Well, Country Gold is next week at Aspecta in Minami Aso on Sunday,October 21st. Starts at 9 am and tickets are 8,000 yen on the day of the show. This festival is in it’s thirtieth year and at first it was drawing first tier acts along with big crowds. The crowds have gotten sparser over the years maybe due to bands that might be considered a second tier band playing or a non-major label band headliner and even a somewhat pricy ticket charge.This year’s headliner is Rounder Records Dailey & Vincent. They sound like a great mix of old school country, gospel and bluegrass. Here is their Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dailey_%26_Vincent . Also here is a video of Charlie Nagatani playing at last year’s festival. https://youtu.be/E5PshCMAHug . Music has alway been a hard business and it’s super duper harder now. Some recommendations would be to make this festival more diverse. Add all kinds of country influenced bands out there like The Mavericks, Calexico, Ryan Adams, X, Rev. Horton Heat,Wanda Jackson with some of the more older almost retiring acts that are looking for one more ride into the sunset. And let’s not forget some good ol’ Japanese bands that can play some killer country and hell…I would throw some Japanese Rockabilly in there too.Jay Onyskin