Having Fun with CHAI

CHAI in the glowing lights of Fountain Street Church, Grand Rapids, MI, February 2020. Photo courtesy of Keith Jacobsen.

In the earlier edition of the Plum Indie Blog, I went into gushing detail about the sensational Run River North pre-pandemic concert, but that show was the penultimate one. There was one more concert, one final musical outing before the shutdown. In February 2020, I had unknowingly taken my last airplane trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan. In hindsight, I guess it was a bit prescient to visit family on this out-of-town excursion, as I still have yet to see many relatives now. On that trip to GR, I stayed with my sister, Mary, a younger, chicer version of myself, and her husband, and my brother-in-law, Keith Jacobsen. Mary introduced Keith into our family fold many years ago and he has become our resident music maven. Keith is a music critic extraordinaire—he listens, he collects, he shares his favorites. Keith is the guy sitting next to you at a concert who is sporting an even cooler concert T-shirt than the show you’re currently attending. Occasionally, I think I’ve discovered a rare plum indie find, which Keith couldn’t possibly have heard of yet, only to find that he not only knows the band, but has listened through their entire catalog, chatted about them on a podcast, and knows when their upcoming tour will bring them to a local venue near me.

So, lo and behold, Keith had two tickets for a show, the band Whitney at Grand Rapid’s Fountain Street Church, and invited me along. Between you and me, I’m pretty sure Keith has in his possession two tickets to some event or other at all times. Suffice it to say, I know nothing of Whitney, and I certainly don’t know that Whitney comes with CHAI as an opener. I was along for the ride—and it was an interesting, head-scratching one.

Fountain Street Church—a venerable part of GR’s robust music scene that once hosted B.B. King, King Crimson, and U2—is an intimate, multi-tasking venue reminiscent of Saint Andrew’s Hall in Detroit and that North London church where Michael Kiwanuka played, which I now know to be St. Luke’s Kentish Town. The church/concert hall has a wonderful airy ambiance, dark and mysterious with a touch of playful grittiness from the pastiche of live acts that have graced its altar/stage.

Indeed, the Whitney-CHAI event made for an interesting, entertaining show, but it had slipped my mind—lost in the COVID haze of uncertainty and masks and toilet-paper shortages. That is until I happened upon an article in the New York Times last month. I quickly texted Keith…Holy shit! It’s CHAI!...That quirky opening band from that otherwise mellow concert in that repurposed church in the height of winter moments before the pandemic shutdown. I am again bewildered, remembering that head-scratching show…the swirling colors, the moving in unison, the repeated shouts of “WE ARE CHAI!” echoing around the communal space. I remember, too, the smile on my face as I sat there thinking, so this is CHAI…

I must admit to being a little bit proud that, of the two of us, I was the one who had rediscovered CHAI, but I needed Keith to help me get my head around it all. So, I asked him what he thought of the show, the last concert for both of us, as well as the last event at the Fountain Street Church, before the COVID shutdown. He said it was pretty “memorable” and CHAI “seemed really excited to be there.” I probed further and asked him how he would classify CHAI, and he said, “The show we saw seemed a bit more punk than the new album.” I agree. The new album, Wink, released in May on Sub Pop, is heavily laden with pop, such as the song “Maybe Chocolate Chips,” which Keith, a frequent contributor to the Rockin’ the Suburbs podcast, introduced to hosts Patrick Foster and Jim Lenahan in a recent episode. Keith isn’t particularly fond of the band’s name, as it conjures up images of warm, spicy drinks, though I can see that it has a sort of symmetry with “Maybe Chocolate Chips” and “Donuts Mind If I Do,” another song from the new album.

“With their high-octane stage show, upbeat melodies, and matching mono-color outfits, I think the main thing I know about CHAI is that they are thoroughly enjoying themselves.”

After that New York Times article, my brain reacquainted with CHAI, the Japanese pop-punk band began to bob to the surface from other depths…an article in Under the Radar’s April/May/June 2021 issue, an interview on NPR’s All Things Cons in May 2021. CHAI is made up of a quartet of women: Yuna on drums, Yuuki on bass, Kana on guitar, and Mana on lead vocals and keyboard. From the New York Times article, the band calls their musical mix of pop, punk, hip-hop, and all sorts of other infused influences “just CHAI,” which helps to explain my inability to get my head around their live show.

To understand is to learn and listen, so another song from CHAI’s Wink album, “Nobody Knows We Are Fun,” is my pick for this edition of the Plum Indie Blog. I like the paradox between the lyrics of this song and the bands playful persona. With their high-octane stage show, upbeat melodies, and matching mono-color outfits, I think the main thing I know about CHAI is that they are thoroughly enjoying themselves. And Keith concurred, “Yeah, it looks like they are having fun.” Because of their sugar-pop-punk show, it is easy enough to assume that the band’s message lies on its gumball surface and doesn’t venture any deeper. However, I discovered that CHAI has created their own positive, self-embracing message called “neo-kawaii” or “new cute” in response to “kawaii,” a narrow standard of feminine beauty in Japan. This, I understand. As a woman, as a human being. Deciding to accept yourself for who you are, busting through gender stereotypes and societal norms, is as universal as chai tea.  

My research didn’t answer all of my CHAI questions, however. In particular, I couldn’t decipher how the band Whitney ended up touring with CHAI. CHAI delivered a fun, energy-laden punk-pop show in live technicolor. Whitney, on the other hand, an indie duo from Chicago, sent out a subdued, relaxed vibe without much audience interaction. ‘Tis another paradox I pondered from my seat in the Fountain Street Church, as Whitney played and the energy created by CHAI drifted away, up to the rafters, through the kaleidoscopic stained-glass windows, and out into the frigid Michigan night. Don’t get me wrong: Whitney is a fine band; I was just expecting a much different act to follow CHAI.

So, CHAI is CHAI is CHAI…a paradox of ideas, a genre unto itself, a quartet wrapped in candied fun. Sprinkle a dash of CHAI into your day; listen to “Nobody Knows We Are Fun” wherever you get your music and check out Keith Jacobsen on a recent episode of Rockin’ the Suburbs, “Kalamazoo Songs.”