North America Guitar Tour
Introduction
In the summer of 2007, when I started using YouTube, I was thinking about quitting my public activities because no one came to my live shows and my CDs weren't selling. In the midst of all this, I was strongly encouraged by M, the producer of "With A Little Help From My Friends" (now out of print), which I released in the US in 2004, and I started it on a whim. The registered name "peacejoytown" was simply the English pronunciation of my address at the time, "Heiraku-cho," which was written on an envelope in front of me, as "hiroshi" and its variations had already been taken, and it had no particular meaning. After that, a Korean boy named S played my arrangement, and the composer "J.I" herself commented on "Will You Dance?", and peacejoytown quickly became more popular than actual me. The following year, in 2008, I was able to travel to the UK, Germany, and Italy because of YouTube. However, the gap between peacejoytown and the real me just kept widening, and at a certain point, I started to think that the person playing on the YouTube channel was someone else. Most of the comments posted on each video were from the United States, and my desire to meet those people in person one day grew stronger every year, and in 2014, a series of coincidences made it possible.
It was a memorable trip, with repeated meetings and partings with people I met for the first time, and I was determined to write a book when I returned to Japan. However, when I returned and actually talked to people who said they wanted to hear my story, I realized that I ended up listening to their travel stories, as they couldn't understand why I had missed all the tourist spots in my three months of touring. In the meantime, my initial enthusiasm when I returned to Japan had disappeared, but I'm getting to the age where I'll forget if I don't write it down now, so I decided to use my website to publish it while tracing my clumsy memories.
*The people mentioned in the text are written using their initials until I can confirm their identity.
Contents
Introduction
Until Departure
Seattle
To California
Day Off
Sunnyvale
To La
LA 2 Days
To Tucson
Albuquerque
To Colorado (beginning of Miracle)
Berthoud
Denver
to Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City 2 days
To Texas
San Antonio
Georgetown
Dallas
Houston 2 Days
Benton
Nashville (CAAS)
Roswell
Tampa 2 Days
Miami
Orland 2 Days
Myrtle Beach
Chapel Hill 3 Days
Kingsport
To Indiana
Indiana State Fingerstyle Guitar Festival
To Staten Island
Manhattan
Phillipsburg
Nazareth (Martin Guitar Factory)
To Massachusetts (end of Miracle)
Methuen
To Montreal
To Buffalo
Meadvill A Day Before
Meadvill Ghost Hotel
Detroit
Chicago
Minneapolice
Spin Off #1
Spin Off #2 "EU Tour IN 2008 / Until Departure
Czech 1
Czech 2
London
Liverpool
Chesham
To Germany
Lemgo
Ingolstadt
Bregenz
To Italy
Florence
The Last Gig
Going Home