VAMPS SF con report
This is just copied from the FO one I made earlier, so there are random other bits in here every now and then. :P
To sum up the wait: it was COLD! But fun.
So we finally went in just as the fog lowered and it started misting on us, so good timing there. Someone was playing L'Arc's SMILE album by the door. Once we got in we scurried to find a spot, and there seemed to be a good spot a little stage left-center. (>.> I wanted to be closer to Ju-ken's side, but turned out we weren't quite close enough. :[ S'okay though, because this time we could see so much more of HYDE!!) We took turns holding our turf and getting concert goods, which were so reasonably priced holy crap! Except for this cute little hand fan thing, which was $25 for some reason. No pamphlet this year, sadly, but four or five different pretty posters, each for only $5!! I would have gotten more than one if I'd had the wall space, believe me. Then their wristbands were actually cute this year, black and red rubber with VAMPS stamped on in white and black, two for $5! T-shirts were pretty and $20, cheap for concert shirts. Oh and of course they had CDs for sale, $20 again this year as I'd hoped! I got the wristbands, a white shirt, the BEAST album (it came with a sticker! :o ), and the prettiest poster. :333 Yeah it was fifty dollars on con goods, but it was what I had budgeted for so I'm okay with that.
The show started a little late, of course, and I think the roadies forget to check Ju-ken's and K.a.z.'s microphones because when they first started I couldn't hear them at all. Thankfully that seemed to get fixed later, because I could hear them perfectly later. We warned Saru about the stage rush that would happen once they came out, and she was prepared with her cane. People kept coming in and out of the crowd in front of us and I told her to whack them with it, but she wouldn't. Party pooper. >.>
The last time I was in the GAMH was at least five years ago, so I couldn't remember how big it was. It was a lot smaller than the Regency Grand Ballroom last year's show was in, but I remember there being a gap at the back back then. The stage was smaller, and it was probably hard to pick a bad spot to stand in because the room itself was smaller too. Everyone was so cloooose. *___* The audience was a little shriekier than last year, but not bad enough to be annoying because they at least knew when to shut up. (Miyavi fangirls, I am looking at you. Like this. :|) More Japanese fans than last year too, I think. At least in my proximity. Overall I still got a good vibe from them, and they were REALLY awesome when we were calling for the encore. More on that in a bit.
VAMPS!!! Omg it was so nice having Hyde there with pretty hair this time. No Hermione fluffball. Ju-ken looked the same as ever, though he needs to touch up his red highlights soon. >.> He was in his usual sleeveless top and hat and was nice and crazy and fun. Hyde had his shirt open allllll night. I saw nipple. Quite a few times. Mmmm. And dear, sweet K.a.z... he was so cute. He was the only one not showing skin, and his hair was all cute and spikey and floofy looking. He also appeared to have some sort of private wind machine on him all night. XD I felt bad for him though because it seemed like the lighting guys just were not following him around at all! Several times he stood up closer to the audience, which normally (and last year) made everyone even remotely on that side of the room go nuts. But no one, myself included, noticed him ever moving up there! It was hard to see him I guess because of the lighting fail and his black and grey (I think?) shirt(s) made him kind of blend into the background. I hope he doesn't think we don't love him. T_T
So naturally I don't remember the order everything got played in exactly, but I know DEVIL SIDE and DOLLY were early on. They also did ANGEL TRIP and EUPHORIA, oh and GET UP and RUMBLE which were two of the top songs I'd wanted to hear. They did PIANO DUET which surprised me and made me happy for Saru, since that was the main song she'd wanted them to play. Ugh it was gorgeous, too. Even more surprisingly, to me anyway, was that they did SAMSARA, the two-minute instrumental from BEAST. Of course it was expanded into something more than five minutes long, and it was fantastic and beautiful and one of my favourite moments BECAUSE... Ju-ken was so into playing it, he had this fine sheen of sweat all over by then and would lift his face up with his eyes closed and just molest his bass, goddamn it was hot. @,.@ That song led into MY FIRST LAST just like on the album.
They had a little MC, and surprisingly K.a.z. did most of it. HE SOUNDED SO CUTE OMG. And it was hilarious because the audience screamed after just about everything he said, but he probably had everything memorized to the point that he just had to finish saying each line even if the last few words were inaudible over the screams. XD Then it flipped over to Hyde, who let out a long "I'm HUNGRYYYYY." It sounded so whiny and adorable, haha. (Ju-ken, why don't you ever talk? T^T) He continued saying it and then said he wanted to eat the craziest San Franciscans (Californians? Americans? Fans? Not sure anymore, but obviously us) and that led into "WHERE'S MY LOVE?!" which of course introduced HUNTING. I love when they do that song because they're all moving around on the stage "hunting" for us, and the light go on us and everything. It's fun, and Ju-ken gets to scream into the mic. Mmm.
I can't remember now which songs came before/after the call for encore, but at the end of the song before they left the stage K.a.z. was throwing out some light-up rubber frisbee things and I CAUGHT ONE!!! I was so excited. It headed right for me and I jumped up and caught that sucker so easily. Except I hadn't expected it to be rubbery so I was like "AUGH?!" but held onto it tight anyway. XD
At first everyone was just cheering and whistling and yelling and whatnot, but then instead of yelling "encore" or "VAMPS" or whatever, people started... stomping. It was certainly new, and I didn't get it until a minute or so later people started yelling out some lyrics to REVOLUTION "BANG! ON! STOMP EVERYBODY!" We kept it up for a long time, it was amazing. I can't even imagine organizing that and having it turn out better, and it wasn't organized at all.
BUT THEN.... something ridiculous and kind of hilarious happened.
I was wearing contacts, of course. I felt something get in/stuck around my left one and I was like "NOOOOO" because it wasn't just dust that would flush out, and it really started to hurt while people were stomping and shouting. I took out my eyedrops and the contact and rinsed it off, but it was still dark. I couldn't see what I was doing and my fingers were damp and my eye was too, so I couldn't get traction on my skin to actually hold my eye open. Then suddenly everyone cheered and the lights came up, and I knew they'd come back on stage. I was too excited to have light to be annoyed about missing their return, and tried to hurry to get it in but then it turned out to be inside out, so I had to fix it and clean it off AGAIN and was about to move it back onto my finger when I found out the hard way just what VAMPS were doing up there on stage.
Throwing water. For some reason, like the parting of the Red Sea, there was suddenly a huge gap in front of me. I got water EVERYWHERE. And my contact was gone. I was CRUSHED and was like "D: HYDE HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO MEEEE" but by some MIRACLE it got splashed onto my shirt, and Soleil found it before the lights went down again. I got it back in and could see again, and it didn't hurt anymore so whatever was in there was gone. Meanwhile Hyde was complimenting us on our stomping. Haha it is still almost too ridiculous to believe. I don't even know how Hyde managed to get that much water that far back. I half wonder if he saw my head down and not looking at them and did that as punishment, but he probably couldn't see from there. :P I hope no one saw and thought I was crying or something. XD
Anyway, the other songs I remember... they did IT'S SAD sometime before the encore, and JESUS CHRIST too. Also Midnight Celebration and VAMP ADDICTION. Then they did TROUBLE, which was probably the most energetic out of them and the audience, and followed it up with Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. Quite a fabulous combo, imo. Oh and of course they played REVOLUTION, how could they not after we demanded it so strongly. XD It was another super high energy song, as I knew it would be when I first heard it. I'm so, so glad they played it. That and Trouble were more of my top songs. The only one of my tops that they didn't play was MEMORIES, alas. OH they did LOVE ADDICT at the beginning of the encore! Damn they played more songs than I'd thought. :o It was funny though, during Revolution when we had to do our "BANG ON STOMP EVERYBODY" again, Ju-ken grabbed his mic and held it up over the audience, letting them shout into it and, unfortunately (for me) take the last of his souvenir picks off of it. No chance of me getting one thrown! :[ Liz managed to randomly find one on the floor though, I petted it before we parted ways. >.>
Overall... really amazing night! I'm STILL excited to have caught something, too. And I got Ju-ken AND Hyde water on me. XD Saru/Soleil almost caught a wristband thrown by Ju-ken, but some asshole in front of us jumped in front of them to intercept it. Cock. :| Exactly what happened to me last year, cept that guy actually came from behind me. Eff you people!
Getting home was just mostly us shivering in the wind (and me finally giving my poor feet a break at the expense of my pants and the dirty San Francisco sidewalk) while we waited for my mom to brave driving in SF to pick us up. But everyone got home safe, and everyone seemed to have a good time with each other, and Saru just barely managed not to die! So I would call it a success.
Pictures!
The flying thing I caught. I think Soleil wins for what to call it for her suggestion of "boob-ef-oh". It lights up!
Just to give you an idea of how flying-saucery it is.
Some stuff! The rings and sparkle bracelet of doom I wore to the concert, plus the cute wristbands I bought and the boob-ef-oh.
The pretty poster I got. Ugh I wish I had more wall space, could have bought more! X(
Oh and I forgot to say this in the report, but don't feel like scrolling up to fit it into its proper place so I will just leave this embarrassing bit out here. When the line was moving (slowly), there were people filming the crowd. This one camera guy was just standing there a little ahead of us, and since I'd missed the first camera guy I took the opportunity to yell out, "I LOVE YOU, JU-KEN!!!" All the guy did was calmly and quickly turn the camera right to me. XD It made me and everyone else laugh, and Liz try and hide behind Saru, but I just figured it was too late. So after laughing a bit I yelled it again and showed off my vampy teeth. >.> I hope that doesn't make a DVD, and that they just show it to the band so they can remember my crazy. This can be a yearly tradition!
To sum up the wait: it was COLD! But fun.
So we finally went in just as the fog lowered and it started misting on us, so good timing there. Someone was playing L'Arc's SMILE album by the door. Once we got in we scurried to find a spot, and there seemed to be a good spot a little stage left-center. (>.> I wanted to be closer to Ju-ken's side, but turned out we weren't quite close enough. :[ S'okay though, because this time we could see so much more of HYDE!!) We took turns holding our turf and getting concert goods, which were so reasonably priced holy crap! Except for this cute little hand fan thing, which was $25 for some reason. No pamphlet this year, sadly, but four or five different pretty posters, each for only $5!! I would have gotten more than one if I'd had the wall space, believe me. Then their wristbands were actually cute this year, black and red rubber with VAMPS stamped on in white and black, two for $5! T-shirts were pretty and $20, cheap for concert shirts. Oh and of course they had CDs for sale, $20 again this year as I'd hoped! I got the wristbands, a white shirt, the BEAST album (it came with a sticker! :o ), and the prettiest poster. :333 Yeah it was fifty dollars on con goods, but it was what I had budgeted for so I'm okay with that.
The show started a little late, of course, and I think the roadies forget to check Ju-ken's and K.a.z.'s microphones because when they first started I couldn't hear them at all. Thankfully that seemed to get fixed later, because I could hear them perfectly later. We warned Saru about the stage rush that would happen once they came out, and she was prepared with her cane. People kept coming in and out of the crowd in front of us and I told her to whack them with it, but she wouldn't. Party pooper. >.>
The last time I was in the GAMH was at least five years ago, so I couldn't remember how big it was. It was a lot smaller than the Regency Grand Ballroom last year's show was in, but I remember there being a gap at the back back then. The stage was smaller, and it was probably hard to pick a bad spot to stand in because the room itself was smaller too. Everyone was so cloooose. *___* The audience was a little shriekier than last year, but not bad enough to be annoying because they at least knew when to shut up. (Miyavi fangirls, I am looking at you. Like this. :|) More Japanese fans than last year too, I think. At least in my proximity. Overall I still got a good vibe from them, and they were REALLY awesome when we were calling for the encore. More on that in a bit.
VAMPS!!! Omg it was so nice having Hyde there with pretty hair this time. No Hermione fluffball. Ju-ken looked the same as ever, though he needs to touch up his red highlights soon. >.> He was in his usual sleeveless top and hat and was nice and crazy and fun. Hyde had his shirt open allllll night. I saw nipple. Quite a few times. Mmmm. And dear, sweet K.a.z... he was so cute. He was the only one not showing skin, and his hair was all cute and spikey and floofy looking. He also appeared to have some sort of private wind machine on him all night. XD I felt bad for him though because it seemed like the lighting guys just were not following him around at all! Several times he stood up closer to the audience, which normally (and last year) made everyone even remotely on that side of the room go nuts. But no one, myself included, noticed him ever moving up there! It was hard to see him I guess because of the lighting fail and his black and grey (I think?) shirt(s) made him kind of blend into the background. I hope he doesn't think we don't love him. T_T
So naturally I don't remember the order everything got played in exactly, but I know DEVIL SIDE and DOLLY were early on. They also did ANGEL TRIP and EUPHORIA, oh and GET UP and RUMBLE which were two of the top songs I'd wanted to hear. They did PIANO DUET which surprised me and made me happy for Saru, since that was the main song she'd wanted them to play. Ugh it was gorgeous, too. Even more surprisingly, to me anyway, was that they did SAMSARA, the two-minute instrumental from BEAST. Of course it was expanded into something more than five minutes long, and it was fantastic and beautiful and one of my favourite moments BECAUSE... Ju-ken was so into playing it, he had this fine sheen of sweat all over by then and would lift his face up with his eyes closed and just molest his bass, goddamn it was hot. @,.@ That song led into MY FIRST LAST just like on the album.
They had a little MC, and surprisingly K.a.z. did most of it. HE SOUNDED SO CUTE OMG. And it was hilarious because the audience screamed after just about everything he said, but he probably had everything memorized to the point that he just had to finish saying each line even if the last few words were inaudible over the screams. XD Then it flipped over to Hyde, who let out a long "I'm HUNGRYYYYY." It sounded so whiny and adorable, haha. (Ju-ken, why don't you ever talk? T^T) He continued saying it and then said he wanted to eat the craziest San Franciscans (Californians? Americans? Fans? Not sure anymore, but obviously us) and that led into "WHERE'S MY LOVE?!" which of course introduced HUNTING. I love when they do that song because they're all moving around on the stage "hunting" for us, and the light go on us and everything. It's fun, and Ju-ken gets to scream into the mic. Mmm.
I can't remember now which songs came before/after the call for encore, but at the end of the song before they left the stage K.a.z. was throwing out some light-up rubber frisbee things and I CAUGHT ONE!!! I was so excited. It headed right for me and I jumped up and caught that sucker so easily. Except I hadn't expected it to be rubbery so I was like "AUGH?!" but held onto it tight anyway. XD
At first everyone was just cheering and whistling and yelling and whatnot, but then instead of yelling "encore" or "VAMPS" or whatever, people started... stomping. It was certainly new, and I didn't get it until a minute or so later people started yelling out some lyrics to REVOLUTION "BANG! ON! STOMP EVERYBODY!" We kept it up for a long time, it was amazing. I can't even imagine organizing that and having it turn out better, and it wasn't organized at all.
BUT THEN.... something ridiculous and kind of hilarious happened.
I was wearing contacts, of course. I felt something get in/stuck around my left one and I was like "NOOOOO" because it wasn't just dust that would flush out, and it really started to hurt while people were stomping and shouting. I took out my eyedrops and the contact and rinsed it off, but it was still dark. I couldn't see what I was doing and my fingers were damp and my eye was too, so I couldn't get traction on my skin to actually hold my eye open. Then suddenly everyone cheered and the lights came up, and I knew they'd come back on stage. I was too excited to have light to be annoyed about missing their return, and tried to hurry to get it in but then it turned out to be inside out, so I had to fix it and clean it off AGAIN and was about to move it back onto my finger when I found out the hard way just what VAMPS were doing up there on stage.
Throwing water. For some reason, like the parting of the Red Sea, there was suddenly a huge gap in front of me. I got water EVERYWHERE. And my contact was gone. I was CRUSHED and was like "D: HYDE HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO MEEEE" but by some MIRACLE it got splashed onto my shirt, and Soleil found it before the lights went down again. I got it back in and could see again, and it didn't hurt anymore so whatever was in there was gone. Meanwhile Hyde was complimenting us on our stomping. Haha it is still almost too ridiculous to believe. I don't even know how Hyde managed to get that much water that far back. I half wonder if he saw my head down and not looking at them and did that as punishment, but he probably couldn't see from there. :P I hope no one saw and thought I was crying or something. XD
Anyway, the other songs I remember... they did IT'S SAD sometime before the encore, and JESUS CHRIST too. Also Midnight Celebration and VAMP ADDICTION. Then they did TROUBLE, which was probably the most energetic out of them and the audience, and followed it up with Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. Quite a fabulous combo, imo. Oh and of course they played REVOLUTION, how could they not after we demanded it so strongly. XD It was another super high energy song, as I knew it would be when I first heard it. I'm so, so glad they played it. That and Trouble were more of my top songs. The only one of my tops that they didn't play was MEMORIES, alas. OH they did LOVE ADDICT at the beginning of the encore! Damn they played more songs than I'd thought. :o It was funny though, during Revolution when we had to do our "BANG ON STOMP EVERYBODY" again, Ju-ken grabbed his mic and held it up over the audience, letting them shout into it and, unfortunately (for me) take the last of his souvenir picks off of it. No chance of me getting one thrown! :[ Liz managed to randomly find one on the floor though, I petted it before we parted ways. >.>
Overall... really amazing night! I'm STILL excited to have caught something, too. And I got Ju-ken AND Hyde water on me. XD Saru/Soleil almost caught a wristband thrown by Ju-ken, but some asshole in front of us jumped in front of them to intercept it. Cock. :| Exactly what happened to me last year, cept that guy actually came from behind me. Eff you people!
Getting home was just mostly us shivering in the wind (and me finally giving my poor feet a break at the expense of my pants and the dirty San Francisco sidewalk) while we waited for my mom to brave driving in SF to pick us up. But everyone got home safe, and everyone seemed to have a good time with each other, and Saru just barely managed not to die! So I would call it a success.
Pictures!
The flying thing I caught. I think Soleil wins for what to call it for her suggestion of "boob-ef-oh". It lights up!
Just to give you an idea of how flying-saucery it is.
Some stuff! The rings and sparkle bracelet of doom I wore to the concert, plus the cute wristbands I bought and the boob-ef-oh.
The pretty poster I got. Ugh I wish I had more wall space, could have bought more! X(
Oh and I forgot to say this in the report, but don't feel like scrolling up to fit it into its proper place so I will just leave this embarrassing bit out here. When the line was moving (slowly), there were people filming the crowd. This one camera guy was just standing there a little ahead of us, and since I'd missed the first camera guy I took the opportunity to yell out, "I LOVE YOU, JU-KEN!!!" All the guy did was calmly and quickly turn the camera right to me. XD It made me and everyone else laugh, and Liz try and hide behind Saru, but I just figured it was too late. So after laughing a bit I yelled it again and showed off my vampy teeth. >.> I hope that doesn't make a DVD, and that they just show it to the band so they can remember my crazy. This can be a yearly tradition!