B’z SHOWCASE 2017 -B’z In Your Town- in Tsuyama (07.22.2017)
News 
B’z Banner in Tsuyama City Hall for SHOWCASE 2017
The fourth showing for B’z SHOWCASE 2017 -B’z In Your Town- has ended. Most notably, the show which took place in Okayama Prefecture’s city of Tsuyama also marks Koshi’s professional return to his hometown. The local government has even strewn a B’z-themed banner to commemorate the occasion inside the local city hall (pictured above). Other banners have been erected around the area, which has led to a great deal of fans using it as a backdrop for pictures.
Tsuyama is best known to B’z fans not only as the hometown of Koshi Inaba but also the location of Inaba Cosmetics, a family business operated by his mother and father for decades. The inside of the store has a large collection of rare and unique B’z memorabilia signed by Koshi. It is also not uncommon for Mother Inaba to take pictures with customers.
Though Tsuyama is in the far west of Japan, many fans use it as a point of pilgrimage when the opportunity arises. The city has likewise long embraced its hometown idol and utilized it to drive tourist activity in the region. In fact, many of the tourist maps and sightseeing locations make mention of Koshi directly. After a typhoon struck Tsuyama in 1998, Koshi donated a large sum of money for disaster relief, which netted him an award from the local municipality.
The full setlist is posted below to avoid spoilers for those attending the shows.
PLEASE NOTE: We initially reported “Samayoeru Aoi Dangan” as the third song in the setlist for this tour. In fact, this song has been the much-less-often-played “Sayonara Kizu Darake no Hibi yo” which had not been played live for six years prior to this tour!
B’z SHOWCASE 2017 Setlist Correction!
News 
Initial reports for B’z SHOWCASE 2017 -B’z In Your Town- mentioned “Samayoeru Aoi Dangan” as the third song in the setlist—in fact, this song has been the much-less-often-played “Sayonara Kizu Darake no Hibi yo“! All posts have been updated to reflect this error and its correction. We apologize for any inconvenience caused in the meantime!
A special thanks goes out to Ultra for ensuring we got it right!
B’z SHOWCASE 2017 -B’z In Your Town- in Fukuyama (07.20.2017)
News 
The third show of B’z SHOWCASE 2017 -B’z In Your Town- has just wrapped up in Fukuyama. The next show coming on July 22 will see Koshi return to his hometown of Tsuyama—an occasion that’s been marked accordingly in the days prior. Full details to follow!
The full setlist is posted below to avoid spoilers for those attending the shows.
B’z SHOWCASE 2017 -B’z In Your Town- in Shunan (07.18.2017)
News 
The second proper night (third including the SHOWCASE of the SHOWCASE) of B’z SHOWCASE 2017 -B’z In Your Town- is here with the best possible setlist when it comes to pairing the gems these shows are known for!
The full setlist is posted below to avoid spoilers for those attending the shows.
B’z x Apple: When Steve Jobs Used B’z to Launch iTunes Japan
Feature 
With the impending release of B’z COMPLETE SINGLE BOX and its massive 53-disc set on the horizon, it seemed only fitting that we take a look back at the very first time that B’z attempted such a collection, all the way back in 2005.
Apple’s iTunes service has long been known as the for-bearer and industry leader in the digital marketplace for music, television, and movies. The innovation of the iPod brought with it a revolution in how we listen to music and was undoubtedly the catalyst for many abandoning physical media in favor of the convenience and capacity allowed by digital. At the time, iTunes had already captured 80% of the U.S. and UK digital markets with 1.8 million songs being purchased per day. As one of the world’s most dependably successful music markets, rumors swirled as to when Japan would enter the fray—especially given the country had long solidified its reputation for being on the cutting edge of most types of technology. It seemed only natural they, too, would get a similar push as did the rest of the world. And on August 4, 2005, they did.
One of the hot topics leading into the event in Tokyo that August was song pricing. Convincing the Japanese record labels to adopt the standard pricing of roughly $1 USD per song had not been easy given the profit margins they enjoyed on physical sales. Indeed, Japan was and remains one of the few markets in which physical singles still move hundreds of thousands of copies every week. Jeopardizing that meant cutting into their marketing machines, so their trepidation was understandable. Despite its technologically-advanced reputation, most Japanese artists had not placed their back catalogues online in digital form just yet and there was no guarantee that many were exactly lining up to do so. After all, their physical albums and singles were still selling at a rate disproportionate with the rest of the world and changing that seemed unnecessarily risky. Thus, when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs took the stage that day, there was a great deal of curiosity in Japan about the long-term ramifications of such a prospect.
B’z SHOWCASE 2017 -B’z In Your Town- in Kumamoto (07.13.2017)
News 
The official kickoff of B’z SHOWCASE 2017 -B’z In Your Town- is upon us, and already a song that has never been performed live can be marked off the list! In case you missed it, the band already performed one show in Hioki two days ago, which featured a slightly different setlist you can check out here.
The full setlist is posted below to avoid spoilers for those attending the shows.
