Words and photos by Aki Fujita Taguchi

Proofreading by Yosuke Taguchi

Tal Wilkenfeld played a special show at Billboard Live Tokyo on Wednesday night in support of her latest album “Love Remains”.

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Tal Wilkenfeld was born in December 1986 in Sydney, Australia. She picked up a guitar when she was 14, then moved to LA to study guitar. Next year she switched to bass. After she graduated from music school in LA, she moved to NY and started to play at jazz clubs. She was often called as “instrumental prodigy” with her incredible technique. She has been playing with legendary jazz and rock musicians like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Jeff Beck, Prince, Steve Lukather, and many more.

She released her debut vocal album “Love Remains” in March 2018, which was critically acclaimed and reached No.1 on the Billboard Heatseeker charts on the first week of its release. She is currently on tour with this album.

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Billboard Live is one of the best venues to enjoy cool music with nice foods and drinks in Tokyo. The venue is always filled with great atmosphere and vibes. On this night, the fans came here to witness the incredibly talented Tal Wilkenfeld.

She appeared on stage with metallic-colored suites and “her signature” lovely curly hair. The band started the show with “Killing Me”. The audience welcomed her cool rock groove. Her stage presence was so impressive, and the distance between the genius Tal and us was so close that we were almost overwhelmed.

Most of the set was played from her latest album, and they added some cover songs. She played different instruments by each song, so we were able to enjoy her emotional voice, technical bass playing, rich guitar tone… What a gorgeous night!

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Tal never forgot to talk to the crowd with her heart-melting smile. She even talked to us in Japanese. We entirely got hooked on her! And we sang “Happy Birthday” together for Keyboard player Chris. That was a very intimate and enjoyable moment. Further, she performed a long improvisation with drummer Tamir and satisfied her bass playing fans.

The most touching part of the show for me was the melancholy ballad “One Thing After Another”. Under a simple white spotlight, she played an amazing acoustic guitar.

She proved her unlimited talent, not just as a great bass player, also as a singer-songwriter through this album and tour. Her change of musical direction was good surprise for us. I’m sure she will continue to be warmly accepted by fans, and I already can’t wait her next album. How will she surprise us next?