TUBE -- Hanabi（-花火-）

Well, it is the first day of summer for 2019. I can't let that go without having at least one from Southern All Stars, Omega Tribe, Maki Ohguro or Misato Watanabe as some of the summer representatives of J-Pop. Certainly, there's no way that I would allow June 21st to pass by without having TUBE put up as an article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". Strangely enough, the last time I wrote about Nobuteru Maeda（前田亘輝）and the gang was last year, just a few days before Xmas.

What better way to celebrate the arrival of the hot season with one of Japan's top summer bands embracing one of Japan's top customs? We, therefore, have "Hanabi" (Fireworks), another one of TUBE's dynamic, up-with-summer tunes that was also the band's 27th single released in June 1998.

"Hanabi" was written by vocalist Maeda and composed by TUBE guitarist Michiya Haruhata（春畑道哉）as a hearty welcome for listeners to leave the doldrums behind and hit the tropics of fun. I've only been able to find the concert version, but I think a lot of people would say that this is the best way to hear a TUBE tune. It starts off sounding like an intro from B'z and has some mellow parts but I still say that it's 100% TUBE goodness.

The song hit No. 9 on Oricon and was also a track on TUBE's 18th album from July 1998, "Heat Waver". It peaked at No. 2 and became the 53rd-ranked album of the year, going Double Platinum. "Hanabi" also became part of another Japanese summer tradition...it was the theme song for the nightly baseball broadcasts on NTV for a while.