GACKT @ Yokohama July 4th, 6th & 7th
I'm tackling all three at once, because as I didn't make notes on any shows they've all kinda ran into one in my mind. I will try to separate things where I can, but I don't see the need to write three separate reports.
Let's start with some photos! Although photos during the live are definitely prohibited, staff do not care and actively turn a blind eye if you take them of the stage set way before the show starts, or after it ends.
This is the view from my seat on July 4th.
The blue blob is the video screen that covered the stage. Not the best seats, huh?
This is the view from my seat on July 6th.
14th row! And to make it even better, my seat was on the barricade right next to the second stage.
Awesome, awesome seat!
And this is the view from my seat on July 7th.
7th row! And to make this even better... I got the barricade again XD
I took that photo sitting down - when standing I had a full view of the stage.
The birthday live was the MILD setlist that I had already seen before. It wasn't much different from my first MILD viewing, other than that they dropped VANILLA from the set completely and replaced Kimi ga Oikaketa Yume with Dears.
Of course, the main fun and games of this show was GACKT's birthday celebrations. The blue glowsticks, birthday song from the crowd and cake are firm fixtures now so GACKT can't have been surprised by them. The rest was a surprise though, I think! They cut off his MC just as he was getting teary (he was talking about how he never really celebrated his birthday too much as a child at the time, IIRC) and he was then asked to answer 40 questions as quickly as possible. I think they only asked him maybe 15 at the most?
He's very quick witted so some of the answers were funny. The ones I remember are that he wants to meet Meg Ryan, his best present is being loved, the chat up line that will work on him is "hug me" (I think you can also use the same phrase for "fuck me" too), he thinks Chacha will still be going in ten years time (I think so too!), and that YOU will die before him.
There were pre-recorded video messages from KiriSho (he fanboyed hard and long and GACKT told him to hurry up), Satome Taichi, Miyavi, Akumu-chan, Shinya, Jon & u:zo (I was so happy to see them!) and Hyde. After the videos KiriSho arrived on stage and fanboyed some more.
The band all did their usual self introduction MCs and all gave GACKT a present. Chacha gave GACKT flowers, Sato gave GACKT a book about coping with memory loss or senility (or something like that) now that he was 40 and GACKT gave him a death stare as he said thank you! Kei gave GACKT a protective charm, but GACKT noticed that it was actually one of a pair as it was a couple's charm. GACKT's was pink and Kei had the other blue one. Kei enthusiastically asked GACKT for a hug and GACKT reluctantly gave it to him. YOU's present was to pull some ribbon out of his trouser pocket and tie it around himself. GACKT was completely at a loss with this one. It was hilarious. YOU made GACKT pull the bow, which again GACKT did reluctantly, and then they hugged.
They made good use of the second stage as most of U+K was performed there, as was I think Dears.
The show was very long though. People started leaving early and I knew I wouldn't make it home so I'd already arranged to stay with a friend who lived closer. Due to a slight error with the trains *cough* we didn't make it all the way back to my friend's house either, but the taxi was cheap and we capped off the night with apple pie and drinks in McDonald's at 2am.
Still wearing cat ears.
July 6th was my first WILD show. Although I think the songs on the MILD setlist are overall better, I enjoyed the WILD setlist more. It's more fun and seems to flow together better. It was a joy to hear Doomsday as that's one of my favourite songs. The dance routine for Dispar is better and tighter than the DIABOLOS version (partly due to GACKT being better at this one than he was the DIABOLOS version... although he does mime the song). I was really looking forward to hearing CLAYMORE, and as GACKT just hip sways through it while the MV is playing on the screen I was expecting it to be better than it was. It wasn't bad, far from it, but just kinda in the background compared to other songs in the setlist. I was expecting it to be a highlight. I always love hearing FLOWER as it's one of my top three songs and well done GACKT for now being able to sing "you're the irreplaceable flower" perfectly! Sayonara... I can always live without, to be honest...
EVER was lots of fun and mainly because GACKT performed half of the song in the centre of the second stage, meaning he was shaking his ass right in front of me, hahahahaha. MIRROR drags on, as ever.
The MCs were fun again. Mainly Kei's. Kei is an amazing drummer - he really stamps his own personality and style on the songs and is constantly adding extra fills compared to previous drummers. His MC's are the highlight of the entire MC, in my opinion. Chacha bases his MC around a chant at the end, Sato tells a little story, YOU usually ties his into wherever they are, GACKT tells a looooooooong story (and has the cheek to shout at Chacha for taking too long) but Kei's MCs are entirely based around him failing at everything and mocking the other band members. Badly.
The main feature of the July 6th MC was that he couldn't time his call and response properly. He would start shouting his next line before the crowd had finished their "fuuuuu~~~~!" response. GACKT tried to help him time it, but Kei still kept jumping in early. GACKT hit him on the head with his microphone a lot. Kei always tries to spell out the letter "K" with his body, but always fails. He copies GACKT's "okaeri/tadaima" bit, but never gets the arm gestures right. During the first part of the MC, GACKT mimes coming home and opening a door so that he can say "tadaima" to the crowd and have them respond with "okaeri". Kei copies this, but cannot figure out how to open the door and then close it behind him. He always tries to both open and close the door in front of him. Again, GACKT tries to show him how and just ends up hitting him with the microphone. Kei changes "okaeri" to "okawari", which means a second serving of food. So for this bit, he has a bowl in his hands and jumps around stage shouting "okawari" and asking the crowd for more food.
I really, really like Kei. I hope he sticks around, both for his drumming ability and his personality on stage. He and GACKT have a very good double act going.
The combination of U+K, Koakuma Heaven and Jounetsu no Inzauma is one hell of a workout! Jounetsu is a lot of fun though. Again, GACKT mimes it but it is a really intense little routine and he's not exactly trying to pretend it's live as it has the same vocal effects that the YouTube video has. Although I'm not a fan of the song, it was good to finally see ANOTHER WORLD live. Kimi no Tame ni Dekiru Koto is always good to hear, especially when you catch a few smiles from GACKT as he's singing XDDD
Again, Sakura, Chiru finished the night off.
So, the REAL FINAL.... it was a mix of WILD and MILD with nothing new performed. But that was okay! The band wore the black WILD outfits and started with WHITE LOVERS.
Ahhhh, I felt so sorry for GACKT during WHITE LOVERS. The first line of the song is "Masshiro na sekai de, anata ni deaeta kara" and on the "ka" of "kara" his voice completely cracked. It sounded terrible. What a way to start the Final show, huh? To be honest, there were another couple of off notes throughout this show but it's almost reassuring to hear it, really. After three, three and a half hour long lives in four days, I think a few duff notes are acceptable. And, it proves he really is singing live. I have a pretty good ear for being able to tell the difference between pre-recorded and live music (it just feels different) and sometimes, even I'm questioning how that voice can keep coming. He sounds far better live than on record these days whereas in the past, I think it was the other way around stop over-producing yourself
Anyway. It was a great mix of songs and I was surprised at some of the combinations. I didn't expect both GHOST and DISPAR, for example. I was really happy to hear FLOWER again, and when it came for the piano song, me and my friend had our fingers and toes crossed that it would be LAST SONG and were so happy when it was. During one of his dramatic pauses in LAST SONG, there was a loud crash from backstage. I wonder if YOU fell over something as he was walking off stage.... hahahahaha.
As we were seated on Chacha and Kei's side, we started watching Kei during GACKT's shouting during MIRROR. OMG, he just mocks GACKT throughout the whole thing. He's miming along with what GACKT says, copies his poses (bends over when GACKT does to do his loud screams etc), claps half heartedly and does the most casual and disinterested "fuuuuu~!" hand gesture. It's really funny. It sounds disrespectful, but it isn't intended that way - it's just part of the little double act they have going on, I suspect. So thank you Kei, for making MIRROR interesting again.
For the MCs this time, again Kei's was the best. As well as again failing at spelling out "K" with his body, he also failed at spelling out "C" for Xtasy. For his "okawari" bit, he had a "K" painted on his bowl. He was jumping around with this bowl so much, that he was halfway down the catwalk and by the third row before GACKT decided to stop him by literally grabbing Kei by the scruff of his neck and dragging him back onto the stage. Kei was very distressed as he dropped his bowl and GACKT gave him no opportunity to pick it back up again. In the end, GACKT went back for the bowl and then threw it to the audience.
After the MC, they really decided to kill us by doing U+K, Koakuma Heaven, Jounetsu no Inazuma and Graffiti one after the other. That really is a work out! The streamers flew for Faraway, but completely missed us near the barricade as they flew too wide. The Xtasy setlist was a little longer than the other setlists by one or two songs, I think.
And again, it ended with Sakura, Chiru.
Of course after Sakura, Chiru, was the announcement. It started with various staff members talking about how long they'd worked with GACKT and what he meant to them and I admit, I was starting to think that it was a retirement announcement. It was really sombre, and neither Chacha or YOU could say anything (YOU definitely didn't, he just looked sad. I don't think Chacha said anything either). Then it shows GACKT walking into his home studio and taking a seat. He said "the next VISUALIVE" and then the same words were displayed on the screen, which of course made everybody in the arena really happy. Yay! He's going to announce the next VISUALIVE!!!! Then it cut back to GACKT and he finished his sentence "the next VISUALIVE will be the last VISUALIVE".
Queue every bit of happiness and excitement that had accumulated over the last three and a half hours being sucked out of the arena.
Evil, evil way to do it! I don't believe he was talking about a retirement, or even a retirement from singing as he did say that being an artist is his way of life, but the dramatics of the video made it seem like the most terrible thing ever. There were fans crying EVERYWHERE. After the announcement they played the ending credits and there was just silence. Even when GACKT's name came up as "All Produced By" the applause was polite and not fangirlish like it usually is. Me and my friend just kinda sat there for a little while to watch the rest of the audience. There was a girl in our row that was crying so hard, venue staff came over to see if she was okay. It was the most surreal experience I've ever seen.
Here are some random photos...
GAKUCCHI!
Best flowers EVER.
All in all, it was an amazing four days (three at the GACKT lives and a day off with friends). It's not just the lives that made them amazing, but meeting so many friends, old and new, and enjoying this time with them. GACKT is the reason we all came together, but he's no longer the reason that is keeping so many of us together. The lives are the icing on the cake, so to speak.
I'm very thankful to him for bringing so many wonderful people into my life
Let's start with some photos! Although photos during the live are definitely prohibited, staff do not care and actively turn a blind eye if you take them of the stage set way before the show starts, or after it ends.
This is the view from my seat on July 4th.
The blue blob is the video screen that covered the stage. Not the best seats, huh?
This is the view from my seat on July 6th.
14th row! And to make it even better, my seat was on the barricade right next to the second stage.
Awesome, awesome seat!
And this is the view from my seat on July 7th.
7th row! And to make this even better... I got the barricade again XD
I took that photo sitting down - when standing I had a full view of the stage.
The birthday live was the MILD setlist that I had already seen before. It wasn't much different from my first MILD viewing, other than that they dropped VANILLA from the set completely and replaced Kimi ga Oikaketa Yume with Dears.
Of course, the main fun and games of this show was GACKT's birthday celebrations. The blue glowsticks, birthday song from the crowd and cake are firm fixtures now so GACKT can't have been surprised by them. The rest was a surprise though, I think! They cut off his MC just as he was getting teary (he was talking about how he never really celebrated his birthday too much as a child at the time, IIRC) and he was then asked to answer 40 questions as quickly as possible. I think they only asked him maybe 15 at the most?
He's very quick witted so some of the answers were funny. The ones I remember are that he wants to meet Meg Ryan, his best present is being loved, the chat up line that will work on him is "hug me" (I think you can also use the same phrase for "fuck me" too), he thinks Chacha will still be going in ten years time (I think so too!), and that YOU will die before him.
There were pre-recorded video messages from KiriSho (he fanboyed hard and long and GACKT told him to hurry up), Satome Taichi, Miyavi, Akumu-chan, Shinya, Jon & u:zo (I was so happy to see them!) and Hyde. After the videos KiriSho arrived on stage and fanboyed some more.
The band all did their usual self introduction MCs and all gave GACKT a present. Chacha gave GACKT flowers, Sato gave GACKT a book about coping with memory loss or senility (or something like that) now that he was 40 and GACKT gave him a death stare as he said thank you! Kei gave GACKT a protective charm, but GACKT noticed that it was actually one of a pair as it was a couple's charm. GACKT's was pink and Kei had the other blue one. Kei enthusiastically asked GACKT for a hug and GACKT reluctantly gave it to him. YOU's present was to pull some ribbon out of his trouser pocket and tie it around himself. GACKT was completely at a loss with this one. It was hilarious. YOU made GACKT pull the bow, which again GACKT did reluctantly, and then they hugged.
They made good use of the second stage as most of U+K was performed there, as was I think Dears.
The show was very long though. People started leaving early and I knew I wouldn't make it home so I'd already arranged to stay with a friend who lived closer. Due to a slight error with the trains *cough* we didn't make it all the way back to my friend's house either, but the taxi was cheap and we capped off the night with apple pie and drinks in McDonald's at 2am.
Still wearing cat ears.
July 6th was my first WILD show. Although I think the songs on the MILD setlist are overall better, I enjoyed the WILD setlist more. It's more fun and seems to flow together better. It was a joy to hear Doomsday as that's one of my favourite songs. The dance routine for Dispar is better and tighter than the DIABOLOS version (partly due to GACKT being better at this one than he was the DIABOLOS version... although he does mime the song). I was really looking forward to hearing CLAYMORE, and as GACKT just hip sways through it while the MV is playing on the screen I was expecting it to be better than it was. It wasn't bad, far from it, but just kinda in the background compared to other songs in the setlist. I was expecting it to be a highlight. I always love hearing FLOWER as it's one of my top three songs and well done GACKT for now being able to sing "you're the irreplaceable flower" perfectly! Sayonara... I can always live without, to be honest...
EVER was lots of fun and mainly because GACKT performed half of the song in the centre of the second stage, meaning he was shaking his ass right in front of me, hahahahaha. MIRROR drags on, as ever.
The MCs were fun again. Mainly Kei's. Kei is an amazing drummer - he really stamps his own personality and style on the songs and is constantly adding extra fills compared to previous drummers. His MC's are the highlight of the entire MC, in my opinion. Chacha bases his MC around a chant at the end, Sato tells a little story, YOU usually ties his into wherever they are, GACKT tells a looooooooong story (and has the cheek to shout at Chacha for taking too long) but Kei's MCs are entirely based around him failing at everything and mocking the other band members. Badly.
The main feature of the July 6th MC was that he couldn't time his call and response properly. He would start shouting his next line before the crowd had finished their "fuuuuu~~~~!" response. GACKT tried to help him time it, but Kei still kept jumping in early. GACKT hit him on the head with his microphone a lot. Kei always tries to spell out the letter "K" with his body, but always fails. He copies GACKT's "okaeri/tadaima" bit, but never gets the arm gestures right. During the first part of the MC, GACKT mimes coming home and opening a door so that he can say "tadaima" to the crowd and have them respond with "okaeri". Kei copies this, but cannot figure out how to open the door and then close it behind him. He always tries to both open and close the door in front of him. Again, GACKT tries to show him how and just ends up hitting him with the microphone. Kei changes "okaeri" to "okawari", which means a second serving of food. So for this bit, he has a bowl in his hands and jumps around stage shouting "okawari" and asking the crowd for more food.
I really, really like Kei. I hope he sticks around, both for his drumming ability and his personality on stage. He and GACKT have a very good double act going.
The combination of U+K, Koakuma Heaven and Jounetsu no Inzauma is one hell of a workout! Jounetsu is a lot of fun though. Again, GACKT mimes it but it is a really intense little routine and he's not exactly trying to pretend it's live as it has the same vocal effects that the YouTube video has. Although I'm not a fan of the song, it was good to finally see ANOTHER WORLD live. Kimi no Tame ni Dekiru Koto is always good to hear, especially when you catch a few smiles from GACKT as he's singing XDDD
Again, Sakura, Chiru finished the night off.
So, the REAL FINAL.... it was a mix of WILD and MILD with nothing new performed. But that was okay! The band wore the black WILD outfits and started with WHITE LOVERS.
Ahhhh, I felt so sorry for GACKT during WHITE LOVERS. The first line of the song is "Masshiro na sekai de, anata ni deaeta kara" and on the "ka" of "kara" his voice completely cracked. It sounded terrible. What a way to start the Final show, huh? To be honest, there were another couple of off notes throughout this show but it's almost reassuring to hear it, really. After three, three and a half hour long lives in four days, I think a few duff notes are acceptable. And, it proves he really is singing live. I have a pretty good ear for being able to tell the difference between pre-recorded and live music (it just feels different) and sometimes, even I'm questioning how that voice can keep coming. He sounds far better live than on record these days whereas in the past, I think it was the other way around stop over-producing yourself
Anyway. It was a great mix of songs and I was surprised at some of the combinations. I didn't expect both GHOST and DISPAR, for example. I was really happy to hear FLOWER again, and when it came for the piano song, me and my friend had our fingers and toes crossed that it would be LAST SONG and were so happy when it was. During one of his dramatic pauses in LAST SONG, there was a loud crash from backstage. I wonder if YOU fell over something as he was walking off stage.... hahahahaha.
As we were seated on Chacha and Kei's side, we started watching Kei during GACKT's shouting during MIRROR. OMG, he just mocks GACKT throughout the whole thing. He's miming along with what GACKT says, copies his poses (bends over when GACKT does to do his loud screams etc), claps half heartedly and does the most casual and disinterested "fuuuuu~!" hand gesture. It's really funny. It sounds disrespectful, but it isn't intended that way - it's just part of the little double act they have going on, I suspect. So thank you Kei, for making MIRROR interesting again.
For the MCs this time, again Kei's was the best. As well as again failing at spelling out "K" with his body, he also failed at spelling out "C" for Xtasy. For his "okawari" bit, he had a "K" painted on his bowl. He was jumping around with this bowl so much, that he was halfway down the catwalk and by the third row before GACKT decided to stop him by literally grabbing Kei by the scruff of his neck and dragging him back onto the stage. Kei was very distressed as he dropped his bowl and GACKT gave him no opportunity to pick it back up again. In the end, GACKT went back for the bowl and then threw it to the audience.
After the MC, they really decided to kill us by doing U+K, Koakuma Heaven, Jounetsu no Inazuma and Graffiti one after the other. That really is a work out! The streamers flew for Faraway, but completely missed us near the barricade as they flew too wide. The Xtasy setlist was a little longer than the other setlists by one or two songs, I think.
And again, it ended with Sakura, Chiru.
Of course after Sakura, Chiru, was the announcement. It started with various staff members talking about how long they'd worked with GACKT and what he meant to them and I admit, I was starting to think that it was a retirement announcement. It was really sombre, and neither Chacha or YOU could say anything (YOU definitely didn't, he just looked sad. I don't think Chacha said anything either). Then it shows GACKT walking into his home studio and taking a seat. He said "the next VISUALIVE" and then the same words were displayed on the screen, which of course made everybody in the arena really happy. Yay! He's going to announce the next VISUALIVE!!!! Then it cut back to GACKT and he finished his sentence "the next VISUALIVE will be the last VISUALIVE".
Queue every bit of happiness and excitement that had accumulated over the last three and a half hours being sucked out of the arena.
Evil, evil way to do it! I don't believe he was talking about a retirement, or even a retirement from singing as he did say that being an artist is his way of life, but the dramatics of the video made it seem like the most terrible thing ever. There were fans crying EVERYWHERE. After the announcement they played the ending credits and there was just silence. Even when GACKT's name came up as "All Produced By" the applause was polite and not fangirlish like it usually is. Me and my friend just kinda sat there for a little while to watch the rest of the audience. There was a girl in our row that was crying so hard, venue staff came over to see if she was okay. It was the most surreal experience I've ever seen.
Here are some random photos...
GAKUCCHI!
Best flowers EVER.
All in all, it was an amazing four days (three at the GACKT lives and a day off with friends). It's not just the lives that made them amazing, but meeting so many friends, old and new, and enjoying this time with them. GACKT is the reason we all came together, but he's no longer the reason that is keeping so many of us together. The lives are the icing on the cake, so to speak.
I'm very thankful to him for bringing so many wonderful people into my life