Jrock Revolution Day #2
Yeah, I'm going to bore you all with my live report too. But it's me that's writing, so expect cracks on other peoples' stupidity, etc.
Basically the gist of my morning was I got up at 6:30 am or so to sort out all the crap that I needed and exited my friend's house as Tatsurou. We had to stop by Staples to pick up my fanboard, which they fucked up because the lamination was peeling, horribly. Nevertheless, I still walked out of there nearly forty dollars poorer than when I walked in. And so began the wonderous car ride, in which people in cars left and right of us on the highway stared. Hard.
Why?
Well, there was an adorable lolita and a girl in a regular white dress (driver) in front, but in the back there was a punk kid and DEATH (aka Me). We were dropped off in front of the Wiltern theatre, and abruptly attacked greeted by people who recognized me. It was the first of the wave of attacks greetings from strangers that gave me eye diarrhea who recognized me from myspace. A ridiculous amount of people said things like "OHHH!!!! YOU'RE TRAUMA RADIO!" and I responded with "...who the fuck are you, kid with acne? D:" in my mind (because I'm rather polite in real life). Anywho, my group and I slowly gathered signatures, starting from the front of the line and moving our way back. However, during this time, the group began to EXPONENTIATE. Meaning, every time I turned around, there would be a NEW AND EXCITING FACE (none of whom I was really introduced to, they just assimilated....?). I resorted to keeping track of people by their hair style and anything else that would come to mind. Ie, "guy without a mullet", "guy with orange hair", "kid with sunglasses", "the quiet dude", "girl with headband", etc.
Skip ahead an hour or so and we're gang kancho-ing anyone and everyone (1,000 x 2152599877 years of paiinnn), chasing buses with the giant 2x3 ft MUCC fanboard yelling "NO MUCC, NO LIFE!", hard gay hip thrusting at passing cars, and generally entertaining ourselves in any way possible. My group was also interviewed by Roger Shackleford of Tainted Reality and then Fuse (some popular music television network like MTV?). It was rather interesting and the people of Fuse were realllyyyyyy nice. They offered to personally make sure that MUCC gets the fanboard.
Oh, I guess I should add that I got them all individual gifts as well. Yukke got a Jack Skellington bag where the tuxedo was covered by logos of bands like METALLICA, KoRn, System of a Down, Slipknot, Linkin Park, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a ton of other names that I remember them mentioning before. I really wanted a bag like that for myself, but it was the very last one. I'm hoping that Tatsurou won't draw all over it. :/ Well, for Miya, I bought him an earring that's sort of a flame design. Satochi received two pendants, one had two halves of a skull embossed in black on either side of the pewter. The other necklace was a tribal design of a flaming sun in really brilliantly polished silver. Tatsurou's gift was a silver grim reaper pendant that just screams cool~
Skip ahead some more to being INSIDE the venue. Well, let's just say that the people who work at the Wiltern are complete asses. No doubt. I headed to the merchandise table and ended up buying two THE BRILLIANT tour shirts (one for my brother, the other for a friend~) and one DVLSHYRS photobook (that is, after getting thrashed, contorted, and crushed into the glass display cases by asshats around me). I might have splurged more, and in retrospect, I probably should have bought that D'espairs Ray bag. It would have been handy, really handy. Afterwards, we headed to the concert hall itself.
Merry played first and my first impression was "man, Nero is really energetic!" They were very good, as expected, but I wasn't familiar enough with the songs to truly sing along (I stopped listening to them a while back and I'm not even sure why!). I love their style a lot, it's very refreshing to see a band pave their own genre. At one point, they stopped playing and Gara did calligraphy. Hahaha. He wrote 「ハロー」 (haroo/hello) and everyone went crazy (I suspect that even the people who couldn't understand were screaming. Haha). And then he wrote "Me" on the top half of another sheet and "rry" on the bottom half in fancy Gara style handwriting. It took me a second to figure out what the hell it said. Haha. I was expecting more Japanese.
Next was Girugamesh and wow, everyone was very excited for them. I was able to sing along to everything they played, despite the fact that I don't care for them much anymore.... Sel'm took their place instead, sorry. Nevertheless, they played really well and Satoshi had great stage presence. People were doing some hardcore handbanging and moshing to their songs. It got really violent during Volcano and Shadan, and around that time was when Ultraman showed up. No, I shit you not, some guy with an Ultraman mask came and thrashed everyone. I think by the end of the night, he was in the front. Haha
Fukai no yami was also very intense, Satoshi sang really well. Despite the fact that his range is rather limited, he's very good at working around it. Owari to mirai was the song before Fukai no yami...and while everyone else loved it, I thought it was rather boring. I wish they would have played Rei -zero-.
Satoshi also spoke to us in Engrish... had no idea what he was saying though, because it was pretty much all drowned out by the senseless screaming that happened every time he opened his mouth (and before he actually formed any words).
After Giru was D'espairs Ray. They played well, but I wasn't very interested in their performance for two reasons: I had the living daylights thrashed out of me by people who suck at moshing, and then people in my group started fainting/feeling sick. I was also being deprived of oxygen, being stuck in between two morbidly obese girls who very well could have sat on me to incapacitate me. ....it was wonderful. The highlight of their performance was SIXTY∞NINE though because so many people were singing along and dancing. Haha.
Finally, finally, MUCC was up. They had the coolest entrance of course. And I was so right, everyone was anticipating MUCC's performance most of all! At first, they were playing clips from various DVDs, including the photage from Otakon 2006. Ahaha, and I was there, on the screen~ Then after a few minutes, the screen went up and MUCC's logo came up. Holy shit dude, so many people were shouting at JUST the appearance of a LOGO. A few minutes later, they all came out one by one. I'm not really sure who got the most screams, but there seemed to be a ton of Satochi fans!! They were all dressed rather nicely too, Yukke looked very smartly dressed and Tatsurou's new hair looks amazing.
The first song was Rave Circus, which the audience clapped along to and moved about. It was played during their entrance so the anticipation was really building up. After they took their places, they launched right into Gokusai and Jesus fuck me, I knew that they were going to be amazing that night. Tatsurou's voice was pitch perfect, strong, clear, and most of all, LOUD. That man has an amazing set of lungs. When he growled, it was thunderous and everyone around me was singing along. To every song. That's what really slayed me.
The next song they played was Rojiura boku to kimi he, which has always been a favourite of mine. I love how the music composition itself is able to carry so much angst and sound so dark even without the presence of vocal narration. I think that's part of the reason why I have so much respect for MUCC. I can listen to just the music and still get the story. I loved watching them headbang (full body) and rock out, they always do it in synch and it's really the coolest thing to see.
Tatsurou talked to us a bit, the whole "We're ムック" speech. It was basically the same things he said at Otakon, and I knew it so well that I was mouthing along. XD;; After the whole "Do you want more?" and shouting, they launched into D.O.G. It's a really fun song live! I was expecting Tatsurou to break out with his ass dance any moment~
He also made us sing along with him. He would do random "yeah yeah yeah"s to some random tune he made up and we would imitate it. It was really fun and Tatsurou was smirking the entire time. :D
Kuukyo na heya was after D.O.G. -- also another one of my favourites. Tatsurou's growling made every other vocalist there sound like little girls in comparison. I was seriously reminded of their Otakon performance and was jumping and headbanging a lot to this song.
Afterwards, they played Saishuu Ressha (Houyoku version), which is always a crowd favourite. I'm surprised that people didn't go crazy, Californian fans are so tame! Everyone sang along, dancing in place~ When the song ended, they took a little stage break... because...
...THE STAGE CREW BROUGHT OUT YUKKE'S DOUBLE BASS!
Holy shit, I was going crazy at that point. I'm surprised that I didn't start drooling. It took another minute or so for them to take their places and the lights went dim for their next song: 25ji no yuutsu. And let me tell you, that song is so fucking sexy live.
Especially with the lights. Ohhh man, the lighting was just sensual, and Yukke was just amazing. I love the man even more. I basically tuned out everything but Yukke's bass. The band was so good, but that song was all Yukke. Around the time that Tatsurou started shouting, Yukke fucking rocked out on that monstrous bass that was taller than he was (by tipping it on its side)!
And Jesus fuck me if that wasn't the highlight of the night. You know how Miya rocks out on guitar, flinging himself everywhere? That's what Yukke did. With that bass.
Sexiest. Performance. Everrrrr.
They had another MC afterwards, promising us that they'd be back. Soon. Do I sense a tour? When MUCC says soon, they do tend to deliver.
Well, nothing topped 25ji no yuutsu, but Libra was close. Tatsurou hit those notes really well, but I felt like he was restraining himself. He didn't HOLD his notes for as long as he usually does. That was kind of disappointing, nevertheless, the performance itself was good.
For the last song, they played Ryuusei. Tatsurou was trying really hard to get everyone to quiet down so he could say it was the very last song, but people were screaming every time he put his finger to his lips. Hahaha
Ryuusei was beautiful though, quite a few people said they teared up (and one guy was bawling). I was right in front of Yukke for this performance and he was his usual smiley self.
I'm pretty sure their set lasted the longest, but it still felt so short. I was expecting Daikirai somewhere in there, but surprisingly they didn't play it. I also really wanted G.M.C or even a ballad like Touei -- something to show off Tatsurou's impressive range and vocal acting. I suspect that I probably would have been in tears if they performed Touei or Kimi ni sachi are.
I'm so lucky to have seen them again. T___T
Basically the gist of my morning was I got up at 6:30 am or so to sort out all the crap that I needed and exited my friend's house as Tatsurou. We had to stop by Staples to pick up my fanboard, which they fucked up because the lamination was peeling, horribly. Nevertheless, I still walked out of there nearly forty dollars poorer than when I walked in. And so began the wonderous car ride, in which people in cars left and right of us on the highway stared. Hard.
Why?
Well, there was an adorable lolita and a girl in a regular white dress (driver) in front, but in the back there was a punk kid and DEATH (aka Me). We were dropped off in front of the Wiltern theatre, and abruptly attacked greeted by people who recognized me. It was the first of the wave of attacks greetings from strangers that gave me eye diarrhea who recognized me from myspace. A ridiculous amount of people said things like "OHHH!!!! YOU'RE TRAUMA RADIO!" and I responded with "...who the fuck are you, kid with acne? D:" in my mind (because I'm rather polite in real life). Anywho, my group and I slowly gathered signatures, starting from the front of the line and moving our way back. However, during this time, the group began to EXPONENTIATE. Meaning, every time I turned around, there would be a NEW AND EXCITING FACE (none of whom I was really introduced to, they just assimilated....?). I resorted to keeping track of people by their hair style and anything else that would come to mind. Ie, "guy without a mullet", "guy with orange hair", "kid with sunglasses", "the quiet dude", "girl with headband", etc.
Skip ahead an hour or so and we're gang kancho-ing anyone and everyone (1,000 x 2152599877 years of paiinnn), chasing buses with the giant 2x3 ft MUCC fanboard yelling "NO MUCC, NO LIFE!", hard gay hip thrusting at passing cars, and generally entertaining ourselves in any way possible. My group was also interviewed by Roger Shackleford of Tainted Reality and then Fuse (some popular music television network like MTV?). It was rather interesting and the people of Fuse were realllyyyyyy nice. They offered to personally make sure that MUCC gets the fanboard.
Oh, I guess I should add that I got them all individual gifts as well. Yukke got a Jack Skellington bag where the tuxedo was covered by logos of bands like METALLICA, KoRn, System of a Down, Slipknot, Linkin Park, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a ton of other names that I remember them mentioning before. I really wanted a bag like that for myself, but it was the very last one. I'm hoping that Tatsurou won't draw all over it. :/ Well, for Miya, I bought him an earring that's sort of a flame design. Satochi received two pendants, one had two halves of a skull embossed in black on either side of the pewter. The other necklace was a tribal design of a flaming sun in really brilliantly polished silver. Tatsurou's gift was a silver grim reaper pendant that just screams cool~
Skip ahead some more to being INSIDE the venue. Well, let's just say that the people who work at the Wiltern are complete asses. No doubt. I headed to the merchandise table and ended up buying two THE BRILLIANT tour shirts (one for my brother, the other for a friend~) and one DVLSHYRS photobook (that is, after getting thrashed, contorted, and crushed into the glass display cases by asshats around me). I might have splurged more, and in retrospect, I probably should have bought that D'espairs Ray bag. It would have been handy, really handy. Afterwards, we headed to the concert hall itself.
Merry played first and my first impression was "man, Nero is really energetic!" They were very good, as expected, but I wasn't familiar enough with the songs to truly sing along (I stopped listening to them a while back and I'm not even sure why!). I love their style a lot, it's very refreshing to see a band pave their own genre. At one point, they stopped playing and Gara did calligraphy. Hahaha. He wrote 「ハロー」 (haroo/hello) and everyone went crazy (I suspect that even the people who couldn't understand were screaming. Haha). And then he wrote "Me" on the top half of another sheet and "rry" on the bottom half in fancy Gara style handwriting. It took me a second to figure out what the hell it said. Haha. I was expecting more Japanese.
Next was Girugamesh and wow, everyone was very excited for them. I was able to sing along to everything they played, despite the fact that I don't care for them much anymore.... Sel'm took their place instead, sorry. Nevertheless, they played really well and Satoshi had great stage presence. People were doing some hardcore handbanging and moshing to their songs. It got really violent during Volcano and Shadan, and around that time was when Ultraman showed up. No, I shit you not, some guy with an Ultraman mask came and thrashed everyone. I think by the end of the night, he was in the front. Haha
Fukai no yami was also very intense, Satoshi sang really well. Despite the fact that his range is rather limited, he's very good at working around it. Owari to mirai was the song before Fukai no yami...and while everyone else loved it, I thought it was rather boring. I wish they would have played Rei -zero-.
Satoshi also spoke to us in Engrish... had no idea what he was saying though, because it was pretty much all drowned out by the senseless screaming that happened every time he opened his mouth (and before he actually formed any words).
After Giru was D'espairs Ray. They played well, but I wasn't very interested in their performance for two reasons: I had the living daylights thrashed out of me by people who suck at moshing, and then people in my group started fainting/feeling sick. I was also being deprived of oxygen, being stuck in between two morbidly obese girls who very well could have sat on me to incapacitate me. ....it was wonderful. The highlight of their performance was SIXTY∞NINE though because so many people were singing along and dancing. Haha.
Finally, finally, MUCC was up. They had the coolest entrance of course. And I was so right, everyone was anticipating MUCC's performance most of all! At first, they were playing clips from various DVDs, including the photage from Otakon 2006. Ahaha, and I was there, on the screen~ Then after a few minutes, the screen went up and MUCC's logo came up. Holy shit dude, so many people were shouting at JUST the appearance of a LOGO. A few minutes later, they all came out one by one. I'm not really sure who got the most screams, but there seemed to be a ton of Satochi fans!! They were all dressed rather nicely too, Yukke looked very smartly dressed and Tatsurou's new hair looks amazing.
The first song was Rave Circus, which the audience clapped along to and moved about. It was played during their entrance so the anticipation was really building up. After they took their places, they launched right into Gokusai and Jesus fuck me, I knew that they were going to be amazing that night. Tatsurou's voice was pitch perfect, strong, clear, and most of all, LOUD. That man has an amazing set of lungs. When he growled, it was thunderous and everyone around me was singing along. To every song. That's what really slayed me.
The next song they played was Rojiura boku to kimi he, which has always been a favourite of mine. I love how the music composition itself is able to carry so much angst and sound so dark even without the presence of vocal narration. I think that's part of the reason why I have so much respect for MUCC. I can listen to just the music and still get the story. I loved watching them headbang (full body) and rock out, they always do it in synch and it's really the coolest thing to see.
Tatsurou talked to us a bit, the whole "We're ムック" speech. It was basically the same things he said at Otakon, and I knew it so well that I was mouthing along. XD;; After the whole "Do you want more?" and shouting, they launched into D.O.G. It's a really fun song live! I was expecting Tatsurou to break out with his ass dance any moment~
He also made us sing along with him. He would do random "yeah yeah yeah"s to some random tune he made up and we would imitate it. It was really fun and Tatsurou was smirking the entire time. :D
Kuukyo na heya was after D.O.G. -- also another one of my favourites. Tatsurou's growling made every other vocalist there sound like little girls in comparison. I was seriously reminded of their Otakon performance and was jumping and headbanging a lot to this song.
Afterwards, they played Saishuu Ressha (Houyoku version), which is always a crowd favourite. I'm surprised that people didn't go crazy, Californian fans are so tame! Everyone sang along, dancing in place~ When the song ended, they took a little stage break... because...
...THE STAGE CREW BROUGHT OUT YUKKE'S DOUBLE BASS!
Holy shit, I was going crazy at that point. I'm surprised that I didn't start drooling. It took another minute or so for them to take their places and the lights went dim for their next song: 25ji no yuutsu. And let me tell you, that song is so fucking sexy live.
Especially with the lights. Ohhh man, the lighting was just sensual, and Yukke was just amazing. I love the man even more. I basically tuned out everything but Yukke's bass. The band was so good, but that song was all Yukke. Around the time that Tatsurou started shouting, Yukke fucking rocked out on that monstrous bass that was taller than he was (by tipping it on its side)!
And Jesus fuck me if that wasn't the highlight of the night. You know how Miya rocks out on guitar, flinging himself everywhere? That's what Yukke did. With that bass.
Sexiest. Performance. Everrrrr.
They had another MC afterwards, promising us that they'd be back. Soon. Do I sense a tour? When MUCC says soon, they do tend to deliver.
Well, nothing topped 25ji no yuutsu, but Libra was close. Tatsurou hit those notes really well, but I felt like he was restraining himself. He didn't HOLD his notes for as long as he usually does. That was kind of disappointing, nevertheless, the performance itself was good.
For the last song, they played Ryuusei. Tatsurou was trying really hard to get everyone to quiet down so he could say it was the very last song, but people were screaming every time he put his finger to his lips. Hahaha
Ryuusei was beautiful though, quite a few people said they teared up (and one guy was bawling). I was right in front of Yukke for this performance and he was his usual smiley self.
I'm pretty sure their set lasted the longest, but it still felt so short. I was expecting Daikirai somewhere in there, but surprisingly they didn't play it. I also really wanted G.M.C or even a ballad like Touei -- something to show off Tatsurou's impressive range and vocal acting. I suspect that I probably would have been in tears if they performed Touei or Kimi ni sachi are.
I'm so lucky to have seen them again. T___T