[Concert Report] I SAW GACKT MOTHERFUCKERS!
For those linked from dears , sorry for any ramble. It's not purely a gig report but also a blog.
Well, yesterday was the Attack of the Yellow Fried Chickenz tour in London and, as many of you know, I went.
I'm going to start by saying that Gackt was freaking AMAZING and well worth every penny of the £42 we paid for the tickets. Most of the people around us in the queue had bought their tickets from touts and scalpers on ebay however, and thus had paid somewhere in the region of £100 per ticket. For a standing concert, I felt that was a little excessive, but then most of us were going with the "this is our only chance" mentality.
We arrived about two and a half hours early to find that there were about 300 people ahead of us already queueing. It wasn't that bad though. We made friends with a girl who was there on her own, whose name we didn't discover. She let me have some Kendal Mint Cake, so at least I had fresh minty breath to go into the venue.
We were allowed in promptly. I put my bag in the cloakroom because I had heels in them that I thought would be unsafe in the gig. I'm glad to say that the cloakroom facilities were fantastic and there were no issues for me or the other person I was with.
Unfortunately once inside the wait became rather long and tedious. We were in about the 10th row (we didn't buy any merchandise, deciding to wait until the end and then not bothering) and were rather worried because it seemed like we couldn't see a thing. The wait began to draw on. We had expected a support band of some nature to say that we entered the building at 6:30pm but there was nothing. I'm not sure what time Gackt came on, but by that point the crowd had definitely had enough waiting.
About fifteen minutes before Gackt came on there was a message from 'Gackt's secretary' basically reading out the rules of the show. It was done pretty awesomely in my opinion and made me laugh. A lot of it seemed like jibes at Gackt himself (no smoking, you should all quit//no passing out, you'll have to commit hanakiri). The audience is supposed to reply 'osu' but the majority of people around me had NO IDEA what that meant and made up their own responses. A lot of the chants throughout the night took on this, almost embarrassing, trait in which the fans had no idea what they were meant to be screaming so just made NOISE.
Pushing wasn't an issue where I was (on You's side of the stage) and we were mostly unbothered by the majority of pushing. I wasn't hit or anything and the only problem we had was a bit of inappropriate touching of my girlfriend by someone behind her. I actually had a lot of space in which to move about and was only pushed hard when Gackt first came onto the stage and when Gackt threw his shirt into the crowd and everyone moved to try to catch it.
The concert started with ZAN. I'm not going into set list, that's been done everywhere, but it was a good opening number. Really stoked up the crowd. In fact, the first half of the concert was, musically, far superior to the second half. A lot of the numbers were instantly recognisable to the old fans and even if they weren't, they were fast paced enough that we could at least have fun dancing/listening/moshing/jumping to them. The concert then slowed and I was expecting it to be picked up with some more older music. Unfortunately, despite still being awesome, everything lost momentum from there.
Gackt and his promoters probably didn't take into account that there were people there who were fans of him, perhaps in 2005 but who might not be up to date with recent stuff. As it was his first concert, I think a lot of fans were there 'for old time's sake' and expected him to play more of a 'greatest hits' style concert, performing things that we haven't seen live before. In this, Gackt disappointed. Although there were many of the older hits, there were embarrassing moments when Gackt opened the mic to the audience and no one knew the words. The reaction wouldn't have been the same if he had performed Vanilla, Mizerable, Secret Garden, Metamophoze, Last Song... the list goes on.
Also singing Mind Forest in English was a nice touch, but mostly made it incomprehensible. My girlfriend who is Japanese couldn't understand a word of it when I asked her what language it was in, and unfortunately I couldn't either. I sang along in Japanese. I assume that others could understand the words but from where I was it was just a melody. Unfortunate, because it definitely got the crowd going.
Gackt did do an encore and, despite shouts of Vanilla, it was not performed. The rumour of 'you haven't to shout for it if you want it' slightly disproved by the fact we were chanting and it didn't happen. Even so, we all seemed happy by the closing number. Gackt was given a Union Jack flag which made me laugh as it had "Gackt! You are my father! Pay my Mum maintenance!" on it. I would love to see his face when he translates that. Also his "OMG you guys are retarded" face when his band members couldn't get the flag the right way up was adorable.
Lots of stuff was thrown into the crowd throughout the concert. I know that most of the band threw in their ties, Gackt threw his shirt and numerous water bottles. Everyone threw their towels in as well as a few picks and bits of merchandises from the band. I managed to get Chirolyn's pick, which I clenched tightly in my fist and held to my chest to stop anyone from getting. I'm glad to say no one tried to get it from me. I'm glad I managed to get something from my favourite GacktJOB member.
Gackt and GacktJOB were electric. They seemed to really have a good time despite the small venue and they seemed to get really emotional at times. It felt intimate. And best of all...
He promised to come back.
Well, yesterday was the Attack of the Yellow Fried Chickenz tour in London and, as many of you know, I went.
I'm going to start by saying that Gackt was freaking AMAZING and well worth every penny of the £42 we paid for the tickets. Most of the people around us in the queue had bought their tickets from touts and scalpers on ebay however, and thus had paid somewhere in the region of £100 per ticket. For a standing concert, I felt that was a little excessive, but then most of us were going with the "this is our only chance" mentality.
We arrived about two and a half hours early to find that there were about 300 people ahead of us already queueing. It wasn't that bad though. We made friends with a girl who was there on her own, whose name we didn't discover. She let me have some Kendal Mint Cake, so at least I had fresh minty breath to go into the venue.
We were allowed in promptly. I put my bag in the cloakroom because I had heels in them that I thought would be unsafe in the gig. I'm glad to say that the cloakroom facilities were fantastic and there were no issues for me or the other person I was with.
Unfortunately once inside the wait became rather long and tedious. We were in about the 10th row (we didn't buy any merchandise, deciding to wait until the end and then not bothering) and were rather worried because it seemed like we couldn't see a thing. The wait began to draw on. We had expected a support band of some nature to say that we entered the building at 6:30pm but there was nothing. I'm not sure what time Gackt came on, but by that point the crowd had definitely had enough waiting.
About fifteen minutes before Gackt came on there was a message from 'Gackt's secretary' basically reading out the rules of the show. It was done pretty awesomely in my opinion and made me laugh. A lot of it seemed like jibes at Gackt himself (no smoking, you should all quit//no passing out, you'll have to commit hanakiri). The audience is supposed to reply 'osu' but the majority of people around me had NO IDEA what that meant and made up their own responses. A lot of the chants throughout the night took on this, almost embarrassing, trait in which the fans had no idea what they were meant to be screaming so just made NOISE.
Pushing wasn't an issue where I was (on You's side of the stage) and we were mostly unbothered by the majority of pushing. I wasn't hit or anything and the only problem we had was a bit of inappropriate touching of my girlfriend by someone behind her. I actually had a lot of space in which to move about and was only pushed hard when Gackt first came onto the stage and when Gackt threw his shirt into the crowd and everyone moved to try to catch it.
The concert started with ZAN. I'm not going into set list, that's been done everywhere, but it was a good opening number. Really stoked up the crowd. In fact, the first half of the concert was, musically, far superior to the second half. A lot of the numbers were instantly recognisable to the old fans and even if they weren't, they were fast paced enough that we could at least have fun dancing/listening/moshing/jumping to them. The concert then slowed and I was expecting it to be picked up with some more older music. Unfortunately, despite still being awesome, everything lost momentum from there.
Gackt and his promoters probably didn't take into account that there were people there who were fans of him, perhaps in 2005 but who might not be up to date with recent stuff. As it was his first concert, I think a lot of fans were there 'for old time's sake' and expected him to play more of a 'greatest hits' style concert, performing things that we haven't seen live before. In this, Gackt disappointed. Although there were many of the older hits, there were embarrassing moments when Gackt opened the mic to the audience and no one knew the words. The reaction wouldn't have been the same if he had performed Vanilla, Mizerable, Secret Garden, Metamophoze, Last Song... the list goes on.
Also singing Mind Forest in English was a nice touch, but mostly made it incomprehensible. My girlfriend who is Japanese couldn't understand a word of it when I asked her what language it was in, and unfortunately I couldn't either. I sang along in Japanese. I assume that others could understand the words but from where I was it was just a melody. Unfortunate, because it definitely got the crowd going.
Gackt did do an encore and, despite shouts of Vanilla, it was not performed. The rumour of 'you haven't to shout for it if you want it' slightly disproved by the fact we were chanting and it didn't happen. Even so, we all seemed happy by the closing number. Gackt was given a Union Jack flag which made me laugh as it had "Gackt! You are my father! Pay my Mum maintenance!" on it. I would love to see his face when he translates that. Also his "OMG you guys are retarded" face when his band members couldn't get the flag the right way up was adorable.
Lots of stuff was thrown into the crowd throughout the concert. I know that most of the band threw in their ties, Gackt threw his shirt and numerous water bottles. Everyone threw their towels in as well as a few picks and bits of merchandises from the band. I managed to get Chirolyn's pick, which I clenched tightly in my fist and held to my chest to stop anyone from getting. I'm glad to say no one tried to get it from me. I'm glad I managed to get something from my favourite GacktJOB member.
Gackt and GacktJOB were electric. They seemed to really have a good time despite the small venue and they seemed to get really emotional at times. It felt intimate. And best of all...
He promised to come back.