行かないで。。。
i may have a concussion but who cares! the 12012 live tonight was sooo awesome. they are just amazing live. wataru's voice is awesome, i'm so glad.
any qualms i had about going to see them at the convention in july are GONE. must, must see them again. will be sooo worth it.
except i suck and couldn't tell you what songs they played, cuz i'm bad with names of songs. besides, my skull was nearly cracked open multiple times by an overly enthusiastic 逆ダイブing japanese girl. they look small, but when they are throwing their entire weight on you, it's something to be reckoned with.
i lost one of my earrings and nearly died from dehydration, but does it matter???
i'll add the full report here laterz now.
it was another day i had no specific plans in the morning. or actually, that's not entirely right. i wanted to buy a new top that day. in this, i was successful.
i went to harajuku in the morning, thinking it would be a little less crowed on a sunday. it is, apparently, never *not* crowded on takeshita dori during the summer. there were also two groups of gaijin that i kept ending up in the same stores as. even *i* was uncomfortable in closet child when i realized that it was only gaijin in there. i can't even imagine how the tenin behind the counter felt.
i finally made my way to the side street with the deorart store cuz i wanted to get t-shirts there. luckily, there was no one else there. as per usual, i was immediately accosted by an overly helpful tenin who had a cute, squeaky voice and referred to me as お姉さん (usually they called you お客さん). was i really older than her? i'm not sure. but i got a kewl top (which is basically like what mar used to wear on stage but without sleaves and with a hood) along with a toxic rabbit shirt.
the rest of my day in harajuku wouldn't be of note except that i went to the h.naoto store. i knew i shouldn't have, i *wasn't* going to buy anything (which i didn't!), but! remember the gothiloli tenin from marui01 a few days earlier who "remembered" me? she was there! the store was relatively crowded so i wasn't accosted immediately or anything (for which i was grateful), but i noticed a tenin kinda following me about until she saw me look at the same shirt twice and she approached. of course, she knew it was >_< "wow, you really *do* like h.naoto, don't you!" it's soooo not fair, they're not allowed to switch stores!!! now that i think about it, this might also be the girl who helped me the first time i went to the naoto boutique in harajuku when i was searching for a new purse. we're totally bff now.
this was one of those concerts where you just let yourself go. you're crushed and hot and thirsty and feel like falling down dead, but as long as the music keeps playing you just can't stop. when the bands calls at you to head back, you grab the girl in front of you and just let go, despite the pain in your neck, and it's only then that you realize your hair is falling in sweaty strands all around you. but it doesn't matter because you're there and have gotten lost in the music.
it was total chance that i saw this live advertised on the shinjuku holiday site, cuz it's not listed on their official website or anything. i was super excited and got my ticket at lawson's and actually had a relatively good number (132 or some such). i was lined up on the second staircase/first landing. (they've changed the entrance to holiday so you come in through a staircase farther back in the building, not in from that basement entrance.
i got there a bit early and was herded in with the japanese fans. i figured there'd be at least one other gaijin there, right? i mean, 12012 is pretty popular abroad, right? nope, just me. greeeeat. i got inside and the pit was already teeming. i went off to the side and put my bag behind the bars there, like everyone else was doing (even tho there was a sign saying "don't put your bags here!"). then i kinda stood awkwardly towards the back of the "pit" that was forming. i figured, if i was off to the side, i wouldn't upset anyone.
the audience was not what i was expecting. i keep forgetting that 12012 is basically majors now, since they "graduated" from undercode (right?). besides, i think once you're signed to a big enough indies label, the whole fangirl-pecking-order gets erased anyway. there wasn't saizen or a jouren running things. it was certainly every girl for herself. everyone stood around pretty dociley before the show started... but as soon as the lights went out i was physically SHOVED aside by japanese fangirls rushing for the front. i tried to let a shorter girl in front of me (who i had talked to a little before the show) but that quickly went to pot. i just pressed forward with the rest of them.
i don't really know what "row" i was in, but i had on my new boots (with huge platforms) and holiday is damn small anyway, so i had a perfect view even if i was squished. for the beginning i was *right* in front of hiroaki, and i think i was in his designating staring space cuz, well, he kept *staring* at me, except his expression didn't change one bit. later on, when i was shoved more towards the middle and would glance over at him he was still staring at the exact same spot.
i just have to say right now that wataru is amazing live. when i started liking 12012's music i always liked his voice, but then started to worry that it might not actually be good live cuz most of the songs have some weird distortion put over his singing. then i saw a live video and heard that he could sing well and was glad. but then... *actually* hearing him *in person*... wow, he can really sing. he's also a very seasoned performer. you could tell cuz he was very good at making eye-contact with everyone in the audience.
he also drools a whole lot. it's not purposeful drooling, like what kyo does. it just kinda happens, i think. i couldn't help but notice. and, despite being super sweaty, he never took off his jacket or anything. even after leaving stage and coming back on for the encore. the guitarists had no problem taking off parts of their costumes when they were hot, but wataru just wouldn't for whatever reason.
hiroaki is an aaawesome guitarist. as i said, i was right in front of him at the beginning. the thing is... his expression never changes. he smiles ever so slightly and you can somehow tell that he's happy on stage, but his face doesn't really move at all. thing is, the expression he had on the whole time... it's the exact same one he uses in every single picture taken of him. go look at some recent pictures of 12012-- that's the face. at the very, very end he smiled a little bigger than previously and it was like "wow, you can show emotion!"
yuusuke looks REALLY different in person than he does in pictures. it's not bad different or anything, but i can't describe it. or perhaps it was cuz i was staring at him in profile the whole evening. i didn't get to look at him too terribly much while playing, but he doesn't move or change expression much either. he did, however, have the mother of all 5 o'clock shadows. it was crazy.
of course, tomoyuki was very pretty in person, like he is in pictures. but it's more "realistic" pretty than his pictures sometimes seem like. the weird thing was, he's the one who does back-up vocals (when they're not pre-recorded). i was surprised by this just cuz usually it's a guitarist who does back up vocals, not the bassist. he has a nice voice, tho, and it goes really well with wataru's.
tooru is... adorable. what else is there to say? i need to look at drummers while they play more often >_< there was one japanese girl behind me who had the craziest way of chanting his name, i almost want to be able to replicate it for the con. almost.
the first bunch of songs were pretty hard so there was a lot of audience participation. everyone kept pressing forward so i got closer and closer to the stage and more towards the center. wataru totally spotted me during the first MC and just kinda stared-- but it was more of a "oh, look, there's our token gaijin." kind of stare. as i said before, wataru is good at giving eye contact to the audience (but he also knows when *not* to look). at the very end, i got the ghost of a smile from him, like "haha, you managed not to get killed in that pit."
it's when the first mosh pit started that i truly realized this wasn't your normal small-live-house audience. i jumped in and moshed around and was promptly shoved four rows back into the center of the live house. then i couldn't get back to my spot! usually, everyone runs back to their designated spots after they mosh at japanese lives. but no, i was being physically shoved out of the front. well, if they were gonna play it dirty, then i figured it was ok for me to do so as well. after the next set of moshing i managed to make my way back to where i was standing before, but even closer to the stage and more towards the center (i was still behind the same girl i had started out behind!).
after that i didn't want to give up my spot cuz i didn't think i'd be able to get back there so i didn't really mosh at all again. in fact, by the very end, i was in the 4th row, just off of the metal shelf that was attached to the bar. during 逆ダイブ i could actually get a foot up on the shelf so i could press forward on the right beat. the problem, then, with where i was standing was that i was in the line of ppl who got slammed into for the 逆ダイブ.
btw, 逆ダイブ (gyaku dive-- backwards dive) is a crazy japanese crowd thing. "dive" is when you toss yourself over the bar to head bang (or if you're not on bar, you just lean forward more). it's usually coupled with shaking your fist/arm in beat with the head banging. gyaku dive, then, involves one row of ppl during the solo dive, while the line of ppl right behind them backs up and then does a great, big running leap, slamming their backs onto the backs of the row in front of them. if you're on bar you can just lean over and stay there while you're slammed into, but if you're not on bar it's often hard to keep your balance while being slammed.
for whatever reason, there was one or two girls behind me who decided that *i* was an excellent target for jumping onto. i don't think it was any kind of "let's kill the gaijin" kind of thing. japanese fangirls just get really crazy when they're in the pit. however, whoever was jumping on me must have been jumping *really high* cuz i was in my platform boots, and she still managed to crack my skull with hers 3 separates times. i swear, if the music hadn't been so loud, you would have heard the cracking sounds when we slammed together. you'd think after the first time we cracked our skulls she'd calm down, but no, it happened a second time. ok, she's definitely learned her lesson after the 2nd time, right?? no, it still happened a 3rd time.
in the middle they played a block of slower songs and things were calm for a while, with us all swaying in time with the music. they finished up with a couple faster songs then left the stage. we immediately started chanting for an encore. the japanese girl behind me and i had some sort of silent agreement and took turns chanting when we both got tired. after about 5 minutes of this they finally came back out.
hiroaki and yuusuke had taken off their jackets and their white shirts were practically transparent with sweat. wataru took forever to come back out, but when he arrived he had a little cake in his hands (he was still fully dressed, btw, which i thought was weird cuz everyone else had taken off some part of their costume). turns out, it had recently been both yuusuke and hiroaki's birthdays. they didn't have candles or anything so wataru made them each eat a strawberry off the cake and we sang happy birthday but it kinda unravelled when you were supposed to say the person's name, cuz no one knew who's name to use.
they played 3 more songs, the first of which was some reeeally old song of their's that i barely recognized. they went off stage again and we started chanting for another encore. i figured the staff would tell us to stop soon cuz bands don't usually do 2 encores... but then they came out again! it was cute cuz toru and yuusuke came out together first and stood in front of the audience. i thought they were gonna talk to us but instead they just kinda gave each other a knowing look, put their fingers to their lips, then pointed at the audience in unison. it was pretty darn adorable. the rest of the members came out and they played a final song. since it was the final song, the audience went into quite a frenzy, and the damned band members were desperately *encouraging* it. i was dehydrated and slightly concussed at this point, so i did not entirely appreciate yuusuke coming over and encouraging the fans to continue to beat me senseless. but hey, if you can't handle the pit, then you shouldn't be in it, so i sucked it up and held my own.
after much cheering and having stuff thrown into the audience, the boys exited the stage and we all went scurrying. i grabbed my bag and pushed towards the back to get the goods i wanted. i drank the entire bottle of tea i'd brought along in about two gulps. then i pressed over to the drink counter (hey, i'd spent 600円 on a drink ticket, i was gonna get my drink dammit) and got a cola which i also gulped. i kneeled on the floor a little fixing my hair and trying to gather my wits about me until the staff started yelling at us to leave. at that point i finally made my way out.
i was in such a good mood after this live. my hair was stringy with sweat and i must have looked a mess but i was smiling doofily the whole walk back to the station. thing is, holiday is in the middle of kabukicho so i was getting even more looks than usual. i dunno what ppl thought i was, dressed as i was and with that expression. at least i didn't get accosted. i did see *two* separate families with young children wandering about, tho! i think holiday is really just on the outskirts of kabukicho, so there are some legitimate businesses there too. or else, these ppl were horribly lost.
i got dinner at mcdonald's by the don quixote and went hoooome.
any qualms i had about going to see them at the convention in july are GONE. must, must see them again. will be sooo worth it.
except i suck and couldn't tell you what songs they played, cuz i'm bad with names of songs. besides, my skull was nearly cracked open multiple times by an overly enthusiastic 逆ダイブing japanese girl. they look small, but when they are throwing their entire weight on you, it's something to be reckoned with.
i lost one of my earrings and nearly died from dehydration, but does it matter???
i'll add the full report here laterz now.
it was another day i had no specific plans in the morning. or actually, that's not entirely right. i wanted to buy a new top that day. in this, i was successful.
i went to harajuku in the morning, thinking it would be a little less crowed on a sunday. it is, apparently, never *not* crowded on takeshita dori during the summer. there were also two groups of gaijin that i kept ending up in the same stores as. even *i* was uncomfortable in closet child when i realized that it was only gaijin in there. i can't even imagine how the tenin behind the counter felt.
i finally made my way to the side street with the deorart store cuz i wanted to get t-shirts there. luckily, there was no one else there. as per usual, i was immediately accosted by an overly helpful tenin who had a cute, squeaky voice and referred to me as お姉さん (usually they called you お客さん). was i really older than her? i'm not sure. but i got a kewl top (which is basically like what mar used to wear on stage but without sleaves and with a hood) along with a toxic rabbit shirt.
the rest of my day in harajuku wouldn't be of note except that i went to the h.naoto store. i knew i shouldn't have, i *wasn't* going to buy anything (which i didn't!), but! remember the gothiloli tenin from marui01 a few days earlier who "remembered" me? she was there! the store was relatively crowded so i wasn't accosted immediately or anything (for which i was grateful), but i noticed a tenin kinda following me about until she saw me look at the same shirt twice and she approached. of course, she knew it was >_< "wow, you really *do* like h.naoto, don't you!" it's soooo not fair, they're not allowed to switch stores!!! now that i think about it, this might also be the girl who helped me the first time i went to the naoto boutique in harajuku when i was searching for a new purse. we're totally bff now.
this was one of those concerts where you just let yourself go. you're crushed and hot and thirsty and feel like falling down dead, but as long as the music keeps playing you just can't stop. when the bands calls at you to head back, you grab the girl in front of you and just let go, despite the pain in your neck, and it's only then that you realize your hair is falling in sweaty strands all around you. but it doesn't matter because you're there and have gotten lost in the music.
it was total chance that i saw this live advertised on the shinjuku holiday site, cuz it's not listed on their official website or anything. i was super excited and got my ticket at lawson's and actually had a relatively good number (132 or some such). i was lined up on the second staircase/first landing. (they've changed the entrance to holiday so you come in through a staircase farther back in the building, not in from that basement entrance.
i got there a bit early and was herded in with the japanese fans. i figured there'd be at least one other gaijin there, right? i mean, 12012 is pretty popular abroad, right? nope, just me. greeeeat. i got inside and the pit was already teeming. i went off to the side and put my bag behind the bars there, like everyone else was doing (even tho there was a sign saying "don't put your bags here!"). then i kinda stood awkwardly towards the back of the "pit" that was forming. i figured, if i was off to the side, i wouldn't upset anyone.
the audience was not what i was expecting. i keep forgetting that 12012 is basically majors now, since they "graduated" from undercode (right?). besides, i think once you're signed to a big enough indies label, the whole fangirl-pecking-order gets erased anyway. there wasn't saizen or a jouren running things. it was certainly every girl for herself. everyone stood around pretty dociley before the show started... but as soon as the lights went out i was physically SHOVED aside by japanese fangirls rushing for the front. i tried to let a shorter girl in front of me (who i had talked to a little before the show) but that quickly went to pot. i just pressed forward with the rest of them.
i don't really know what "row" i was in, but i had on my new boots (with huge platforms) and holiday is damn small anyway, so i had a perfect view even if i was squished. for the beginning i was *right* in front of hiroaki, and i think i was in his designating staring space cuz, well, he kept *staring* at me, except his expression didn't change one bit. later on, when i was shoved more towards the middle and would glance over at him he was still staring at the exact same spot.
i just have to say right now that wataru is amazing live. when i started liking 12012's music i always liked his voice, but then started to worry that it might not actually be good live cuz most of the songs have some weird distortion put over his singing. then i saw a live video and heard that he could sing well and was glad. but then... *actually* hearing him *in person*... wow, he can really sing. he's also a very seasoned performer. you could tell cuz he was very good at making eye-contact with everyone in the audience.
he also drools a whole lot. it's not purposeful drooling, like what kyo does. it just kinda happens, i think. i couldn't help but notice. and, despite being super sweaty, he never took off his jacket or anything. even after leaving stage and coming back on for the encore. the guitarists had no problem taking off parts of their costumes when they were hot, but wataru just wouldn't for whatever reason.
hiroaki is an aaawesome guitarist. as i said, i was right in front of him at the beginning. the thing is... his expression never changes. he smiles ever so slightly and you can somehow tell that he's happy on stage, but his face doesn't really move at all. thing is, the expression he had on the whole time... it's the exact same one he uses in every single picture taken of him. go look at some recent pictures of 12012-- that's the face. at the very, very end he smiled a little bigger than previously and it was like "wow, you can show emotion!"
yuusuke looks REALLY different in person than he does in pictures. it's not bad different or anything, but i can't describe it. or perhaps it was cuz i was staring at him in profile the whole evening. i didn't get to look at him too terribly much while playing, but he doesn't move or change expression much either. he did, however, have the mother of all 5 o'clock shadows. it was crazy.
of course, tomoyuki was very pretty in person, like he is in pictures. but it's more "realistic" pretty than his pictures sometimes seem like. the weird thing was, he's the one who does back-up vocals (when they're not pre-recorded). i was surprised by this just cuz usually it's a guitarist who does back up vocals, not the bassist. he has a nice voice, tho, and it goes really well with wataru's.
tooru is... adorable. what else is there to say? i need to look at drummers while they play more often >_< there was one japanese girl behind me who had the craziest way of chanting his name, i almost want to be able to replicate it for the con. almost.
the first bunch of songs were pretty hard so there was a lot of audience participation. everyone kept pressing forward so i got closer and closer to the stage and more towards the center. wataru totally spotted me during the first MC and just kinda stared-- but it was more of a "oh, look, there's our token gaijin." kind of stare. as i said before, wataru is good at giving eye contact to the audience (but he also knows when *not* to look). at the very end, i got the ghost of a smile from him, like "haha, you managed not to get killed in that pit."
it's when the first mosh pit started that i truly realized this wasn't your normal small-live-house audience. i jumped in and moshed around and was promptly shoved four rows back into the center of the live house. then i couldn't get back to my spot! usually, everyone runs back to their designated spots after they mosh at japanese lives. but no, i was being physically shoved out of the front. well, if they were gonna play it dirty, then i figured it was ok for me to do so as well. after the next set of moshing i managed to make my way back to where i was standing before, but even closer to the stage and more towards the center (i was still behind the same girl i had started out behind!).
after that i didn't want to give up my spot cuz i didn't think i'd be able to get back there so i didn't really mosh at all again. in fact, by the very end, i was in the 4th row, just off of the metal shelf that was attached to the bar. during 逆ダイブ i could actually get a foot up on the shelf so i could press forward on the right beat. the problem, then, with where i was standing was that i was in the line of ppl who got slammed into for the 逆ダイブ.
btw, 逆ダイブ (gyaku dive-- backwards dive) is a crazy japanese crowd thing. "dive" is when you toss yourself over the bar to head bang (or if you're not on bar, you just lean forward more). it's usually coupled with shaking your fist/arm in beat with the head banging. gyaku dive, then, involves one row of ppl during the solo dive, while the line of ppl right behind them backs up and then does a great, big running leap, slamming their backs onto the backs of the row in front of them. if you're on bar you can just lean over and stay there while you're slammed into, but if you're not on bar it's often hard to keep your balance while being slammed.
for whatever reason, there was one or two girls behind me who decided that *i* was an excellent target for jumping onto. i don't think it was any kind of "let's kill the gaijin" kind of thing. japanese fangirls just get really crazy when they're in the pit. however, whoever was jumping on me must have been jumping *really high* cuz i was in my platform boots, and she still managed to crack my skull with hers 3 separates times. i swear, if the music hadn't been so loud, you would have heard the cracking sounds when we slammed together. you'd think after the first time we cracked our skulls she'd calm down, but no, it happened a second time. ok, she's definitely learned her lesson after the 2nd time, right?? no, it still happened a 3rd time.
in the middle they played a block of slower songs and things were calm for a while, with us all swaying in time with the music. they finished up with a couple faster songs then left the stage. we immediately started chanting for an encore. the japanese girl behind me and i had some sort of silent agreement and took turns chanting when we both got tired. after about 5 minutes of this they finally came back out.
hiroaki and yuusuke had taken off their jackets and their white shirts were practically transparent with sweat. wataru took forever to come back out, but when he arrived he had a little cake in his hands (he was still fully dressed, btw, which i thought was weird cuz everyone else had taken off some part of their costume). turns out, it had recently been both yuusuke and hiroaki's birthdays. they didn't have candles or anything so wataru made them each eat a strawberry off the cake and we sang happy birthday but it kinda unravelled when you were supposed to say the person's name, cuz no one knew who's name to use.
they played 3 more songs, the first of which was some reeeally old song of their's that i barely recognized. they went off stage again and we started chanting for another encore. i figured the staff would tell us to stop soon cuz bands don't usually do 2 encores... but then they came out again! it was cute cuz toru and yuusuke came out together first and stood in front of the audience. i thought they were gonna talk to us but instead they just kinda gave each other a knowing look, put their fingers to their lips, then pointed at the audience in unison. it was pretty darn adorable. the rest of the members came out and they played a final song. since it was the final song, the audience went into quite a frenzy, and the damned band members were desperately *encouraging* it. i was dehydrated and slightly concussed at this point, so i did not entirely appreciate yuusuke coming over and encouraging the fans to continue to beat me senseless. but hey, if you can't handle the pit, then you shouldn't be in it, so i sucked it up and held my own.
after much cheering and having stuff thrown into the audience, the boys exited the stage and we all went scurrying. i grabbed my bag and pushed towards the back to get the goods i wanted. i drank the entire bottle of tea i'd brought along in about two gulps. then i pressed over to the drink counter (hey, i'd spent 600円 on a drink ticket, i was gonna get my drink dammit) and got a cola which i also gulped. i kneeled on the floor a little fixing my hair and trying to gather my wits about me until the staff started yelling at us to leave. at that point i finally made my way out.
i was in such a good mood after this live. my hair was stringy with sweat and i must have looked a mess but i was smiling doofily the whole walk back to the station. thing is, holiday is in the middle of kabukicho so i was getting even more looks than usual. i dunno what ppl thought i was, dressed as i was and with that expression. at least i didn't get accosted. i did see *two* separate families with young children wandering about, tho! i think holiday is really just on the outskirts of kabukicho, so there are some legitimate businesses there too. or else, these ppl were horribly lost.
i got dinner at mcdonald's by the don quixote and went hoooome.