Rock band Tube represent summer like no other artist in Japan, so it makes sense that they’ve become popular in Hawaii. Currently celebrating their 20th year, on Saturday (Japan time) they played their first official gig in Honolulu in five years. 8,000 fans gathered to watch the 3-hour show as the sun set off Waikiki Beach. Some 3,000 had traveled from Japan and most of the rest were Japanese living locally or Americans of Japanese descent. The band put out a single every summer and it usually becomes one of the biggest hits of the season. They played Aloha Stadium in 2000, when June 1 was named “Tube Day” and released a single in English that was only available locally. Vocalist Maeda Nobuteru (photo, 40) said he hopes to stay healthy long enough to play there again for their 40th anniversary. Maeda was until recently married to actress Iijima Naoko.
• It was revealed at the weekend that veteran rock singer Uchida Yuya (65) underwent emergency eye surgery at a Tokyo hospital on May 31. A blocked retinal artery meant that failure to operate would have led to blindness in the eye. The surgery was a success. Uchida was a leading light of the rock and roll scene in the 1960s, fronting top band the Tigers.