Friends -- Yoru ni Dance（夜にダンス）

Well, I just wrote about Emi Okamoto's（おかもとえみ）"Bokura Truth"（僕らtruth）so I was curious about her band Friends（フレンズ）since just by its name, it sounded rather welcoming.

I found the first of their seven digital download singles, "Yoru ni Dance" (Dance in the Night) released in April 2016, and though Friends is categorized as a J-Pop band, I think that there is some of that happy-go-lucky funk, soul and certainly rap in this number. Written by Okamoto and composed by Friends keyboardist/rapper Hirose Hirose（ひろせひろせ）, it has both songwriters in the video accompanying a trench-coated lady wishing to literally trip the light fantastic. I was wondering where they were filming since I saw that McDonalds (and I haven't had a Big Mac in over 3 months), and I just briefly caught that JR sign denoting that it was Ebisu Station in Tokyo. Perhaps until recently, that may have been the tony Ebisu district at 8pm. In any case, I'm hoping that once COVID-19 is done with us once and for all, a lot of folks will be willing to have that dance-a-thon in the evening.

Along with Okamoto and Hirose Hirose, Friends also has its leader, bassist Ryohei Nagashima（長島涼平）, guitarist Taro Miura（三浦太郎）and drummer Rui Sekiguchi（関口塁）with support keyboardist Kenta Yamamoto（山本健太）with the band getting its start in 2015. In addition to those seven digital download singles, Friends has also released one CD single in 2019, three singles only available at concerts and a number of albums. "Yoru ni Dance" also has a remix version on its March 2018 EP album "Bedside Music ep" that peaked at No. 73 on the charts.