Oyaji band

'Oyaji" means father or old uncle, and recently a lot of Oyaji bands have sprout out in the past few years. These bands comprise mainly of older folk in their 60s who decide to dust the cobwebs off their guitars and relive their teenage dreams.

Today is a public holiday, (敬老の日, Respect for the aged day), and we performed in an Oyaji band concert at a music store in a suburban shopping mall. It would be a good idea to spread the gospel message through song, and get to know more Japanese people. When we found out about this event, we quickly formed a band consisting of members from KHCN and Vineyard church. The only requirement was that at least one member must be over 35 years old. Louis & Steve were our passport to Oyaji-ness.

We named ourselves 'borderless' (ボーダレス) because we are a group of people from Japan, Singapore & America coming across borders. Incidentally, it also happens to be the name of the evangelistic arm of KHCN, in case you hear us mention it again in the future.

Our band was the 2nd of 10 bands to perform, and we sang three Christian songs. It turned out fairly decent considering that we only had 2 rehearsals and a hasty soundcheck. However, we believed the songs touched a handful of people who were there to hear us. We had fun doing this band stuff. It was also very entertaining, and we got such a kick from hearing retirees crooning to songs of Elvis Presley & the Beatles.