RADWIMPS Concerts Setlist

From high school friends in Kanagawa, in Japan, to soundtrack superstars, it's been a Cinderella Japanese rock story if ever there was one. RADWIMPS' band name combines "rad" and "wimp"-quite appropriate for an excellent but ever-so-humble mix that gained a huge number of fans across the world since the year 2003.

It started in 2001 with five middle school friends jamming together. Lead vocalist Yojiro Noda caught the music bug after being introduced to Oasis, and soon they were performing on the streets of Yokohama. Their first actual big break came when they won the grand prize at the Yokohama High School Music Festival with "Moshi mo." That victory led to their first single - 10k copies sold for just 100 yen each.

The band hit pause while members finished school but came back stronger in 2004 with new blood: drummer Satoshi Yamaguchi and bassist Yusuke Takeda. After building buzz independently, they inked a deal with Toshiba EMI in 2005. Their third album "Radwimps 3" kicked open doors, but 2006's "Radwimps 4" truly launched them into Japan's spotlight.

Then the anime came. Their soundtrack to Makoto Shinkai's "Your Name" in 2016 made them worldwide phenoms. The album made the Billboard's World Charts and went Double Platinum in Japan. They followed up with music for "Weathering with You" and "Suzume," putting a cross-sectional stamp on both the rock and film worlds.

The grooves kept being groovy with evolving lineups and the loss of guitarist Akira Kuwahara in 2024 (and beyond). They even sported a punk persona; Brasht Kudn included monocles and red shirts, for instance. They went from high school dreamers to stadium fillers, showing that sometimes the best rock comes from mixing the rad with the wimp.