Make Believe Mailer 86: "Matsuken Samba"
Or...Visiting The National Stadium And Encountering Ghosts Of Olympics Past
Walking to the Japan National Stadium smack-dab in Meiji Jingu from Gaiemmae Station required a metaphorical trek through recent history. The same day I braved sizzling heat to watch very-much-not-Tokyo-based soccer clubs Nagoya Grampus and Albirex Niigata play one another — I won tickets from my drugstore — happened to see a practice match between the Japanese national ruby team and Fiji’s squad happening like five minutes away. Passing by red-and-white-clad fans, my mind went back four years, to when Japan held the Rugby World Cup and pulled off a total party that, at the time felt like a bite-size preview of the Olympic Games to come in less than a year. Little did any of us know that would actually be a last hurrah.
What came next rushed in shortly after, passing by the Tokyo Olympic Museum, various fancy loft-centric complexes built in the buildup to the Games, and those big rings reminding of the city’s greatest governmental push during the 2010s and the ultimate pain in the ass come the 2020s.
The National Stadium has been central to some of the biggest stories I’ve covered in the last few years — mainly, the lost 2020 Opening Ceremony that would have seen Perfume take center stage among other cool ideas, the proposed planned introduced in its place which fucking sucked and resulted in at least three people becoming pariahs, and the actual Opening Ceremony which was…completely fine1. Which, come to think of it, sums up the 2020 + 1 Tokyo Olympics perfectly. Do you remember anything that happened during these Games? Not really? Yeah, kind of deflating…but that’s also a sign the government actually pulled off a safe event, where no major outbreaks or incidents emerged. Not a bad legacy, honestly!
But I had never actually been inside said venue, despite it being so central to my beat in the last few years. Why not spend the night before my birthday watching two soccer teams I had zero connection with duke it out at the National Stadium, just to see what it was like? Arriving around 4 p.m., I realized my decision was even better than I could have imagined — while I had no idea why Nagoya Grampus was playing in the nation’s capital, it became clear almost immediately it was at least in part an effort to drum up tourism interest in Nagoya and surrounding Aichi Prefecture. Travel booths imploring folks to check out the birthplace of Toyota! A giant replica of the gold statues on top of Nagoya Castle! A…kebab truck hailing from the most boring city in Japan? Sure, why not. Now this is the domestic advertising I can get behind!
“Grampus-pumoni,” what I can only assume is an Aichi delight.
Yet what totally iced my decision to come out…three hours before kick-off, at that…was a very different regional product on display. Preceding the match, Aichi-born actor and semi-pop-star Ken Matsudaira would put on a concert, centered around his hit novelty song “Matsuken Samba II,” a silly little dance number carrying much weightier metaphorical heft in this setting.
The major failure of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics was the Opening Ceremony, not necessarily because of what ended up playing out in the National Stadium, but because of everything that didn’t. There was the failed promise of what looked like a killer original idea, followed up by the Boomer mess and controversy-laden next version which helped fuel an anti-Olympics mood ahead of the event. At some point, the people rose up (logged onto Twitter) and declared there was only one way to save this ceremony…give us “Matsuken Samba.”
Specifically “Matsuken Samba II,” a 2004 feel-good number courtesy of a dude best known for sporting wigs in historical dramas. That song, below, was popular from the jump — going as high as #3 on Oricon when that actually meant something — and is the sort of silly one-off that can lift the spirits of folks a la “The Macarena” or “Gangnam Style.2” I know somebody who listens to “Matsuken Samba” whenever they feel stressed out…and it makes them feel completely clear, like they sat in a sauna or went on a week-long vacation. Fittingly, before the cursed Opening Ceremony, people online said “just get Matsudaira up there, boost the mood of the nation!”
That did not happen, though shout out MISIA and the Pictogram guy for doing pretty well. It did sneak into the Closing Ceremony in video form, but c’mon that’s not the same. Still, I kind of think “Matsuken Samba” became the defining song of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the months after. Matsudaira appeared on that year’s Kohaku Uta Gassen year-end bonanza to perform “Matsuken Samba” in a show that reveled in the idea of presenting audiences with the alternate Olympic Opening Ceremony they craved (my mother-in-law’s response to “Matsuken Samba” — “how fun!”). Matsudaira has been called on to don the golden robes many more times for TV or special events since. There was a pop-up “Matsuken Samba” cafe in Shibuya that only just wrapped up….nobody is opening up themed eateries for Olympic-contributor Fantastic Plastic Machine.
“Pizza!”
To my knowledge, however, Matsudaira had never performed the song in the new National Stadium. So up the venue’s elevators I went ten minutes before the show started, climbing up to the third-to-last row in the nosebleeds (again…I won these tickets from a drugstore). I had a little time to soak in the stadium’s ambience…functional, but offering gorgeous views of both the field and of Shinjuku. As a place to take in the capital, it’s actually kind of perfect. A javelin throw? I don’t know, sure it would have been cool.
The pre-show played out in three parts, with the first two being traditional musical / dance performances related to Nagoya. Then, out from the hulking concourse came more dancers, along with Nagoya Grampus’ four killer-whale mascots. Then…from the center tunnel…Toyohashi’s favored son emerged.
It was delightful, a silly performance carrying a little extra significance if you wanted to reflect on the Opening Ceremonies of yesteryear and what could have been…but was mostly the chance for folks to bop along with a samba before a soccer game. It totally made sense seeing “Matsuken Samba” play out in this venue as to why people imagined this as a remedy back in 2021 — it’s just the right amount of goofy and optimistic for a goofy and (in theory) optimistic sporting spectacle like the Olympics.
This musical interlude was brief, though Matsudaira did appear before the match started…albeit dressed as a shogun (???) while riding a horse around the field3. After that, soccer — a pretty intense 1-0 Nagoya win, though by the end of it I was fully on Niigata’s side owing to their plucky play (and a fantastic blocked penalty kick). It was a perfectly fun and normal night…and, if I allow myself to be a little extra bubbly about it, a slight peak into what could have been two years ago.
But even then, no need to dwell on the past, because everything felt right in the moment…and the song everyone wanted to hear still holds enough sway to do what they wanted in the first place.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
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I still think the final stretch is symbolically quite beautiful when it comes to Japan changing in the 21st century…but hate to admit, Naomi Osaka’s career since puts a slight damper on this, because it’s just kind of a bummer to think about, at least from a sports perspective.
Just me?
It was super loud at this point, and I thought “poor horse!” But they were a total professional, kept their cool and did the job.
OT: Since Shinjiro Atae came out, have the other AAA members publicly supported him? I guess that Nissy has, given his recent MV was all about LGBT representation, I just wonder about the others. Fingers crossed!