D'espairsRay live report 24.12.08
Ahhh another live report to do and it's already 1am. ;____; I donno how I'm gonna get through this, but I have to write before I go to sleep. Eeeeeeeeeeeeek. K here we go. Don't expect it to be as good (or coherent) as the Versailles report... I'll do my best though~~
We got a late start today due to a few reasons, but nothing interesting, so I digress. We went over to Tokyo station to get a shinkansen to Takasaki. We managed to figure out the ticket machines with little difficulty, but then we totally got on the wrong train. Oops. Well it was okay, I noticed pretty quickly and we only went 1 station too far. We then found the correct train and off we went~~ Zoom. Here's some pics of signs.
So then we arrived in Takasaki, and then I remembered that I forgot to write down the directions to the venue. Luckily, we found a Tower Records and I asked someone there where it was. XD We found it after that without much problem. There's like, nothing in this city. Mostly everything was closed by 4pm. Kinda spooky, to be honest. Here's some pics of the venue~~
So, the sign said that merch wouldn't be on sale until 17:00, so we went to find food. Mind you, this was no easy task, because everything was freaking closed. ;____; We finally found a little curry & bento shop run by this cute little old lady. I ordered some curry, and of course took a photo of it! Also included are photos of a neat shrine that me and Chris found along the way, and photos of us being happy, and stuff. Hey, we might as well be a little bit touristy, right?
So, it was freaking cold out, and the entire time I was eating, there was steam POURING off the food. Was kinda strange... but I was happy to eat hot food. Mmm. After a while we headed back and got in the merch line. We waited for a long long time because really there was nothing else to do. Eventually the thingo opened and we went in, which was nice because it was at least a tiny bit warmer down in the B1 floor than on the street. There was a fair amount of merch, although most of the t-shirts were sold out. I got a mirror (Yay not sold out!), a cellphone strap, and a towel. I thought about buying a t-shirt, but they were 3000 yen each and had the HORIZON single art on them, which I don't much like, so I didn't buy one. They had old hoodies from Taste of Chaos USA, and some towels from 2004. O_o;; Overstock, I guess? The 2004 towel was huge and totally expensive, so I didn't get that either. Even my small purchases were over 5000 yen. Eeks.
WELL anyway here's some pics of the merch I got :D
So after this, we had to wait AGAIN in the cold for the doors to the actual venue to open. The people weren't nearly as interesting as at Versailles. Mostly people wore the same types of clothes and were just kinda boring. Chris went back to the food place and got something with pork, I forget the name. I played with my camera and my merch. We talked about how cold it was, and listened to other people talk about how cold it was, and such. Exciting stuff here, people.
Well then after hours of being cold and stuff, the guy came out and starting calling numbers. I noticed two girls go in wearing skimpy santa outfits, which kinda made me confused. Oh well, I've seen stranger things. Captain Japan comes to mind. ... Uhhh anyway eventually our number got called and we went in and put all our shit in the coin locker. We went in, and Chris went over to the bar while I found a nice place on a platform in sorta the back area, but not the back... if that makes sense. I could see the stage, anyway. The santa girls were near me, but luckily their lack of clothing made it easy to see over them. Hahaha.
And now~~ Eeeek. The live! Onoes.
Well, I want to start by saying a huge FUCK YOU to all the people saying D'espa is dying or whatever. THIS LIVE IS HOW YOU DO A LIVE. Goddamn, it was PERFECT. This live seriously reminded me of why D'espairsRay has been consistently in my top 3 bands for like, the past 5 years. There was NOTHING bad about this live. Ho-lee-shit.
Okay back on target here, well, they all came out and took their places pretty fast, there was an intro track playing and the audience was clapping along. Bullet started up and we were off. And hell, I was off too, furitsuke and all. I again don't have a set list, nor can I remember every song in order, or whatever, but I can remember some things they played. They did Bullet first, then Scissors. Somewhere along the line was Kamikaze, Brilliant, Cocoon, Infection, Dears, Hollow, Trickster, kogoeru yoru ni saita hana, Horizon, Damned, more from Coll:set I can't recall the name of, and a nice amount of new songs, including the only slower song played all night.
Let me tell you, all those "crappy pop singles" they've been releasing, well, they are fucking AWESOME live. Everything sounded SO GOOD. AHHH. I loved it so much. I was headbanging and furitsuke-ing and jumping with everyone else and it was glorious. Every damn song sounded awesome. Guh, I cannot gush enough about this.
Hizumi's vocals were spot on, his going from screamy to singing to falsetto was flawless and effortless, and his stage presence was very powerful. I wanted to watch Karyu and Zero more, but I kept finding my eyes drifting to Hizumi... he has that way about him. Zero was totally rocking out the whole time, even jumping around the stage and shit. He stayed farther back in the stage for the first portion, but after a bit he came out forward. Karyu was also pretty active, but he seemed to enjoy just watching us. XD I couldn't see Tsukasa, 'cause, Hizumi was right in my line of vision for him most of the time, and since this was such a small venue, the lights shined so bright Tsukasa was not visible. Is a shame... I love Tsukasa. Oh well, he did awesome anyway, at least audibly~~
So anywho, Hizumi did a great job MCing, but again nothing that interesting. Lots of TAKASAKI SAIKOU shit and talking about how much fun he was having. Let me say here that the venue heated up REALLY fast and all the band members (and the audience!!) were sweating A TON. I had taken off my coat and left it in the locker, but I kept my sweater on, and at the second MC I practically ripped that thing off (Err, I was wearing a t-shirt underneath, pervs!). Hizumi talked about how it was so cold upstairs (as in, outside), but it was just boiling hot inside. Zero's hair was sticking up in all sorts of unnatural directions, and Karyu's hair was just sticking to his face, so he kept trying to push it out, but it just fell back. Hizumi was sweating so much, I was sorta worried, but he didn't let it get to him~~ He said Merry Christmas to us, but then after a while he was like, Well I guess it's not Christmas yet, but let's have a crazy party!! Or something to that effect (quotes+me=fail). At one point he asked how many couples were in the audience, and only like 4 people raised their hands, and Hizumi was like ...... oh, not very many I guess... well then... and was just kinda sad about that. XD He talked about how excited they were for the tour final coming up, and blabla, come see us please, etc. There's some big music event coming up in like, March, and he said they were gonna be at that, so go see them. He didn't talk about the new album though, which kinda surprised me, but I guess the music speaks for itself. They definitely seem to have enough new songs for an album. :D
Anywho the live continued, and everything was glorious. Zero stopped being shy and played the crowd more. After a while they started throwing picks out (them being Karyu and Zero, obv.), and Zero would put the pick in his mouth and then have the audience members take it out. Eeek. Chris said Karyu did it too, but I didn't see. Hizumi et al. threw out water bottles, Zero even spat water on us, and Hizumi would fling water on everyone, which was a welcomed coolness since it was SCORCHING in the venue by then. So then they went offstage, but of course it wasn't the end. We all chanted Di-supeaazu-rei (something to this pronounciation) until FINALLY they came back out.
Everyone except Karyu had changed into one of the merch t-shirts, and Karyu had a santa hat on. There was more long MC, but I mostly mentioned the interesting stuff already. Hizumi gave the mic to Tsukasa and Tsukasa talked about Christmas and something about being a black santa. At the end he was all, (in English) "Yes, we can." and I was sorta confused. Karyu got the mic then, and people were yelling things at him and he was kinda O_o; He talked about more Xmas stuff, and did the same Yes we can thing. I really wish I had been paying more attention, but damn I was hot. Blah. After a pause of Karyu sorta thinking about what he wanted to say, Chris was like, PLAY A DAMN SONG (yes, Chris is very impatient), and Karyu laughed and was like, *points over in his direction* "Yes!" But then it was Zero's turn, and he talked really fast and I was again confused. I know he started off with Merry Christmas, and did the little metal horns thing with his hand, and Hizumi was all, Why are you doing that? And Zero was like, *looks at hand, looks confused, puts hand down* Uhm, I dunno really. :D I didn't catch everything here, but it wasn't really anything important. He did sign off with Abayo though, haha. Then Hizumi took the mic again and started talking with more TAKASAKI SAIKOU 8DD stuff, and then Karyu came up behind him and tried to put the santa hat on him, but he just ended up knocking Hizumi over backwards. Hizumi gave him a totally WTF stare, and Karyu looked sorta sheepish. I guess then Hizumi decided to cut off the MC and just start some songs. Yayyy.
There was even more energy during the encore I think, and the members were even more animated. Hizumi talked about how he was impressed with us, for being such a small venue. I was sorta impressed too, haha. We all happily sang along the various parts of songs when he would hold the mic to us, we jumped at the right times, had awesome furitsuke-headbanging energy, and were just generally awesome. I recall Mirror was the last song, and everyone was super loud singing it. The band looked very happy about that~ :D
THEN again they went offstage, but, apparently it wasn't over yet either! More chanting and waiting, and finally the normal voice for the 'the live is over, get out' came out, BUT IT WASN'T. The voice changed and it was like, SPECIAL CHRISTMAS ENCORE. WOOOOOT. Tsukasa's voice came on and he was talking all spooky like (I think it was supposed to be a character, but I'm not familiar with it), and somewhere he said that the special encore was gonna be recorded for the DVD. MAJOR WOOT.
THEN finally he came out and he was wearing a moose thing on his head, and he said he was Moose-ka (musuka), and he proceeded to introduce the rest of the members as they came back on stage. I was infinitely amused when some girl behind me yelled MOOSEKA~~~ super loud. WTF but totally awesome. THEN. AHHH THEN. THE MUSIC CAME ON AND IT WAS LIKE, A ROCK VERSION OF JINGLE BELLS. HAHAHAHA. So. Much. Fun. I didn't understand any of the goddamn words (besides Jingle Bells), but a few people seemed to know it, so maybe it's a cover or somesuch. ANYWAY I didn't really care, because fuck, it was AWESOME. Hizumi sang a bunch of verses and everyone rocked out and was just generally awesome. Best encore ever!
After the song, they each got bags of goodies to throw out to the audience. There was much more water spitting/throwing, mostly however they had little mini basketball type things to throw, not sure what was up with that. Zero threw some more picks, Karyu too, Tsukasa threw his drumsticks (I actually only saw him throw one, but he might have thrown the other, I dunno Dx). They also each threw out a t-shirt, but, Tsukasa's got stuck on a thing in the ceiling, and everyone was sorta awwwww. Tsukasa was sorta sad, sorta amused, but made sure to tap Karyu on the shoulder and show him. Karyu was just like ...why are you showing me this. Haha. Hizumi ran out of stuff, so he did the most obvious thing then, and put his empty bag on his head, and flopped into the audience. Zero was standing right behind him and had the BEST LOOK on his face when he saw Hizumi do this. It was like O_o ?_? O_O! XD o_O O_O!!!! (<~~ lifelike renderings, truth). A stage hand guy came out and fished Hizumi out eventually, and got the bag off his head, which he then threw into the audience. He's a strange guy.
Anyway after they exhausted their rather large supply of random stuff to throw out, they left the stage and it was finally over. Not that I wanted it to be over, but shit, it was a long live and it was like 5000 degrees in there. I migrated over to Chris, who had the best look on his face, and I followed in curiosity. He went over to the shirt Tsukasa had gotten stuck, and kinda pointed at it and grinned. He waited a bit for some people to move, then JUMPED and GOT THE SHIRT DOWN. FUCKING SCORE. Everyone inside was like EEEEEEEEEEEEE?! and I was totally psyched. TSUKASA SHIRT YES. We left the room and got our shit out of the locker, and I noticed that shirt was SIGNED. Eeeeek! So happy. We stuffed it in his bag for safe keeping and left in somewhat of a hurry, because we didn't want to be stuck in nowhereville for the whole night.
We got to the station, and decided against taking another shinkansen because of price... sounds like a good idea on paper, right? Well, let me just say, the normal slow ass train from Takasaki to Ueno is... well... really slow. It took like two hours what the shinkansen did in 30 mins. ;___; Ergh. I wanted to sleeeeeep. Then of course when we finally did get to Ueno, we have to take another train to Shinagawa, so that's even more walking and waiting and urgh. At least I had a pretty t-shirt to look at. :D
Anyway we talked random shit on the train, and I decided that I will always love D'espairsRay and all the haters can KMA because damn, they put on one of the best lives I've ever seen. I love their music and I love the members and I just love them, so, there it is. They rock, end of story.
So, then after 30 years of riding trains, we got back and so I'll leave you now with a photo of my ticket and of my nice shiny autographed shirt. :D
*back of the shirt*
Tomorrow is Rentrer en Soi last live. GONNA BE FUN. *dejavu*
We got a late start today due to a few reasons, but nothing interesting, so I digress. We went over to Tokyo station to get a shinkansen to Takasaki. We managed to figure out the ticket machines with little difficulty, but then we totally got on the wrong train. Oops. Well it was okay, I noticed pretty quickly and we only went 1 station too far. We then found the correct train and off we went~~ Zoom. Here's some pics of signs.
So then we arrived in Takasaki, and then I remembered that I forgot to write down the directions to the venue. Luckily, we found a Tower Records and I asked someone there where it was. XD We found it after that without much problem. There's like, nothing in this city. Mostly everything was closed by 4pm. Kinda spooky, to be honest. Here's some pics of the venue~~
So, the sign said that merch wouldn't be on sale until 17:00, so we went to find food. Mind you, this was no easy task, because everything was freaking closed. ;____; We finally found a little curry & bento shop run by this cute little old lady. I ordered some curry, and of course took a photo of it! Also included are photos of a neat shrine that me and Chris found along the way, and photos of us being happy, and stuff. Hey, we might as well be a little bit touristy, right?
So, it was freaking cold out, and the entire time I was eating, there was steam POURING off the food. Was kinda strange... but I was happy to eat hot food. Mmm. After a while we headed back and got in the merch line. We waited for a long long time because really there was nothing else to do. Eventually the thingo opened and we went in, which was nice because it was at least a tiny bit warmer down in the B1 floor than on the street. There was a fair amount of merch, although most of the t-shirts were sold out. I got a mirror (Yay not sold out!), a cellphone strap, and a towel. I thought about buying a t-shirt, but they were 3000 yen each and had the HORIZON single art on them, which I don't much like, so I didn't buy one. They had old hoodies from Taste of Chaos USA, and some towels from 2004. O_o;; Overstock, I guess? The 2004 towel was huge and totally expensive, so I didn't get that either. Even my small purchases were over 5000 yen. Eeks.
WELL anyway here's some pics of the merch I got :D
So after this, we had to wait AGAIN in the cold for the doors to the actual venue to open. The people weren't nearly as interesting as at Versailles. Mostly people wore the same types of clothes and were just kinda boring. Chris went back to the food place and got something with pork, I forget the name. I played with my camera and my merch. We talked about how cold it was, and listened to other people talk about how cold it was, and such. Exciting stuff here, people.
Well then after hours of being cold and stuff, the guy came out and starting calling numbers. I noticed two girls go in wearing skimpy santa outfits, which kinda made me confused. Oh well, I've seen stranger things. Captain Japan comes to mind. ... Uhhh anyway eventually our number got called and we went in and put all our shit in the coin locker. We went in, and Chris went over to the bar while I found a nice place on a platform in sorta the back area, but not the back... if that makes sense. I could see the stage, anyway. The santa girls were near me, but luckily their lack of clothing made it easy to see over them. Hahaha.
And now~~ Eeeek. The live! Onoes.
Well, I want to start by saying a huge FUCK YOU to all the people saying D'espa is dying or whatever. THIS LIVE IS HOW YOU DO A LIVE. Goddamn, it was PERFECT. This live seriously reminded me of why D'espairsRay has been consistently in my top 3 bands for like, the past 5 years. There was NOTHING bad about this live. Ho-lee-shit.
Okay back on target here, well, they all came out and took their places pretty fast, there was an intro track playing and the audience was clapping along. Bullet started up and we were off. And hell, I was off too, furitsuke and all. I again don't have a set list, nor can I remember every song in order, or whatever, but I can remember some things they played. They did Bullet first, then Scissors. Somewhere along the line was Kamikaze, Brilliant, Cocoon, Infection, Dears, Hollow, Trickster, kogoeru yoru ni saita hana, Horizon, Damned, more from Coll:set I can't recall the name of, and a nice amount of new songs, including the only slower song played all night.
Let me tell you, all those "crappy pop singles" they've been releasing, well, they are fucking AWESOME live. Everything sounded SO GOOD. AHHH. I loved it so much. I was headbanging and furitsuke-ing and jumping with everyone else and it was glorious. Every damn song sounded awesome. Guh, I cannot gush enough about this.
Hizumi's vocals were spot on, his going from screamy to singing to falsetto was flawless and effortless, and his stage presence was very powerful. I wanted to watch Karyu and Zero more, but I kept finding my eyes drifting to Hizumi... he has that way about him. Zero was totally rocking out the whole time, even jumping around the stage and shit. He stayed farther back in the stage for the first portion, but after a bit he came out forward. Karyu was also pretty active, but he seemed to enjoy just watching us. XD I couldn't see Tsukasa, 'cause, Hizumi was right in my line of vision for him most of the time, and since this was such a small venue, the lights shined so bright Tsukasa was not visible. Is a shame... I love Tsukasa. Oh well, he did awesome anyway, at least audibly~~
So anywho, Hizumi did a great job MCing, but again nothing that interesting. Lots of TAKASAKI SAIKOU shit and talking about how much fun he was having. Let me say here that the venue heated up REALLY fast and all the band members (and the audience!!) were sweating A TON. I had taken off my coat and left it in the locker, but I kept my sweater on, and at the second MC I practically ripped that thing off (Err, I was wearing a t-shirt underneath, pervs!). Hizumi talked about how it was so cold upstairs (as in, outside), but it was just boiling hot inside. Zero's hair was sticking up in all sorts of unnatural directions, and Karyu's hair was just sticking to his face, so he kept trying to push it out, but it just fell back. Hizumi was sweating so much, I was sorta worried, but he didn't let it get to him~~ He said Merry Christmas to us, but then after a while he was like, Well I guess it's not Christmas yet, but let's have a crazy party!! Or something to that effect (quotes+me=fail). At one point he asked how many couples were in the audience, and only like 4 people raised their hands, and Hizumi was like ...... oh, not very many I guess... well then... and was just kinda sad about that. XD He talked about how excited they were for the tour final coming up, and blabla, come see us please, etc. There's some big music event coming up in like, March, and he said they were gonna be at that, so go see them. He didn't talk about the new album though, which kinda surprised me, but I guess the music speaks for itself. They definitely seem to have enough new songs for an album. :D
Anywho the live continued, and everything was glorious. Zero stopped being shy and played the crowd more. After a while they started throwing picks out (them being Karyu and Zero, obv.), and Zero would put the pick in his mouth and then have the audience members take it out. Eeek. Chris said Karyu did it too, but I didn't see. Hizumi et al. threw out water bottles, Zero even spat water on us, and Hizumi would fling water on everyone, which was a welcomed coolness since it was SCORCHING in the venue by then. So then they went offstage, but of course it wasn't the end. We all chanted Di-supeaazu-rei (something to this pronounciation) until FINALLY they came back out.
Everyone except Karyu had changed into one of the merch t-shirts, and Karyu had a santa hat on. There was more long MC, but I mostly mentioned the interesting stuff already. Hizumi gave the mic to Tsukasa and Tsukasa talked about Christmas and something about being a black santa. At the end he was all, (in English) "Yes, we can." and I was sorta confused. Karyu got the mic then, and people were yelling things at him and he was kinda O_o; He talked about more Xmas stuff, and did the same Yes we can thing. I really wish I had been paying more attention, but damn I was hot. Blah. After a pause of Karyu sorta thinking about what he wanted to say, Chris was like, PLAY A DAMN SONG (yes, Chris is very impatient), and Karyu laughed and was like, *points over in his direction* "Yes!" But then it was Zero's turn, and he talked really fast and I was again confused. I know he started off with Merry Christmas, and did the little metal horns thing with his hand, and Hizumi was all, Why are you doing that? And Zero was like, *looks at hand, looks confused, puts hand down* Uhm, I dunno really. :D I didn't catch everything here, but it wasn't really anything important. He did sign off with Abayo though, haha. Then Hizumi took the mic again and started talking with more TAKASAKI SAIKOU 8DD stuff, and then Karyu came up behind him and tried to put the santa hat on him, but he just ended up knocking Hizumi over backwards. Hizumi gave him a totally WTF stare, and Karyu looked sorta sheepish. I guess then Hizumi decided to cut off the MC and just start some songs. Yayyy.
There was even more energy during the encore I think, and the members were even more animated. Hizumi talked about how he was impressed with us, for being such a small venue. I was sorta impressed too, haha. We all happily sang along the various parts of songs when he would hold the mic to us, we jumped at the right times, had awesome furitsuke-headbanging energy, and were just generally awesome. I recall Mirror was the last song, and everyone was super loud singing it. The band looked very happy about that~ :D
THEN again they went offstage, but, apparently it wasn't over yet either! More chanting and waiting, and finally the normal voice for the 'the live is over, get out' came out, BUT IT WASN'T. The voice changed and it was like, SPECIAL CHRISTMAS ENCORE. WOOOOOT. Tsukasa's voice came on and he was talking all spooky like (I think it was supposed to be a character, but I'm not familiar with it), and somewhere he said that the special encore was gonna be recorded for the DVD. MAJOR WOOT.
THEN finally he came out and he was wearing a moose thing on his head, and he said he was Moose-ka (musuka), and he proceeded to introduce the rest of the members as they came back on stage. I was infinitely amused when some girl behind me yelled MOOSEKA~~~ super loud. WTF but totally awesome. THEN. AHHH THEN. THE MUSIC CAME ON AND IT WAS LIKE, A ROCK VERSION OF JINGLE BELLS. HAHAHAHA. So. Much. Fun. I didn't understand any of the goddamn words (besides Jingle Bells), but a few people seemed to know it, so maybe it's a cover or somesuch. ANYWAY I didn't really care, because fuck, it was AWESOME. Hizumi sang a bunch of verses and everyone rocked out and was just generally awesome. Best encore ever!
After the song, they each got bags of goodies to throw out to the audience. There was much more water spitting/throwing, mostly however they had little mini basketball type things to throw, not sure what was up with that. Zero threw some more picks, Karyu too, Tsukasa threw his drumsticks (I actually only saw him throw one, but he might have thrown the other, I dunno Dx). They also each threw out a t-shirt, but, Tsukasa's got stuck on a thing in the ceiling, and everyone was sorta awwwww. Tsukasa was sorta sad, sorta amused, but made sure to tap Karyu on the shoulder and show him. Karyu was just like ...why are you showing me this. Haha. Hizumi ran out of stuff, so he did the most obvious thing then, and put his empty bag on his head, and flopped into the audience. Zero was standing right behind him and had the BEST LOOK on his face when he saw Hizumi do this. It was like O_o ?_? O_O! XD o_O O_O!!!! (<~~ lifelike renderings, truth). A stage hand guy came out and fished Hizumi out eventually, and got the bag off his head, which he then threw into the audience. He's a strange guy.
Anyway after they exhausted their rather large supply of random stuff to throw out, they left the stage and it was finally over. Not that I wanted it to be over, but shit, it was a long live and it was like 5000 degrees in there. I migrated over to Chris, who had the best look on his face, and I followed in curiosity. He went over to the shirt Tsukasa had gotten stuck, and kinda pointed at it and grinned. He waited a bit for some people to move, then JUMPED and GOT THE SHIRT DOWN. FUCKING SCORE. Everyone inside was like EEEEEEEEEEEEE?! and I was totally psyched. TSUKASA SHIRT YES. We left the room and got our shit out of the locker, and I noticed that shirt was SIGNED. Eeeeek! So happy. We stuffed it in his bag for safe keeping and left in somewhat of a hurry, because we didn't want to be stuck in nowhereville for the whole night.
We got to the station, and decided against taking another shinkansen because of price... sounds like a good idea on paper, right? Well, let me just say, the normal slow ass train from Takasaki to Ueno is... well... really slow. It took like two hours what the shinkansen did in 30 mins. ;___; Ergh. I wanted to sleeeeeep. Then of course when we finally did get to Ueno, we have to take another train to Shinagawa, so that's even more walking and waiting and urgh. At least I had a pretty t-shirt to look at. :D
Anyway we talked random shit on the train, and I decided that I will always love D'espairsRay and all the haters can KMA because damn, they put on one of the best lives I've ever seen. I love their music and I love the members and I just love them, so, there it is. They rock, end of story.
So, then after 30 years of riding trains, we got back and so I'll leave you now with a photo of my ticket and of my nice shiny autographed shirt. :D
*back of the shirt*
Tomorrow is Rentrer en Soi last live. GONNA BE FUN. *dejavu*