A Tokyo Concert Report
Hey, so I've not seen any reviews of the Tokyo Summersonic show and so I thought I'd share what I saw there in poorly constructed sentences.
First you can't really talk about the My Chem performance without talking about what happened before them.
NIN were the second to last band. They're in the midst of their 'Wave Goodbye' before they apparently stop touring so, of course, the place was full of NIN fans. A song or two into the NIN set the heavens opened in the kind of downpour that soaks you to the skin in about 3 seconds flat. And it didn't really let up. There was probably thunder (I didn't hear it over the band, who were on), there was definitely lightening. By the end of their set there was 2 inches of standing water all over the plastic floor covering, a lot of very wet people and a half hour break before My Chem came on.
A lot of people left then, or retreated to the high up covered seats at the furthest edges of the stadium. Plus Japanese audiences are very quiet. Gerard even tried riling everyone up by saying we must be so quiet because we didn't like him and getting us to chant 'Fuck You Gerard'. Not many people joined in with that. He said he still loved us anyway.
Chem started spotlit from behind a curtain in dramatic 'rock' poses as the rain eased off.
The setlist has already been posted so I'll just say how happy I was to hear all the Revenge songs
The massive MCR backdrop came down pretty early on to reveal the Japanese one.
OMG how hot was all the pyro? I was pleased Bob didn't get set on fire again during FLW, he stood up at the end of that one to take a bow.
Mikey was in his element, smiling and stomping around in front of Frankie and Gerard, and Ray
Gerard was looking very beautiful (even though I don't think he'd brushed his hair since the Roxy show, he still had that annoying roostery bit going on at the back).
At one point Ray directed Gerard's attention to this massive Ring o' Roses style circle going on on the floor.
Bob was on a mission with his srs bsns headband.
Ray got a lot of rock god spotlight solo moments.
I was on Frank's side and only saw him throw himself to the floor once. He looks so little when he comes and puts a foot up on the monitors
Towards the end Gerard appeared in the middle of the crowd (there was a divider keeping the left and right halves apart) everyone surged towards him so I went from being 40odd people back from the stage, to being 7 or so people back from the singer! While he was fixing up his mic there he told us 'Isn't this cool? This was all Bob's idea'. He named checked James from out there too. Then he looked around and said something about how 'now he was out here he didn't know which way to face...' he ended up facing my way. So that's where he sang Cancer.
When they finished with Helena there was a great big fireworks display over the stage and by then the rain had pretty much stopped.
So yeah, it wasn't a huge stadium conquering call to arms, like we know they can deliver, it was more like a lock in at your fave pub where only the cool kids stay behind and you get control of the juke box and can sit up on the bar while helping yourself to packets of peanuts and watch your mates dance themselves silly between the empty tables.
First you can't really talk about the My Chem performance without talking about what happened before them.
NIN were the second to last band. They're in the midst of their 'Wave Goodbye' before they apparently stop touring so, of course, the place was full of NIN fans. A song or two into the NIN set the heavens opened in the kind of downpour that soaks you to the skin in about 3 seconds flat. And it didn't really let up. There was probably thunder (I didn't hear it over the band, who were on), there was definitely lightening. By the end of their set there was 2 inches of standing water all over the plastic floor covering, a lot of very wet people and a half hour break before My Chem came on.
A lot of people left then, or retreated to the high up covered seats at the furthest edges of the stadium. Plus Japanese audiences are very quiet. Gerard even tried riling everyone up by saying we must be so quiet because we didn't like him and getting us to chant 'Fuck You Gerard'. Not many people joined in with that. He said he still loved us anyway.
Chem started spotlit from behind a curtain in dramatic 'rock' poses as the rain eased off.
The setlist has already been posted so I'll just say how happy I was to hear all the Revenge songs
The massive MCR backdrop came down pretty early on to reveal the Japanese one.
OMG how hot was all the pyro? I was pleased Bob didn't get set on fire again during FLW, he stood up at the end of that one to take a bow.
Mikey was in his element, smiling and stomping around in front of Frankie and Gerard, and Ray
Gerard was looking very beautiful (even though I don't think he'd brushed his hair since the Roxy show, he still had that annoying roostery bit going on at the back).
At one point Ray directed Gerard's attention to this massive Ring o' Roses style circle going on on the floor.
Bob was on a mission with his srs bsns headband.
Ray got a lot of rock god spotlight solo moments.
I was on Frank's side and only saw him throw himself to the floor once. He looks so little when he comes and puts a foot up on the monitors
Towards the end Gerard appeared in the middle of the crowd (there was a divider keeping the left and right halves apart) everyone surged towards him so I went from being 40odd people back from the stage, to being 7 or so people back from the singer! While he was fixing up his mic there he told us 'Isn't this cool? This was all Bob's idea'. He named checked James from out there too. Then he looked around and said something about how 'now he was out here he didn't know which way to face...' he ended up facing my way. So that's where he sang Cancer.
When they finished with Helena there was a great big fireworks display over the stage and by then the rain had pretty much stopped.
So yeah, it wasn't a huge stadium conquering call to arms, like we know they can deliver, it was more like a lock in at your fave pub where only the cool kids stay behind and you get control of the juke box and can sit up on the bar while helping yourself to packets of peanuts and watch your mates dance themselves silly between the empty tables.