Kimeru Live: Anatomize
@____@ I'm so late in getting all of this up, but I'm trying to chug through, I promise!
On Saturday, I went to the last concert in Kimeru's most recent tour for his his album, Anatomize! It was incredibly fun and high energy, and Kime is great live, so next tour, I would highly suggest for anyone who can to go! I have to admit, the live was over 3 hours long and I honestly don't remember the order of all the songs nor which songs some of them were (I must admit, I only really like 4 songs on Anatomize), but I'm going to do my best to give some of the highlights and recount some of the things he talked about between the songs.
Getting to the venue was a bit of an adventure because yomimashou and I are kind of handicapped at directions, but in our defense, the map was incredibly confusing. We ended up paying an impromptu (read as: accidental) visit to the Echo Theatre, in which Blood Prisoner had been a few weeks prior, before finally making it to Liquid Room, the venue for the concert. But we made it, in the end! Once we got in, naturally, we headed for the goods table, and there were a ton of awesome goods. I had forgotten to get more money before coming, which was probably a good things, because it limited me to about 100 USD of spending money, though there are definitely more things I wish I could have bought. At any rate, I'm hoping to scan the photoset I bought once I get back to the US and thus have a scanner, so... hopefully that will be able to happen eventually!
We hung around for a little while after buying our merch, but soon, they began to call numbers! It was a bit nerve-wracking since the room was incredibly loud and it was hard to hear the guy at first, and, being gaijin, if we were to do anything stupid, it would somehow be amplified by our gaijin-ness... but luckily (or unluckily), the room had basically cleared out by the time we got called, since we had bought our tickets so late. We were B20 and B21... but it turned out that there was an A group of 300 people before us. XD;;;; Alas. But when we got in, we had a clear view of the stage, so... it wasn't a big deal at all. And, uh, the toujitsuken people were behind us, if nothing else! XD;
When Kime first came on stage, he, of course, was as super fabulous as ever. He changed clothes twice through the concert, but his first outfit consisted of black skinny pants with strings of rhinestones as the belt, a black button up shirt with a red tie, about a dozen glittering bracelets, two equally-sparkly rings, and a sort of top hat with red and black feathers in it. The first song he did was one from Anatomize with which I'm not incredibly familiar, but second came Be Shiny! I was super excited that he was doing some old songs, too. After that, he introduced his band (and pointed out that he had to hire a bassist specifically for this album, since before he had always used the synth but now he was going for a more rock feel XD;) before continuing on with more songs from Anatomize.
He often stopped to explain his feelings about songs in between, and he had something to say about Deep Blue, though... I don't honestly remember what it was. @___@; Photo Synthesis, he told us, was supposed to capture the feeling of a tiny flower wanting to grow into a large, strong tree someday, or something along those lines (he explained photosynthesis as middle school science XD;;), which I thought was adorable. He also took like 15 minutes before 4D to teach us a dance to go with it, which involved him teaching the audience how to do a "box" or, as I learned in jazz class when I was a child, a jazz square. XD; For anyone familiar with this move, it's not difficult (and it shows up consistently in Rock Musical Bleach-- Tuti teaches you how to do one in his Hona Sainara dance lessons!), but Kime was trying to show us with his hands. I think 4D will, from now on, always make me think of Kime calling out "右！左！右！左！" ("right! left! right! left!").
At some point in the evening (I won't even pretend I remember the order anymore; it was a long concert and I didn't have the opportunity to take notes or anything), he mentioned that two nights previous he had been at Santies, and asked who had been there. I felt special to get to raise my hand, and his response to the number of girls (there were quite a few of us!) was "へえええ？ 面白いね. . ." ("Huhh? That's interesting..."... except that doesn't really cover the connotation, and I can't quite describe it. XD;;; It's sort of a weirded out feeling.) XD; He then said it was impossible to describe what happened (er, way to sound sketch, Kime) and tried to explain... the sound effects, of all things. XD; If you've read my Santies review from when Kime was a guest, you will understand that this is not the first thing I thought of when I thought about Kime being a Santies guest. XD; But then he went on to say how he shot and killed Wasshi and hooked up with Eiji. XD; He's quite proud of himself for having killed Wasshi, it's kind of creepy. But after that, he got weirdly morbid, saying something about how it was aesthetic or something to shoot oneself? He demonstrated, putting his gun-gesture to his head... then said it was cooler to use a katana. WHAT?
He didn't linger on that, though, and moved on, making various amusing comments throughout the concert and telling stories about the guests he'd invited to the show. At one point, he asked if there were dudes in the audience (I think there were about 3?) which was amusing. He also, however, got very serious at points, talking once about how, ever since Yanagi's accident, he thinks about death a lot. 1) It's absolutely precious that he's still thinking about Yanagi's accident; I feel like people don't give Kime enough credit for all the intense love he clearly has for his friends. 2) though-- WHY DO YOU THINK A LOT ABOUT DEATH, KIME?! After that, he hurried to explain that he didn't want to die-- in fact, that he was afraid of dying. He clarified that he didn't want to die just yet, because he loved performing and loved his friends too much, but when he dies, he wants to be able to say he had fun every moment of his life. He pointed out that he didn't know when his time would come (WHY SO MORBID?) but he was doing his best to live his life to its fullest. I have to admit, this makes me worry a bit about Kime's psyche, but... :<
He also got serious again before singing Circle of Us-- apparently, it has some really deep meanings for him. He talked about how he feels like he doesn't know enough about all the fans who support him, and asked everyone in the audience to write him a letter (I need to get on that one...), because hearing from his fans, even just a little bit, makes him happy. He talked about how he loved his job (after he quit working at the post office, lol) and loved being able to perform and express himself, and he wants to reach out to people. He got really emotional, and ever cried... it was so sweet.
That was about the end of the actual concert... but hughes_maes, who went to the earlier show in Sendai, informed me that there would be a 5-song encore, so I did not dismay, even when we were left cheering for an encore for about 10 minutes. What took Kime so long? Being the princess that he is, he apparently had to not only change (in the middle of the concert he had stripped off his shirt to reveal a glittery red tank top with butterflies on it) into his concert t-shirt, but to fix his hair and reapply his makeup. Thanks a lot, Kime. :P But he made up for it with an awesome encore; he performed... an old song from the Be Shiny single, I forget which (fail ~___~), and then Yes! Elephant, from Discover (the only song from Discover for the evening... which was fine with me, since I'm not a huge fan of that album), which also had a dance to go along with it that I sort of had to pick up as I went along, since I hadn't been at the Discover tour. XD; There were special cheers to go with most of the songs, actually, strings of 1 to 4 "hoi"s that went in between lines or after words, and sections where one was supposed to jump. Kime's fangirls are pretty intense. XD; But now that I know them all, next time I go to one of Kime's lives, I'm all prepared!
Next, he sang a nostalgic song: You Got Game! That's right, Kime's very first song... which is in a strangely low key, and he couldn't sing quite properly anymore. XD;; All night, he was doing a great job of not going flat (it's bound to happen occasionally live, but besides the odd note here or there, he was doing well!), but You Got Game was noticeably worse. BUT WHO CARES? He let us scream one of the lines, even, and wanted us to sing along with him. After that, he closed with two songs from Kimeru (my favourite album), Monopolize and Junk Beat. Seeing as these are two of my favourite Kimeru songs out of all of them, this was a great way to end the concert for me, and I didn't want it to be over!
At the very end, he made us all hold hands XD; Randomly, I was standing next to probably the one other foreign girl in the room, so... it may have been less awkward that way? XD; Either way, after the bow, he blew us all kisses and then sent us off to Voyage (over the speakers on CD) as we left.
All in all, the concert was hugely fun, and I'd love to go to another one! My right arm is still sore from waving it, and on Sunday basically my entire body hurt, but that's the sign of a good concert, right? XD;
On Saturday, I went to the last concert in Kimeru's most recent tour for his his album, Anatomize! It was incredibly fun and high energy, and Kime is great live, so next tour, I would highly suggest for anyone who can to go! I have to admit, the live was over 3 hours long and I honestly don't remember the order of all the songs nor which songs some of them were (I must admit, I only really like 4 songs on Anatomize), but I'm going to do my best to give some of the highlights and recount some of the things he talked about between the songs.
Getting to the venue was a bit of an adventure because yomimashou and I are kind of handicapped at directions, but in our defense, the map was incredibly confusing. We ended up paying an impromptu (read as: accidental) visit to the Echo Theatre, in which Blood Prisoner had been a few weeks prior, before finally making it to Liquid Room, the venue for the concert. But we made it, in the end! Once we got in, naturally, we headed for the goods table, and there were a ton of awesome goods. I had forgotten to get more money before coming, which was probably a good things, because it limited me to about 100 USD of spending money, though there are definitely more things I wish I could have bought. At any rate, I'm hoping to scan the photoset I bought once I get back to the US and thus have a scanner, so... hopefully that will be able to happen eventually!
We hung around for a little while after buying our merch, but soon, they began to call numbers! It was a bit nerve-wracking since the room was incredibly loud and it was hard to hear the guy at first, and, being gaijin, if we were to do anything stupid, it would somehow be amplified by our gaijin-ness... but luckily (or unluckily), the room had basically cleared out by the time we got called, since we had bought our tickets so late. We were B20 and B21... but it turned out that there was an A group of 300 people before us. XD;;;; Alas. But when we got in, we had a clear view of the stage, so... it wasn't a big deal at all. And, uh, the toujitsuken people were behind us, if nothing else! XD;
When Kime first came on stage, he, of course, was as super fabulous as ever. He changed clothes twice through the concert, but his first outfit consisted of black skinny pants with strings of rhinestones as the belt, a black button up shirt with a red tie, about a dozen glittering bracelets, two equally-sparkly rings, and a sort of top hat with red and black feathers in it. The first song he did was one from Anatomize with which I'm not incredibly familiar, but second came Be Shiny! I was super excited that he was doing some old songs, too. After that, he introduced his band (and pointed out that he had to hire a bassist specifically for this album, since before he had always used the synth but now he was going for a more rock feel XD;) before continuing on with more songs from Anatomize.
He often stopped to explain his feelings about songs in between, and he had something to say about Deep Blue, though... I don't honestly remember what it was. @___@; Photo Synthesis, he told us, was supposed to capture the feeling of a tiny flower wanting to grow into a large, strong tree someday, or something along those lines (he explained photosynthesis as middle school science XD;;), which I thought was adorable. He also took like 15 minutes before 4D to teach us a dance to go with it, which involved him teaching the audience how to do a "box" or, as I learned in jazz class when I was a child, a jazz square. XD; For anyone familiar with this move, it's not difficult (and it shows up consistently in Rock Musical Bleach-- Tuti teaches you how to do one in his Hona Sainara dance lessons!), but Kime was trying to show us with his hands. I think 4D will, from now on, always make me think of Kime calling out "右！左！右！左！" ("right! left! right! left!").
At some point in the evening (I won't even pretend I remember the order anymore; it was a long concert and I didn't have the opportunity to take notes or anything), he mentioned that two nights previous he had been at Santies, and asked who had been there. I felt special to get to raise my hand, and his response to the number of girls (there were quite a few of us!) was "へえええ？ 面白いね. . ." ("Huhh? That's interesting..."... except that doesn't really cover the connotation, and I can't quite describe it. XD;;; It's sort of a weirded out feeling.) XD; He then said it was impossible to describe what happened (er, way to sound sketch, Kime) and tried to explain... the sound effects, of all things. XD; If you've read my Santies review from when Kime was a guest, you will understand that this is not the first thing I thought of when I thought about Kime being a Santies guest. XD; But then he went on to say how he shot and killed Wasshi and hooked up with Eiji. XD; He's quite proud of himself for having killed Wasshi, it's kind of creepy. But after that, he got weirdly morbid, saying something about how it was aesthetic or something to shoot oneself? He demonstrated, putting his gun-gesture to his head... then said it was cooler to use a katana. WHAT?
He didn't linger on that, though, and moved on, making various amusing comments throughout the concert and telling stories about the guests he'd invited to the show. At one point, he asked if there were dudes in the audience (I think there were about 3?) which was amusing. He also, however, got very serious at points, talking once about how, ever since Yanagi's accident, he thinks about death a lot. 1) It's absolutely precious that he's still thinking about Yanagi's accident; I feel like people don't give Kime enough credit for all the intense love he clearly has for his friends. 2) though-- WHY DO YOU THINK A LOT ABOUT DEATH, KIME?! After that, he hurried to explain that he didn't want to die-- in fact, that he was afraid of dying. He clarified that he didn't want to die just yet, because he loved performing and loved his friends too much, but when he dies, he wants to be able to say he had fun every moment of his life. He pointed out that he didn't know when his time would come (WHY SO MORBID?) but he was doing his best to live his life to its fullest. I have to admit, this makes me worry a bit about Kime's psyche, but... :<
He also got serious again before singing Circle of Us-- apparently, it has some really deep meanings for him. He talked about how he feels like he doesn't know enough about all the fans who support him, and asked everyone in the audience to write him a letter (I need to get on that one...), because hearing from his fans, even just a little bit, makes him happy. He talked about how he loved his job (after he quit working at the post office, lol) and loved being able to perform and express himself, and he wants to reach out to people. He got really emotional, and ever cried... it was so sweet.
That was about the end of the actual concert... but hughes_maes, who went to the earlier show in Sendai, informed me that there would be a 5-song encore, so I did not dismay, even when we were left cheering for an encore for about 10 minutes. What took Kime so long? Being the princess that he is, he apparently had to not only change (in the middle of the concert he had stripped off his shirt to reveal a glittery red tank top with butterflies on it) into his concert t-shirt, but to fix his hair and reapply his makeup. Thanks a lot, Kime. :P But he made up for it with an awesome encore; he performed... an old song from the Be Shiny single, I forget which (fail ~___~), and then Yes! Elephant, from Discover (the only song from Discover for the evening... which was fine with me, since I'm not a huge fan of that album), which also had a dance to go along with it that I sort of had to pick up as I went along, since I hadn't been at the Discover tour. XD; There were special cheers to go with most of the songs, actually, strings of 1 to 4 "hoi"s that went in between lines or after words, and sections where one was supposed to jump. Kime's fangirls are pretty intense. XD; But now that I know them all, next time I go to one of Kime's lives, I'm all prepared!
Next, he sang a nostalgic song: You Got Game! That's right, Kime's very first song... which is in a strangely low key, and he couldn't sing quite properly anymore. XD;; All night, he was doing a great job of not going flat (it's bound to happen occasionally live, but besides the odd note here or there, he was doing well!), but You Got Game was noticeably worse. BUT WHO CARES? He let us scream one of the lines, even, and wanted us to sing along with him. After that, he closed with two songs from Kimeru (my favourite album), Monopolize and Junk Beat. Seeing as these are two of my favourite Kimeru songs out of all of them, this was a great way to end the concert for me, and I didn't want it to be over!
At the very end, he made us all hold hands XD; Randomly, I was standing next to probably the one other foreign girl in the room, so... it may have been less awkward that way? XD; Either way, after the bow, he blew us all kisses and then sent us off to Voyage (over the speakers on CD) as we left.
All in all, the concert was hugely fun, and I'd love to go to another one! My right arm is still sore from waving it, and on Sunday basically my entire body hurt, but that's the sign of a good concert, right? XD;