King Gnu -- Stardom

 

Well, the World Cup is back again and especially after two years of shutdowns due to COVID, people are rarin' to have a party in my city, and the globe's biggest sports event is the reason. I'm not a huge soccer fan but whenever the World Cup comes up, I catch at least some of the games and this year's tourney in Qatar has some extra incentive for me since both Japan and Canada are fielding teams this time. 

I've mentioned this before in a past soccer-based article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but Toronto is one of the best cities to view the World Cup because of the many diverse nations that are represented within its demographics. So, there will be tons of folks cheering on a number of teams at the same time at many dining and drinking establishments such as Cafe Diplomatico in Little Italy. The wonderful thing is that Toronto has been able to expand the drinking hours a tad for the soccer fans.

As for that soccer-based article, I was referring to Vangelis' "Anthem" which was the official theme for the 2002 World Cup jointly hosted by South Korea and Japan. The original version incorporated instruments from both nations and was a truly epic orchestral piece that could even get my eyes misty depending on my mood. Techno-wizard Takkyu Ishino（石野卓球）came up with his own version which was also supremely catchy.

However, NHK has been featuring its own theme for the 2022 World Cup for the past several weeks whenever the network covers the tournament. This time, mixture rock band King Gnu has come up to the plate (yeah, sorry, wrong sport) with their 6th single "Stardom" which will be released as a CD and a digital download in about a week. Now that I can hear the full version without having to squint my ears through the commentary by the anchors and reporters, I can say that it is truly a King Gnu creation by band member Daiki Tsuneta（常田大希）combined with those urgent "gotta go do this" beats and that typical "important event" type of arrangement.

As of this writing, there's already been one major upset with Saudi Arabia defeating Argentina. Hopefully, there will be some more heart stopping moments and a lot of camaraderie all over the bars and restaurants of the world.