I have been totally devastated to know Ms. Sawako Ito passed away earlier this month. As mentioned on my profile, this tribute project started by her request. Without her, this band would never have existed. As a Michael Schenker fan, I came to know her in the Schenker community. But, later I found she was also a big queen fan, especially Freddie Mercury.

She has been a big supporter to my Michael Schenker fansite and she, at the same time, has been the most important fan of my music. Although she lived far away (about 500km) from me, she came all the way to see the concerts of my bands by airplane every time. I met her in person for the first time at the show of Dr. Bottom/Luemetal in March 2001, and then I met her again at the Assault Attack Acoustic live in June 2002. Even while she was living under medical treatment, she flew all the way to see my gig in August 2003 (Queen of the Deep live), and my show in January 2004 (M2SZ live), which was the last time I saw her. How could you believe she flew to see the concerts of one amateur guitarist four times? I can never thank her enough. Actually she was considering to come and see the debut live of Pueen. Her doctor said to her that it was not a bad thing to go to Tokyo for a change of air. However, she gave up the idea because the test results were not good enough at that time. One small mercy for me is that I could presented to her our demo CD/DVD and she really enjoyed listening to and viewing it. She posted her message about the CD/DVD on our Japanese website on November 17. This was her last message.

I believed she was getting better. I have been really grieving at this sad news. I would sincerely would like to extend my condelence to her family and friends.

Rest in Peace,

R.B.Araki