Yoshida Cool

Yesterday evening we saw the Yoshida Brothers live in Oakland at Yoshi's and it was all around a great experience. We actually hadn't been to Yoshi's before and it's not just a great venue, they also have some really good Fusion-Japanese food.

And the Yoshida Brothers are fantastic musicians who can make playing the Shamisen look cool! Their music is an interesting blend of the traditional Japanese three-stringed Shamisen with some Blues and Jazz. Several of their pieces were long, dreamy melodies that start very simple and slow and then advance towards the end into very percussive and wild extravaganzas.

And you already know part of one of their songs very well if you've been seeing any of the Nintendo Wii advertisements on TV lately - that catchy theme music is based on a song by the Yoshidas which I'm happy to report sounds even better live on stage.