It was truly amazing to see Freak Kitchen LIVE this week. It was billed as first time in 22 years, but Mattias said this week was actually the first Freak Kitchen performance in Japan, as the first event was a guitar clinic all those years ago.
Their musicianship, charm and humor was AWESOME. You will find lots of clips from the audience on X via the hashtag #freakkitchen_live_in_japan of the Osaka and Tokyo shows as it was agreed non commercial recording of the show was allowed. Many of those clips are far better than any of the ones I took!
The opening act was local band Rikugo and they were great too. The crowd was there to see Mattias of Freak Kitchen, but they warmly welcomed them and they did an amazing job, with their Visual-Kei DARK METAL.
But apart from saying it was an amazingly awesome show, this isn't a concert review, but more about how it all happened.
It was all organized by fans, for fans. The main fan being the head of Zanshin Instruments , purveyors of the worlds finest instruments in Japan, and Zanshin Records.
While visiting True Temperament in Sweden he had met Mattias Eklundh and apart from organizing to sell his new guitar in Japan, wanted to bring him and his band too. Mattias is one of THE Guitar Virtuosos and very well known in Japan and Japan has a lot of guitar players.
The first event Mattias attended was Sound Messe Osaka 2024, with a special clinic at MUSIC BAR M in downtown Osaka on the Saturday night. I attended this and met Mattias then.
Mattias came back for Sound Messe Osaka 2025, and presented his FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND in Osaka Japan. I attended that too and met the Zanshin president Ishida san. Around then the Freak Kitchen tour was announced and the ticket lottery happened via the eplus ticketing website.
It was the first time for me in decades to go to such an event, and the first time to go to CLUB QUATTRO UMEDA. Really well set up. The front of house sound (and lighting?)
The side stage foldback consoles:
Freak Kitchen on recent tours have no amps and cabinets on stage, using Line6 HELIX modelers instead, and use the house PA .
Mattias only uses 3 presets in his Helix Stomp. Rhythm sound, Lead Sound and Lead Sound with delay. He uses a foot volume pedal to control distortion, gating and everything else.
The band use Shure In Ear Monitors.
Sound Check was as much about setting up their individual IEM mixes as front of house sound. For example not just levels, but Christen, bass and vocals, wanted reverb and delay on his vocal in his IEMs.
The drum kit was rented, to save costs of shipping Bjorn's kit, the same as they have done in Europe. Dressed up with EVERYBODY GETS BLOODY artwork on the dual kick drums.
Opening act Rikugo's drummer Uchida san had to use the same kit too. But he did swap out the throne, snare drum and kick pedals for his own, and put the originals back when he finished. He managed fine but said that Bjorn has his kit set up very low, and he had to just work with that.
I used ALPINE MusicSafe Pro EARPLUGS during the gig. Has filters for LOW, MEDIUM and HIGH protection. I had LOW in at the start of Freak Kitchen's soundcheck, but had to rush off back stage where the light was better to swap to HIGH protection, as they were LOUD!!!
Rikugo has a more traditional stage setup with amps, cabinets and large pedal boards.
Before sound check the Rikugo guys presented Mattias with a Tea Cup with all their last albums song titles on it, that all use really complicated kanji.
And Mattias, Bjorn and Christer signed posters, drums sticks and organized pics to throw to the audience.
Sound Checks all finished at 5:30PM. Audience started to come in 6PM for a show start of 7PM.
Everybody was in 30 minutes before the start of the opening act and standing around waiting. The audience space is all standing only.
Then 10 minutes before the start, Mattias comes from the back thru the crowd to the stage with them to cheers and applause and high 5s. It was a very friendly atmosphere.
Rikugo was on stage 7:00 till 7:30PM.
TOKYO METAL CITY, a guitarist I met at FREAK GUITAR CAMP (also the guy that introduced me to the head of Zanshin), gave an introduction to Freak Kitchen about their 22 years of being active and it is quite something they are here doing this.
Freak Kitchen were on stage 8:00 till around 9:15PM or so. Freak Kitchen threw to the audience signed t-shirts, drum sticks and picks during the show.
Merchandise for both bands was on sale at a table set up near the bar.
The final event of the night was that those that bought the 12" vinyl of EVERYBODY GETS BLOODY could get the band to sign them. Those that had bought a FREAK GUITAR LAB guitar also got to meet Mattias.
It was the first time for me to meet Bjorn and Christer too. Mattias showed me what their setlist was for the show but didn't want me to tell anyone, so I didn't take a photo of it. It is a mix of their old and new album songs.
It was a really great night for everyone.
But must be tough for the guys. They arrived at KIX Osaka around 2:30PM of Monday 15th after a 22 hour flight from France with lots of stops. They performed Tuesday night the 16th. Go to Tokyo by Shinkansen on Wednesday 17th. They had the Tokyo show Thursday 18th. They get Friday for some tourism (Bjorn's wife is with him and it is her first trip to Japan), and fly back to Sweden Saturday 20th.
Mattias has two presentations on Saturday 20th. A Line6 HELIX and FREAK GUITAR LAB PEDAL.
I almost never get asked "Why are you in Japan?". My answer is way too long, and I will now just say "My wife is Japanese, and she wanted to be here". It isn't really that simple, but is good enough, and I must sound like a jerk giving the whole story.
About 10:15PM with his staff packing the gear on stage, I thanked Ishida san, (he was saying everyone needed to hurry up as Club Quattro changes for extra time (after 10PM?) ), waved goodbye to those that noticed, and left the building for my hotel.
I dropped into a Lawson for a pizza bread for dinner on my way back to the cheap Hotel Kansai I organized to stay at. Interestingly, I bumped into one of Rikugo's guitarists, Hazuki Harada, in the Lawson too.
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