Let’s never come here again because it would never be as much fun…

japanpassGoodness only knows how they managed it, but in July 1986, someone frogmarched Paddy onto a 747 for the 12 hour flight to Narita, Tokyo, and Prefab Sprout became an intercontinental band.

Not that they were quite at the level of some of their peers: Paddy explained in a 2013 interview that having been besieged in a restaurant by fans, it turned out that the reason was that Aha! were dining there too (I had a similar experience myself some years ago when I was mobbed by fans looking for some obscure English boy band on the same flight). But nonetheless, no one quite gets excited by music like Japanese fans, and moreover no one reissues the Prefab Sprout back catalogue at quite the frequency of Sony Japan either. So something must have worked.

And as I’m just about to retrace the same path – Tokyo and Osaka – for a business trip starting tomorrow, it seems a perfect opportunity to put together a little photo album from the trip, including some taken from magazines, but also from a little set of snaps received from the guitar roadie, Bob Edwards, via John Birch, which show the band and entourage off duty.

Also worth a reminder that one of the concerts was broadcast on FM Radio, and can be heard here.

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