VGD Meets with Stereopony Staff in Los Angeles

On February 11, 2013 Very Good Days! met with Stereopony Staff members at LAX International Airport in Los Angeles, California. Kazunori Sakamoto, Stereopony’s former A&R/Director, and Sachiko Nakatani, Stereopony’s former manager, were visiting to meet with Evan Taubenfeld. Details about the meeting are not known but Sakamoto and Nakatani also wanted to meet with VGD members in order to pass something to them.

VGD Administrator RSNiteblaze (Roderic), VGD Translator Ehhjay (AJ), and VGD member TonyTonyChoppa (Tony) made the trip to LAX. Dressed in Stereopony and VGD shirts and Stereopony wristbands, we hoped that they would find us. Fortunately for us, there was only one exit so we were able to spot our Japanese friends first.

Roderic waved at Sakamoto and he waved back, and both Sakamoto and Nakatani approached our small group. After exchanging greetings, AJ introduced himself as one of VGD’s translators and said he would do his best to help all of us communicate.

Finally, after all the initial talk, Sakamoto presented a cloth bag to us, which we all assumed was the item he wanted to pass to VGD. Inside the cloth bag appeared to be a very large folded up banner, made from the same material as the banners we gave to Stereopony at their final live back in December. At first we all thought Sakamoto was returning our banner to us and our hearts sank, but that feeling went away immediately after Sakamoto motioned for us to unfold it.

What we had in our hands was one of the Stereopony photo collage banners from the History of STEREOPONY exhibition back in December. Sakamoto explained that there were two banners given away; one for us and one for the Stereopony Lovers group back in Japan.

Next, both Nakatani and Sakamoto pulled more stuff out. It looked like the banner was just the beginning of what they wanted to pass on to VGD. Sakamoto presented three autographed Stereopony photos, also from the History of STEREOPONY exhibition. The photos were from the photo shoots for “Namida no Mukou,” “I do it,” and “Arigatou.” Next up was an autographed copy of the Go! Go! Guitar magazine issue with Stereopony on the cover and two photocopies of newspaper clippings from the “Hitohira no Hanabira” and “I do it” eras.

But the item that was most surprising of them all was actually the most simple item: a white square piece of cardboard with Stereopony’s autographs in pink, the Stereopony members’ FIRST autographs as a band signed under Sony.

When Sakamoto brought it out and was explaining to AJ what it was, Roderic already knew what it was because of a past Twitter photo and just said “the first autograph?” out of surprise and Sakamoto replied with a “Yes.” It was sealed in shrink wrap and Sakamoto unsealed it in front of us, actually revealing two signboards. He presented the first one to us and then said “This one is mine” and kept the second one. We all laughed.

Sakamoto and Nakatani requested that we take photos of all the items and share them with the other VGD members.

After a few more minutes of talking, we all finally got ready to leave the airport and part ways.

Very Good Days! would like to thank Sakamoto and Nakatani for the opportunity to meet with them and for all these gifts. We will treasure them always! We look forward to seeing you again soon.

-Roderic, AJ, and Tony