was more instinctive, like their bodies were reacting on their own. In that instant, the entire packed venue—which held about 2,000 people—literally shook explosively.
It was an insane sight.

At one point, several large, colorful rubber balloons—about 2 meters in size—were thrown into the venue, and everyone had fun hitting them and moving them around.
Then, a few of those bear costumes from the Donkey Rhubarb music video appeared in the venue, doing weird dances and getting the crowd hyped. After that, they went up on stage and danced.
The crowd was going absolutely wild, but Richard never once looked out at the audience until the very end.

◉Actually, the legendary Osaka concert

The Osaka show was so explosively energetic that, in Quick Japan vol. 13 (Ohta Publishing), released on April 25, 1997, Richard D. James described the January 30, 1997, concert at Osaka Bayside Jenny as “the second-best of my life.”

◉Note

Ever since I was a kid in my teens, I’ve been faking my age to work as a roadie at concerts and live shows, so I’ve seen over 100 live performances by various artists, but Aphex Twin’s shows are by far my number one. It’s on a whole other level.
Second place goes to Jeff Beck, third to Metallica, and from fourth on down, it’s kind of in no particular order. If I had to include others, it would definitely be S.O.B., the origin of my musical roots, and Napalm Death. Daisy Chainsaw was also pretty intense. I’ve seen Jeff Mills a total of four times, and needless to say, he’s amazing.

On the flip side, the ones that made me think, “Give me my money back!” were Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Lenny Kravitz, and the Sex Pistols (during their reunion)… though there are more.
It wasn’t just bad—it felt like watching a classical concert.
I even walked out halfway through the Sex Pistols show, lol.

I’ve condensed and polished the details of Aphex Twin’s first tour in Japan and compiled them on GitHub: https://catlogy1-new.github.io/The-truth-behind-Aphex-Twin-s-first-visit-to-Japan/

Proof of Aphex Twin’s first-ever Japan tour schedule, which had been lost to music history for 29 years

manabu neko — Sun, 03 May 2026 16:21:20 +0000

The original article in Japanese is posted on the note, but since new primary sources have been discovered, I am summarizing them here.

Until February 2026, all AI systems claimed that Aphex Twin had never performed in Osaka during his first visit to Japan. Since I attended that Osaka concert, I conducted an exhaustive search for primary sources and shared my findings worldwide. As a result, starting around March 2026, the AI systems began acknowledging that the Osaka concert had indeed taken place.
This article aims to correct the distorted account of music history that has persisted for nearly 30 years.

◉Introduction

Aphex Twin (Richard D. James) made his debut as a Live PA performer in Japan on January 30, 1997 at Osaka Bayside Jenny — not February 1 in Tokyo as long believed.This article presents definitive primary evidence: Pollstar magazine (January 20, 1997) ,Quick Japan vol.13 (April 1997) ,The newly discovered original flyer (archived 2026)
These sources confirm the correct timeline and close decades of confusion in fan communities and databases.

◉Conclusion

Let’s get straight to the point.
Aphex Twin: Details regarding the schedule for his first tour of Japan in 1997, as well as his booking agent, are as follows

1. Osaka Performance

・Venue: Osaka BAYSIDE Jenny
・Date and Time: Thursday, January 30, 1997 (Showtime: 6:00 p.m.)
・Capacity: Approximately 1,800–2,000 people

2. Tokyo Performance

・Venue: Shinjuku LIQUIDROOM
・Date and Time: Saturday, February 1, 1997(Showtime: 10:00 p.m.)
・Capacity: Approximately 700 –900 people

◉Support acts, booking agents, etc.

1.Support Act

・DJ: Grant
・Opening Live Act: Cylob

2.Booking Agents

・BA: Chaotica
・BA: Value Added Talent (U.K.)
・RC: Sira

⚠️Note that while the Osaka show started at 6:00 PM, the Tokyo show began at 10:00 PM; as a result, Grant’s DJ set and Cylob’s live performance were omitted from the Tokyo show, and records indicate that Cylob handled the opening DJ set.

◉Primary Evidence

1.Pollstar Magazine (January 20, 1997, p.15)

The U.S. music industry publication clearly lists the tour schedule:

Jan 30: Osaka JAP — Bayside Jenny
Feb 1: Tokyo JAP — Liquid Room

Page 15 of the January 20, 1997, issue of Pollstar magazine. An enlarged photo of the section showing Aphex Twin's tour schedule.

Note that Pollstar Magazine (January 20, 1997) has been converted into a full-page PDF and archived on the Internet Archive, so it can be viewed at the URL below.
https://archive.org/details/pollstar-1997-01-20

2. Original Flyer

The physical flyer for the January 30 event at Bayside Jenny. This is the strongest direct proof of the first Live PA date.

A flyer from when Aphex Twin first visited Japan as a live act in 1997

I'm converting them to PDF and saving them to the Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/AphexTwin_Flyer

3. Quick Japan vol.13 (April 25, 1997)

Contemporary Japanese magazine review confirms the Osaka show and includes Richard D. James stating it was "the second best live performance of my life."

In the subculture magazine Quick Japan Vol. 13 (Ota Publishing, ISBN 4–87233–329–2), published on April 25, 1997, there is a dated photograph and transcript of a conversation between Richard D. James and Yamazuka EYE that took place in Bayside Jenny's dressing room prior to their live performance in Osaka on January 30, 1997.

Quick Japan Vol. 13, we have converted the magazine's cover, back cover, table of contents, live photos from Bayside Jenny, an illustration of an Aphex Twin concert by Yamantaka EYE, a photo of Aphex Twin and Yamantaka EYE together, and the interview spanning pages 88–90 into PDF files and saved them on the Internet Archive. Anyone can view them via the link below.
https://archive.org/details/1997-04-25-quickjapan-vol-13pdf

◉That's all

It took an immense amount of effort to verify Aphex Twin's first-ever live performance in Osaka - an event that had been missing from music history for nearly thirty years. I am the first person in the world to have compiled such a complete set of primary sources. Finally, the distorted accounts of music history will be corrected. I've updated the Japanese Wikipedia page as well. Aphex Twin fan sites and setlist sites have also made changes based on my contributions. Thank you.

◉Note

Until now, the Tokyo show was generally considered the main event, but a magazine editor noted that many audience members at the Tokyo show remained seated throughout, and Aphex Twin reportedly left the stage after just about an hour. In contrast, there are multiple accounts stating that the Osaka show - which had more than double the capacity of the Tokyo show - drew a crowd of about 2,000 enthusiastic fans, and Richard D. James has described the 1997 Osaka performance as "the second-best live show of my life."
This documentation relies exclusively on verifiable primary materials. No secondary recollections or unconfirmed bootlegs.

This is an updated English version of my original research first shared in Japanese on note. It includes newly discovered primary sources.

I've refined the code to make it more concise and published it on GitHub: https://catlogy1-new.github.io/The-truth-behind-Aphex-Twin-s-first-visit-to-Japan/