X Japan- amazingly long concert report
So the other day while I was having a meeting about my new night english class that i'll be teaching ON MY OWN I told a very important government official in my town that I was a diehard X Japan fan and he said "OH well THAT GUY *points* went to school with Yoshiki" ......O_O cue my jaw dropping and me saying way too loud "I LOVE Yoshiki!!!!!"
Hahaa... I totally don't take it back though... I DO love Yoshiki! Tho my impression from his biography was that he was probably a sucky classmate so... >_>
Ok so this blog is supposed to be about my travels thusfar in Japan, but the last couple times I have started writing I just ended up ranting about the X Japan concert that I was FINALLY going to go see! So I figured i'd let myself have this one and hopefully can write a normal post once I get out my excitement?
For those of you who don't know, X JAPAN is my favorite band! To save you the long ranty post about their history that I keep writing i'll post the wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Japan
For those of you who don't really care XD or my friends who have read too many of these rants already over the years, the short version= X Japan is super famous Japanese rock band. Broke up, fans were devastated, beloved guitarist died suddenly, fans were devastated. Got back together in 2008 everyone rejoiced.
Everytime I try to go to their concerts there is some reason I can't (stupid college graduation! >_<) so.. FINALLY my beloved friend Anpan managed to get us tickets!! YAAAAAAY!!!! and I FINALLY saw my #1 of my top three bands! (actually i've seen all four tops (X Japan, L'arc en ciel, Dir en grey and Brad Paisley!)
So excited!
Yay!
The concert was in Shin Yokohama at the Nissan stadium. According to Yoshiki's twitter it seems that there were about 65,000 people there O_O X has been around for so long that there were fans ranging from 3yrs to 80 there!! And almost EVERYONE knew all the songs, wore either cosplay or X tour shirts, and knew exactly when to flash the "X" (aka cross your arms at the wrists in an X)
I was very responsible *cries* and only bought a few Yoshikitty items, a tour bag, a tour bandanna and a little card case... but by the time I got there a TON of stuff was sold out anyways.
The merchandise section had a "general" area, a table with stuff for each band member and then a "Yoshiki" table.. HA! being a diehard Yoshiki fan I was happy to see that ^_^
Our seats were awesome because they were dead center.. but of course in that big of a stadium we couldn't really see ANYTHING, which was ok because they had fairly big screens. Also, there was a mini stage right in front of our section (but still far since we were way up high) and Yoshiki and Toshi totally popped up there to sing!!!!
SETLIST:
01.Jade
02.Rusty Nail
03.Guitar Solo（Love Replica）
04.Say Anything(Acoustic Version)
05.Piano Solo（Tears）
06.紅
07.Born To Be Free
(Encore)
E1-1.Piano Solo（DAHLIA)
E1-2.Forever Love (Acoustic Version)
E1-3.I.V.
E1-4.X (TAIJI登場！！）
E2.Endless Rain
SE.Tears (English Version)
SE.Forever Love
SE.Tears
The first song was "Jade" which I really like (I think...) its a nice but sort of choppy mix of ballad and hard rock.
http://www.youtube.com/user/galantdo022#p/u/4/SS5cP9VbFK0
JADE (the actual concert i was at!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgJ2Sf5PLKU&playnext=1&videos=z2rM9SnltVY
Part of the JADE PV which sounds a little better
They of course did "Rusty nail" which I never liked THAT much.. but it is REALLY good live O_O LOTS of fun.
http://www.youtube.com/user/galantdo022#p/u/3/Eq5E264tKb8
The concert I went to!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vKw_HO8ZKI
Original Rusty Nail PV (the band members are the anime people... Jesus turns into Yoshiki OF COURSE)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCTOuGeTXuk&playnext=1&videos=fRPwsbCNrQ4
2008 Remade Rusty nail PV
One extremely amusing thing about the concert was that EVERY time they showed the crowd it just happened to be white people O_O I'm so so serious! EVERY TIME! I guess because X is trying to break into the US market they think it will help to show that foreigners already like them? or something...
I.V. was probably my favorite song of the night. Again, a song that I never liked all that much, but it was wonderful live! Also they shot HUGE FLAMES out everywhere which we could feel even as far away as we were ^_^
They made us sing "In the rain, Find a way" over and over and over for like ten minutes while the piano part played. At some point Toshi held the mic up to Heath and told him to sing the lyrics and he was kinda like O_O ..... "in the rain....find a way?" HA so cute! I don't think i've actually ever heard him speak before!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBxXPdKc2xg&feature=related
I.V. PV
I.V. was also the ending song to Saw 4.... if anyone actually saw that movie >_> (pun not intended..)
They also played "Kurenai" and played the Last live version beginning video... aka this video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH-dWu0e13k
everyone was screaming wildly for hide!!!
I really liked this song!! The drums in this song are amazing!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwFVDSRcNCc
Kurenai (the version I saw)
They also played Born to be free .... this is the performance the night I was there O_O
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrW2KbJcIDY
Hear Toshi saying "This will be our last song!" Ha.... no
WOW.. its so cool to be able to see them !! XDDD
They played Say anything, three versions of Tears and Forever love. There were a lot of songs where the audience sang a big portion of them... which was pretty cool because EVERYONE knew all the words ^_^
At one point Yoshiki ran into the crowd, picked up an orange cone, heaved it into the audience and then proceeded to kick or hit every orange cone he passed. Yoshiki HATES orange cones! There was the normal amount of awkward hugging, tossing water on each other and frolicking that always seems to happen in X concerts.
Before they played "X!" Taiji (their old bassist who got kicked out O_O) came onstage and played with them! YAY!
X was of COURSE a ton of fun!
Jumping up and doing the X sign while seated up so high was kind of terrifying... and they asked "WE ARE?" so many times I thought I would die.. but Anpan and I did awesomely good at answering!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rLgddhWJL8
X (last live version)
I made sure to GLARE at Sugizo as much as possible since when I (literally) bumped into him at the Buck Tick concert several years ago he glared at me really evilly, but I must say.. he played violin during Say Anything and it WAS really pretty!
http://www.youtube.com/user/galantdo022#p/u/2/-Y48-k1QiP8
Acoustic "Say Anything" with violin
Well.. thats it for my concert report! Kind of messy.. but the concert was A LOT of fun! Much thanks to Anpan for being AWESOME and getting tickets! <3
Oh... also I subscribed to twitter (BLEGH) so that I could follow Yoshiki! ^_^ his post after the concert was:
"Wow you made me cry, I heard 65000 screams at last night show! そして沢山のすてきなメッセージ.ありがとう。今日はもっと気合い入れていくぞ! Love you so much! YOU ARE ......X!!!"
awwww he is so nice!