Performance, behind-the-scenes and fan moments from the Fujii Kaze and the Piano Asia Tour 2023 (and a performance of NewJeans’ “Ditto”)

Ever since the debacle with Kaze and the entrepreneur n****s and the moguls, he’s been quieter than usual. Thankfully for him, he had a lot to distract himself with, such as his Asia tour. But I have to say, I think the way that he and his team managed the whole situation was pretty good. There was an apology and he laid his head low. And whilst I do think Kaze would have released a mini tour video any old way, in the context of that whole debacle, it plays even better now.

It’s really interesting hearing the testimonials of fans when it comes to how they discovered Kaze Fujii, because it’s very reflective of how organic I feel his come-up has been. Some heard of him through friends. Some just heard him in playlists on Spotify. One woman became a fan off of somebody covering one of his songs in karaoke. But it was really interesting to hear that some of his songs had gained huge traction outside of Japan and had lives of their own. And that each country the tour visited seemed to have an affiliation or connection to different songs.

It wasn’t like he had this huge hit out of nowhere which was a landing point for everybody. The entire rollout of singles for Help Ever Hurt Never was slowly wrangling fans.

I ended up listening to Kaze’s music purely because of Help Ever Hurt Never’s album cover. I came across it, thought ‘Oh, I this is a really great shot’ and checked out the album for that reason and no other. I adored the album, and then became a fan. It’s why I’m always critical of album and single cover arts. They matter and have an impact.

Malaysian fans at the Kuala Lumpur stop of the Fujii Kaze and the Piano Asia Tour 2023

It was really heart warming to see that Kaze has so many fans outside of Japan.

Japanese acts servicing fans in their neighbouring countries isn’t a new thing. But it doesn’t happen as often as it should or could. Ayumi Hamasaki was famed for taking tours of hers around East Asia regularly at one point. So it’s nice to see Kaze acknowledge his fans outside of Japan too and give them a tour. And whilst logistics probably play a huge part in how scaled down the tour is; it’s also a cool return to how he was doing shows at the very start of his career, before he’d even put an album out. It results in cool moments such as this...

His next cover album will absolutely include this.

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🎤 Performances: “Me-Eh-Yo” on the Help Ever Arena Tour | “Free” Live 2021
💿 Album Reviews: Love All Serve All | Help Ever Hurt Cover | Help Ever Hurt Never