breaking the modern society

Angelo at Zepp Tokyo

2009-01-22T21:19:04Z

Okay, so I'm going a little out of order with my reports. Oh well. -_-; I'm also slacking... well partially because it's hard to get onto the computer at my house and partially because I keep forgetting a lot of stuff. But continuing on...

The route to Zepp Tokyo is really scenic. You have to take a monorail onto the island in Tokyo Bay that it`s located on. You pass by Tokyo Tower and the Rainbow Bridge... actually you go over the Bridge. Now I know why they call it such... There are lights that make it rainbow-y. It is rather pretty... for a bridge. Zepp is just right off the station platform so it`s really easy to get to.

We got in line and the 3 of us: RA, Sana & I, were totally last in line. ...but were not the last to enter... ::shrug:: As we were standing and waiting for our numbers to be called, we saw from across the crowd this really awesome looking Kirito cosplayer! I have no idea if it was a guy or a girl but they were really good looking! After we got into the venue we stopped at the merch booths (because there were more than one) and bought stuff... Lots of stuff. The pictures for the Lotto Pamphlets, at least the ones that I got, are really pretty. Anyways, so the 3 of us stuffed our stuff in a locker and went in. We tried to get somewhere in the middle of the crowd but that was not happening so we went to the back. We found a small spot on the left but decided it was too small so we moved over to the right side and ended up about 3rd row from the back. But we could see the whole stage for the most part and the really good-looking Kirito cosplayer was caddy corner behind us, so it was fine. ^^;

The show started on time. The announcement of the tour was given, the lights went down and the opening SE began.

Angelo: Tour 08-09 ｢NATURAL BORN ULTIMATE CHILD｣ Jan 2 -fri- Zepp Tokyo

I didn`t keep a setlist even though I am usually good about that, so the songs that they played were as follows but not in this order:
SISTER
ULTIMATE WORLD
CHAOTIC BELL
SIGN
Kesshou
HE IS A MONKEY
Danmatsuma ni Mimi Sumashite
CEREMONY
Destruction impulse
REBORN
Hakuchuumu
HALLUCINATION
WINTER MOON
DANCE
Holocaust
SCRAP
SQUALL
End Symptom (New)
MULTI PERSONALITY (New)
CREATURE
Takeo & Kohta duet

Kirito came out in his SISTER outfit though I think it was slightly different, like he found a top that was the same plaid pattern as the bottom. I like his little fake skirt outfits, they look cute on him. RA believes that the reason he moves around as he does is so he can see his skirt swish around because he kept looking down at himself as he moved. XD SISTER was definitely the first song and ULTIMATE WORLD was the second. After that it's vague.

The two new songs came up somewhere in the middle of the set. The first one was "End Symptom". He did announced the title to that one though it sounded funny when he said it. It was an alright song. Hopefully it will sound a little better on the recording but "MULTI PERSONALITY" (which I assume was the second one because he didn`t announce the title for that song) was super catchy! The beginning (and I think the end) started with him singing a line (or was it a few guitar riffs... crap, I can't remember now. DX) and then the audience would yell a word back at him though for the life of me I could not understand what the crowd was yelling back. I can tell you it was a two syllable word but I've no idea what it was. D: Regardless, I can`t wait to have a recorded version for that one at least.

One personal note: during the live, in the middle they decided to perform CREATURE. Now I have never been to a Pierrot concert so this was the first Pierrot song I've ever heard live. I had seen that in the beginning of the tour they were performing a Pierrot song or two at the lives then so I made a mental note of this in the back of my mind but then I completely forgot about it so when the song was played on the 2nd, it caught me completely by surprise. I remember hearing the first couple of chords and then whipping myself around and spazzing on RA who had no idea what my malfunction was. Oops. In a way, it was a personal moment for myself - hearing a song of my favorite band still being sung by its original singer whom I hold in such high esteem. I will admit I closed my eyes for much of the song so as to not see 'Angelo' performing it. While I realize this rendition of the song does sound different because the guitar parts had to be reworked some but the vocals were the same and that's what I pay attention to; that's what caught me the first time I ever heard a song by Pierrot.

But back to the matter at hand... Kirito was getting a cold/getting over a cold/in the middle of having a cold and during SIGN when he went to hit the high notes he cracked really badly. During one of the MC's he coughed and then excused himself. As he was talking later, we could hear a coughdrop clicking around in his mouth. But dispite all that, he still sounded pretty good for the rest of the show, I think.

I really don`t remember a whole lot from the MC`s. I did make out a lot of stuff about wishing us a happy new year and about it being 'Heisei 21' and such and that Tokyo is cool. Though I think it was before they played CEREMONY, Kirito was saying something about Kohta or introducing him... I don`t remember now... but he started calling him `Aniki` in the cutest voice ever! XD And then it went into the bass part at the beginning of the song. The only other thing I remember specifically is at the end when the 4 of them were at the front of the stage, Kirito had Takeo say something. But before he handed Takeo the mic, he said something like, "Tonight`s live was great, blah blah blah.. Okasan!" and hands the mic to Takeo who seemed both amused and embarrassed by that. I remember nothing from Kohta`s MC but Takeo`s introduction MC was pretty much the same as he always does, "Minna... Genki desu ka? Genki desu ka?! Genki desu ka!!!!"

During HE IS A MONKEY, Kirito took to imitating said animal again as he did at the LA live. I assume he does that regularly now. Though, this time he walked over to Kohta and did it to him, scratching the top of Kohta`s head and his chin. It was adorable♥ He also did that 'Arms stretched out and swing his head' move that I've not seen him do since the 'Easter For Treason' tour when I first saw them. It made me kinda nostalgic and then made me laugh because I remembered how funny we all thought it was that first time. :)

There was also this one point during Holocaust (maybe) that Kirito was messing with a group on the one side of the stage. There were these platforms set up on the sides of the stage so the band could climb up and stand slightly out to the sides. So on the right side (my right, his left) he was up there and he was trying tho get the crowd right there to do something. Either they weren`t headbanging or something, but he kept beckoning for them to do something and apparently they weren`t so he had this little mock hissy-fit, pounding on the railing in front of him but grinning the whole time. It was rather funny.

The show ended with the usual throwing of picks and towels and stuff and then Kirito yelling out, "Domo Arigatou" without the mic. And then he proceeded to yell out other stuff that I could hear despite being in the back of the venue but couldn`t understand. And, of course, what would a live be without Kirito blogging about it:

See? Aaaaaaallllllllll the way in the back. Defiantly can't see us.
Yup, stole this from his blog too. 8P

So the show ended and we started to make our way out. Just so you know, Zepp Tokyo is hot as balls in the back area, even with no one really around you. >0 And then we couldn`t even get to the drink counter. Hell, we were lucky to make it to our locker. But that's besides the point...

Sana & I found the vending machines outside while RA ran back to the merch line really quick. As we were walking out to leave, we spotted the Kirito cosplayer again. I was a weeny and couldn't ask for a picture but Sana had the balls to do it. So ~~he.. she...~~ the person was happy to pose:

I think they looked even better in person. It's Kirito's outfit that he wore for the DOGMATIC PARTY 07 -Case of Angelo- (I think it was 07).
It would look better if they didn't cover their face because the cosplayer had really fitting cheekbones. ...AND I LOVE THE TATTOOS!

In case you're wondering what the actual outfit looked like:

~FIN~

Peace & Smile Carnival

2009-01-18T07:20:45Z

Hmmm.... let's see what I can remember...

We got over to the Budokan sometime after 1pm. We got into the merch line which extended down from the Budokan into this little courtyard outside of its gates where the line zig-zagged a bunch of times and then made its way out of the outside gate and down the long hill to the street below. I didn't keep track but everyone else said we were in the line for about 4 hours.

This is near the top of the long hill outside the courtyard area.

While in line we saw lots and lots of cosplayers. I didn't bring my camera so I didn't get any pictures but I did see a Kagrra, group that made me go, "Woooooooooooooowwwww. *______*" The Isshi was so pretty. There were a bunch of Miyavis running around and lots of Gazette cosplayers. Reita, of course, was the most popular. AND ALMOST ALL OF THEM LOOKED LIKE BECKY! :O The few COCKROACH Ruki cosplayers that I saw made me go, "Tsk, your hat is wrong. Mine is better." Am I being pretentious by saying that? Probably. But I digress... While standing in line, we also got accosted by musicjapan+ people asking about fashion checks or something. I didn't participate.

So eventually, we got up into the actual Budokan area and could actually see the merchandise booths when Jazz finally found us. We still had to go get our tickets so Jess gave Jazz her card and stuff and I gave RA my money for merch (all I wanted was the tour book) and made my way out of line (as we were then in a gated off area) to go with Jazz and get the tickets. After finding the spot we needed to be at, the guy told Jazz that Jess had to be the one to pick up the tickets as she needed to present her passport which I had a feeling was going to happen since that's what they did at X Japan. We also found out that they were issuing the tickets on a first-come-first-serve basis. So since I was able to get tickets then, the guy had me look at the chart to find a spot for all eight of us. There was a large area on the map that looked like it was near what was supposed to be the front. He said he could stick 6 people in the one row and 2 behind. I said it was fine since two of the people in our group were girls that, I guess, Jess knows and weren't really with our group per se... So the guy said he'd hold Jess' tickets until she got there so we'd be able to all sit together. That was really awesome of him. ^^

After Jess got there & got her tickets, we made our way back to the main pathway so everyone else could find us once they got out of the merchandise line. Once we all found each other, we stood around and people-watched for a little while. While standing about, we saw this one guy (and it was a guy) who looked like Uruha. From a distance, he was dead on. We all just gawked at him for awhile. He just kind of looked like Uruha came out and was trying to blend in with the other cosplayers. I know Sana went over and got a picture of him. Not me, sorry.

At one point, miyavi decided to come out onto the second balcony and cause a ruckus for little while. All we heard were fans screaming for 10 minutes. Also, outside the one enterance, there were flowers for the bands set up. Gackt sent Miyavi flowers, GLAY sent Gazette flowers and SUGIZO & Yoshiki / X Japan sent some too. I think MUCC sent some as well and I think I also saw SID as a sender but someone else's flowers were in the way so I couldn't make out the first character properly. Eventually we decided it was time to make our way into the arena. We found the line and went in. On our way in, somehow Sana got her camera confiscated. Seriously? Anyways, we found where we had to go and followed the crowd down through the hallways and out onto the ground floor. We were really close. We were in the second row of the second section back from the stage between the far left and the center. So I was able to actually make out faces on the musicians on the stage! Actually, the set-up was a full 360 degree view of the stage which was pretty cool. So we got ourselves situated and waited for the concert to start.

PS COMPANY: The 10th anniversary commemorative performance ｢Peace&Smile Carnival｣ Jan 3rd -sat- Nippon Budokan

This concert had two opening bands, SuG and Screw. Their set lists were:

SuG:
Vi-Vi-Vi
Love Scream Party

Screw:
Death's door
VEGAS

I remember SuG coming out and being too entirely cute! Though Takeru's hair still bothered me: pink and curly. .____. I assume they were dressed in the outfits from there latest look... I know Takeru's hair was. RA & I both wanted them to play Love Scream Party as that is our favorite song from them so we were ecstatic when that was played. Vi-Vi-Vi is also fun live and at that point I was really excited that we were going to see a one-man by them at the end of our trip.

Screw did a really good performance too. I like the song VEGAS so I was glad they played that. I assume they were decked out in their current threads as well.

After each of their performances, videos were shown on the screens while the stage was taken down and put back up for the next band. I don't remember what they showed for SuG but I do remember them showing a little advertisement for their one-man at Liquidroom Ebisu that we were going to. For Screw, they showed their Gather Roses PV which, as Jess said, was like soft porn. Yeah, it was pretty hot. o.O

So the opening bands finished and finally miyavi and Keiyuu came out in traditional Japanese hakama & kimono. The two of them looked so handsome. I think Miyavi was in mostly white and Keiyuu was reversed, being mostly in black (or I could have that switched...) Anyways, I think they wished everyone a Happy New Year and probably spoke of the concert and/or it being 10 years or something. So they left and eventually a video started to announce the starting band. It was going to be Kagrra,. The video they had for the first P&S Carnival Tour was the one they had played for this concert too.

Setlist:
Kotodama
Sai
Shigatsu Tsuitachi
Uzu
Utakata
Urei

Before hand, we were discussing what songs we'd like to hear by them and D said that it'd be awesome if they'd play Kotodama since that was their first demo as Kagrra. So each member of the band came out one-by-one to take their places, Isshi being last. The lights were down for all of this so you couldn't really see what was going on on the stage. I could see that whatever Isshi had on was big because he was followed by two stage hands who spread out his outfit behind him before they left the stage. The lights went up to reveal Isshi in a long cloak and an oni mask. Then he whipped the cloak and mask off as the opening chords to Kotodama started to play. We all quickly looked around at each other like, 'No fucking way?!' and went back to enjoying the performance. Kagrra, was the second band I went their to see so I highly enjoyed their performance. JRev just wasn't enough for me. Also, they all had on such wonderful outfits: kimono-like, colorful ensembles.

Between performances, as the stage was being reset for the next band, they had 'back-stage interviews' showing on the screens. Isshi and Nao were interviewed for Kagrra,. I have no idea what they were talking about. All I know is that when Nao wasn't being asked a question, he would just stare dead-on at the camera (o.o) and then come out of his spacing when asked something. At one point, the camera shifted over to just Isshi so then Nao leaned over to get into the camera's frame and coninue with his (o.o). It was really damn funny. [AND YES JESS, WHY CAN'T THEY MAKE-OUT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!??!?? DDDDDDDDDDD: THE TORTURE, THE TORTURE!] Oh yeah, I don't remember if it was before or after, but they played their Uzu PV.

Next up was Kra.

Setlist:
artman
Renjou Fisorofii
Mutaku to Mutaku to
Amaoto wa Shopan no Suirabe
Buriki no Hata

When I first heard Kra, I didn't really like them. But after seeing the DVD for the first Peace&Smile Carnival Tour, I was deeply impressed with Keiyuu's live vocals and this performance didn't disappoint either. Keiyuu can project his voice wonderfully (and I want to pick him up and carry him away in my pocket 8) ). Even in an arena that size, I could hear him without his mic. Their performance opened with Keiyuu coming out and doing a little solo on the piano. I assumed it was for Amaoto wa Shopan no Suirabe but they didn't play that until later. Instead they started with artman which was fine because I like that song. They did a really fun performance and I think if they were ever around my way, I'd pay to go see them.

So they finished and the PV for Marry was shown (and really random... I just looked at the cover for their next album and the guy on there looks like what's-his-face from the SAW movies... O.O ...and the album title...? alrighty then...). The PV was really awesome. It reminded some of us of a Psycho le Cemu PV... fun and colorful and kinda crack~ish. I think for their interview, it was Keiyuu and Yasuno. I've no idea what they said and even if I could understand them, I probably wouldn't remember anyway because at this point Sana, RA and I were all, "Who gonna be next? Gazette or alice nine.? Who's gonna be next," at each other. It ended up being alice nine..

Setlist:
the beautiful name
Velvet
RAINBOWS
RED CARPET GOING ON
Blue Planet

To be honest, the only thing I really remember from their performance was Saga climbing up on the one speaker for awhile and when he went to get down, he jumped down but his feet slipped out from under him and he fell hard and flat on his ass. That was fucking hilarious! I liked their performance, it was a good set... though I would have liked to hear NINE HEADS RODEO SHOW but it's fine now. alice nine. is another band that, at first, I didn't really care for them but my friend(s) turned me onto them. Shou's vocals (like Keiyuu's) have improved drastically and despite some of the band's... shortcomings, I still enjoy their music and their retardedness.

I don't remember what PV played for them, but for their interview Shou and Tora were the ones to be interviewed; I've no idea what they talked about, don't ask.

Finally, the one band I came to see! ::squeesqueesquee:: I noticed that before Gazette took the stage, all of a sudden there were a lot more security around. They expected us to get that wild? Anyway...

Setlist:
Filth in the beauty
LEECH
COCKROACH
DISCHARGE
LINDA~candydive Pinky heaven~

O. M. F. G. !
They took the stage and I was completely floored. They were all so fucking beautiful, an adjective I haven't used for them or any individual member in a very long time! All five of them came out in full kimono, haori & what looked like andon bakama (undivided hakama) ensembles and ♥Ruki♥ didn't have that curly rat's nest he's been sporting for awhile and his hair was utterly gorgeous♥ and Aoi looked like he actually washed his hair thoroughly and Kai looked as freaking adorable as always♥ I'm going to be honest with you, I don't really remember what went on on stage because my eyes were glued to Ruki and when they weren't on him I was in a constant state of head-banging. I can say that LEECH is great live. I think it took me hearing it live to really think it was a good song. Upon first hearing it, it kind of sucked, but then it started to grow on me, but now I like it. DISCHARGE... aaaaahhhhhhhh!! XDDDDD Lovelovelovelove! and and and and LINDA ::clap clap clapclapclap:: ^__________________________^ It was 5 songs of complete awesomeness! It wasn't enough, I need a one-man by them! T________T But I digress... Ruki's screaming is impressive. He can get really high. When their set was over, the only time I really looked at Reita was when he came to the front of the stage and decided to throw his bass into the air. I remember looking over at RA and watching her eyes follow the bass into the air and then her starting to breathe again as he caught it. The last to leave the stage was, of course, Kai. He had his kimono sleeves tied back so you could see his arms... his arms are so sexy. Poor Uruha, I gave him no love. u_u After they all left the stage, I sat back down in anticipation of their backstage interview only to be disappointed. The "interview" consisted of the camera following Kai through the hallway in the back and Kai talking but no sound coming through and then Kai putting his hand up to the camera and then the screen going completely blank. Yo, de~nied. D: I don't think they even showed a PV for them. Blast. ); But they did give an advertisement for a new single, DISTRESS AND COMA coming out in March & for a concert for their 7th birthday aptly entitled [7-seven].

As we were waiting for miyavi, Jess told me that while Gazette was performing, the camera man was going around and decided to focus on our section the most. D8 Crap! Well, hopefully Jess' magical powers will make them want to put her side of the section in the DVD and leave me out of it. 8P

So, miyavi was up next. Only he can sport multi-colored stockings and cut-off jean shorts and a wife-beater and look normal doing it. (-____-);

Setlist:
Aishiteru kara Hajimeyou
Kabuki Danshi -KAVKI BOIZ-
Aho Matsuri - Ahho Matsuri -
Shouri no V-Rock!!
Saki Hokoru Hana no you ni - Neo Visualizm -
As U r - Kimi wa Kimi no Mama de -

They showed a video of his world tour on the screens, showing clips from the Anaheim and LA shows. He didn't have the KAVKI BOIZ with him anymore but I think one of them was there and 2...? dancers from the past, I think. I'm really glad he played Aho Matsuri. I think of Kitto everytime I hear it, I don't know why. Yay for the hand flippy song. But near the end of that song, members from the other bands came out and danced along to the song. I don't remember who all came out though. -_-; His final MC apparently consisted of him saying something about not wanting to be known as a Japanese VK artist but a world VK artist.

After miyavi's set was finished, he called all of the other bands out onto the stage; SuG and Screw went off to the sides on the walkways while the main bands horse-shoed the main stage. They made band introductions again and Keiyuu went around and interviewed a member from each band, starting with SuG. It was usually the vocalist but with Gazette, Kai did the talking. Also, when it was Kra's turn, Keiyuu interviewed himself. It was really cute! ^^ There was a huge, something, sitting in the middle of the stage that miyavi and Keiyuu were talking about which was eventually revealed to be a huge drum of sake. A member from each of the bands (each of the main bands... I don't think SuG or Screw participated in this part) went to the barrel and grabbed a mallet to break open the sake drum. Obviously miyavi was there with a mallet. I know Ruki came up for Gazette and Isshi came up for Kagrra, but I don't rememeber alice nine or Kra... though it was probably Keiyuu for Kra. The rest of the bands held hands and they had the audience hold hands in the air too. On the count of three, we were to jump into the air as they cracked open the sake barrel to ring in the new year. On three, they brought the mallets down and silver streamers flew into the air.

When the show was completely done, Jazz ran out and got us all some streamers since they didn't quite make it back to us (and speaking of... where did I put my streamers??? o.o). So the bands all left the stage and the 'credits' video played. I don't remember if it was before the credits or after the credits but one little clip advertising the release of the P&S Carnival DVD flashed across the screen saying 'April 15th' as the release date.

The show was done and we made our way out through the crowd and down out of the Budokan. On our way down the long hill to the street below, there were bands handing out flyers. Apparently one of the guys from DELUHI was there handing out fliers and so was VelBet and Danger Gang. I ended up passing by the bands I'd never heard of and got flyers from all of them. ::shrug:: The next day, my neck hurt hard. Gazette busted it. :O But it was worth it!

a live report, if you want to call it that...

2009-01-10T01:54:01Z

Cocklobin/9GOATS BLACK OUT/Sugar - Jan 9th -fri- Takadanobaba AREA

Yesterday it rained. I don't mind the rain, but I don't like being out in it for an extended period of time which we weren't supposed to be. But whoever wrote the directions up that Jess got failed hard. When we got up to Takadanobaba it apparently decided to start raining a little harder. Our written directions said to go right out of the station, and we did until we walked for probably 15 minutes which was incorrect. So we turned around and walked back and when we went the right direction, the venue was seriously 2 short blocks from the station. DDDX

We were all soaked, me especially. I didn't even have a hood nor a thick coat. We came in on the last song for the first band Cocklobin. I don't remember what that sounded like.

9GOATS BLACK OUT was next. If I wasn't cold and wet and have every single tall Japanese person standing in front of me so I could see, maybe I might have enjoyed their performance more. They played 2 or 3 songs that I recognized, but overall, I was dissapointed. It was actully kind of boring. I just leaned against the side wall and tried not fall asleep.

Sugar, you DO bore the piss out of me. As Sugar was setting up, I was able to move up so I could see most of the band for them. The singer, Loki? looks like a cross between Dracula and Trent Reznor. I think I did fall asleep during their set, so I left and sat out in the hallway while the concert finished. The final encore song had the vocalist from the 3 bands come out and do some song.

Over all, I wouldn't go see any of these bands ever again. ._.

After the live, we went back to the hotel, got something hot to eat and I took a really hot shower. Then RA and I watched Death Note on TV. Ooooo and the guy who played Light is going to be in another movie, Kaiji (at least I think that's what it was called...) He is so cute. ...and that 'L' movie looks kind of dumb, but whatever.

I ♥切人

2008-10-06T21:38:16Z

Angelo...

*____________________________*

...ho~ly crap!

So, I'll start from the beginning. RA & I got into LA at about 9/9:30pm on Wednesday. We got into our We-Look-Good-But-Are-Still-Ghetto-Because-We're-In-LA hotel, got settled and then took a walk down to the venue to find it and to see what else was going on. Our original intention was to hang and see if the band showed up for practice like GLAY did, in San Fran at least, but when we got down there we realized that we were both really tired and decided to go back to the hotel to sleep.

The next day, we didn't even set an alarm. We just woke up at about 10/11am or so and took our time getting dressed and moseyed on down to the venue to find 4 people in line. So RA and I took our places, though the two people in front of us, Omen and her brother, went to the back of the line to talk with people and didn't end up coming back so when we were finally let in, we were 3 & 4. Cool beans. In the end, only about 20 people made it; which I expected and didn't expect. I figured not a lot of people were going to be able to make it but I guess I expected more than 20. Oh well. This was the shortest line I have been in for a concert.

My 'waiting in line' report is totally longer and more detailed than my concert report, so if you don't care about waiting in line, please skip down to the second 'cut' link. :)
At one point, RA was talking on the phone with Marcie and I was looking around and I saw this guy standing on the corner smoking a cigarette. He looked really familiar and then a noticed the over abundance of tattoos and the crazy hair and realized it was Toruxxx. I grabbed RA and told her to look in his direction. As he disappeared behind the building, we decided to take a walk. So we walked around the corner, still talking to Marcie so as to not seem so obvious. He was talking to some other staffer in the parking lot behind the venue but paid us no attention that I noticed. ::shrug::

So we went back to our spot and continued to wait. A while later, this car came rolling up and parked in front of the venue. While this was not the first car to park there during the day, for some reason I really took note of this one. I stared at the driver and then realized that it was totally Kirito in the driver seat. XDDD He totally drove some of his staff in a black Ford Mustang (from LA Car Rentals, CA Licence Plate 5ZSM387. 83;;;; ...don't ask. I'm not a stalker, I swear). They came cruising in with the top down looking all hip. Kirito managed to take a picture before he got out and went inside. Just so you know, Ame-san (his bodyguard) is sitting behind him and, I think, one of the female staffers is sitting next to him. Random: I also think that Ame-san decided to not use the door but to stand up and hop over the side of the car when he exited the vehicle. (^^); Oh Ame-san, you bad-ass.

During the time we were waiting in line, one of the other staff members (who's name we found out was Shouji) was going around putting CHAOTIC BELL promo posters up around the venue.

Someone asked him about taking posters and he said that after the live was done, they were all ours; and we know he said this because he spoke perfect English.... like, unaccented English. ...awesome... So he asked us (as in the 20 people in line) where else he should put them because the walls weren't good for holding tape. I don't know if someone suggested to him or if he did it himself but he went over and put a bunch on a traffic light pole.

Then he disappeared and later came back with duct tape. So he taped more to the other wall space including a spot next to RA and I, underneath the "Music Hall of Fame" plate next to the entrance. RA asked him if he wanted any help but he said no, he had it. :)

After the posters, he came back with stickers! Lots and lots of stickers! And he stuck them everywhere...

As he was putting some on the trash bin, he dropped a package of them. RA noticed them on the ground and was eying them, waiting for him to walk away so she could grab them but he noticed the package and also saw her eying them. He grabbed them and when he finished with his trash bin, he walked over to us and handed the package to RA saying, "I'm not supposed to give these out, but here anyway." RA gave him an 'aawwwwww, thanks' face and then gave them to me. Fifteen minutes later he came back and gave them out to everyone so since he handed me a package this time, RA ended up with one anyway.

We went back to waiting. Some time after that though, Kirito came strolling around the corner in front of us. He was just looking at everything, and I guess Shouji-san's poster and sticker job. We saw him taking pictures of the billboard and of the one pole with the posters on it...

I totally stole this from his blog. Shhhhhhhh~~ X)

...and here's what he looks like taking said picture...

Sorry, RA's phone doesn't take great pictures. m(_ _)m
The back of his shirt totally says, "Hey! Good Looking." XD

After blogging about the pictures, he proceeded around the corner to the front door... right by us. He slowly made his way over toward us with one or two of his staff. Anybody who actually noticed what was going on just stood (or sat) there in anticipation as to what he was doing or where he was going. As he approached, he was obviously eying the line as much as we were eying him. As he got up to the door, a mere 4 or 5 feet from us, I waved at him. He looked at me, made that face where he presses his lips together and nodded back in acknowledgment. O_________________O HE FUCKING LOOKED RIGHT AT ME AND NODDED!!!!!! (T-T) HE ACKNOWLEDGED MY EXISTENCE!!!!!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ kljsdguhgef;kjboifgjdfhfgl;rfb!!!!!! XDDDDD!

After that, nothing really interesting happened for a while. RA gave herself 'poster duty': pressing the tape back on the walls so the posters wouldn't fall, Shouji-san catching her one time and giving her an appreciative look. Shortly after that, he came back around with "I♥Kirito" stickers for everyone. We also watched some of the photographers take pictures of everything and everyone...

...and watched Ame-san come out for a cigarette every half hour.

Shouji-san eventually came out and marked off the VIP section, which is where the fan club was going to stand when they got there. He set a pole on the sidewalk marking the beginning of the line and he then came over and told us that, 'That section is for special guests. The fan club will be arriving soon; there are about 200 people coming form Japan and they will be entering first.' The front of the line were like, 'Yeah, we figured. Yeah, we know. No big deal.' Shouji-san smiled and seemed relived like he expected us to jump down his throat about it. He said something about us being good fans... (?) ...and that we were going to get something from the band when we got inside.

The doors were supposed to open at 6:00 but the fan club didn't start arriving until a little before 6pm. Finally a tour bus pulled up and a bus full of Japanese girls got off and started to line up. I was surprised as to how many older people there were on the trip. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I would assume that only someone older with a job could afford to come. Their younger fans would be in school. Many of the girls (or I should say women) looked like they were in their late-late teens to mid-twenties, the older ones looked to be in their mid-thirties to forties. And then there was the one guy. Yes, a male was on the trip. ...draw your own conclusions. So the 4 buses made their way to the venue to drop off the fan club and they all lined up as final preparations were being made inside, I guess.

As everybody was waiting and the photographers/press were taking pictures of the fan club and stuff, this one interviewer (I think her microphone said JATV?) came over to interview us. I was the first one she approached. o.o She probably would have gone to RA who was standing in front of me, but she was in a heated discussion with Jess on the phone... so I got interviewed.

At first I didn't understand what she had asked me because the traffic made it hard to hear, but she first asked where I came from. I told her that I flew from New Jersey and she was really impressed. "You flew all the way here for this?!?" "Yes. (...and if you knew how often I fly out here for freaking concerts, you probably wouldn't be as impressed...)" Then she asked me who I came here to see. "Ummm.. o.O Do you mean specific member?" "Yes." "Oh, um... Kirito." "What do you like about him?"

My answer was something like, "(insert 30 seconds of) ........................................(o.o)............................................................................. I....................like..................." ...anyways, I think I said something about his voice, charisma, messages, I don't know if I can really put it into words. She also asked me how I found out about Angelo and what do I like about the band.

Since we had actual tickets, we had to have them checked at the box office and get a stamp saying that we could enter. I'm happy the lady at the window let us keep our "ticket stubs", because I like keeping stuff like that. ^^;;; The fan club finally all made it in, we got our smiley face stamps and bags checked at the door (and we were allowed to take pictures, just not video. Really!?!?!!? o.O) and we went in.

Angelo - Oct 2nd -thurs- Whiskey a Go Go

Like Shouji-san said, as soon as we walked in the door, we were handed a present. It was a signed photograph of the band.

They were all hand signed. (T-T) It's the first thing I have signed by any of them. Too bad I couldn't get it myself. Le sigh...

Setlist:
REBORN
SISTER
SIGN
Hakuchuumu
DANCE
EASTER AGAIN
Danmatsuma ni Mimi Sumashite
-- Kohta & Takeo Duet --
HALLUCINATION
SEE YOU AGAIN
EDEN
WINTER MOON
CEREMONY
Destruction impulse
ULTIMATE WORLD
SCRAP
SQUALL
HE IS A MONKEY

Encore:
Kesshou
NEO HADES
CHAOTIC BELL
Holocaust

So we made our way in and found a spot in front of Kohta but with a clear view of Kirito. We started at about the 6th row or so, which is much closer than when I saw them the first time.

I don't think the show actually started at 7pm since we weren't let in until 6:30, but as with the typical shows they do, the lights went down and the -SE- music played. The "backstage area" wasn't backstage but up a flight of steps to the side of the stage to a second floor that overlooked the stage and floor area so we could see when they were coming out of their dressing room.

Takeo was the first to come out, closely followed by Toruxxx. They made their way down the steps and Kohta followed behind them. The three of them took their places on the stage before Kirito came out. Takeo looked gorgeous. He didn't have the hair that he has in his current profile picture. It looked more fitting for his head and face. And he didn't have an over abundance of makeup like he did for the "Easter For Treason" tour. Kohta looked so good too: just the right amount of makeup, the right amount of hairspray, the right amount of attitude. X3 Then there's Kirito. Oh, don't get me wrong... In my opinion, pictures don't do him justice. He is so attractive in photos but in person, he is utterly beautiful. But the outfit that he has for the SISTER PV... I really don't like that outfit, and he wore it for the live. Now that I have seen it in person from head to toe, the ensemble looks like a set of mismatched pajamas.

I honestly didn't mind being in a crowd of mostly Japanese girls. It felt like I was back in a Japanese live house; where everyone was used to giving personal space and mostly everyone did the hand motions (because I like doing that stuff). Though, when Kirito finally made it onto the stage, the entire crowd suddenly took two steps forward so we ended up 2 feet closer than where we started. X) It was nice not having people bump into me or having to fight to remain in my spot... though how the hell did I end up with the tallest Japanese girl in front of me? I'm supposed to be taller than all of you people. DX You blocked my view of my vocalist! I'm glad she eventually moved elsewhere.

The MC's. DDDDDDDDDDD8 I only caught a word here and a word there but not enough to put a full coherent thought together. I think he asked how everyone was and how LA was; if everyone was enjoying themselves. Then he said something about since they're in America, he was going to say something in English. So he "introduced" himself, "How is everyone? I am Barack Obama."

(¬__________________¬) Seriously? Well, I'll give him this, his pronunciation was excellent, highly unaccented. Good boy.

There was one MC where all I caught was, "blahblahblah America blahblahblah kichigai blahblahblahblah kichigai blahblah America blahblahblah kichigai... " ..wha~?" He started talking about Pearl Harbor, saying to the crowd, "Remember Pearl Harbor." ::shrug:: He said something about D'espairsRay at one point though I have no idea what, but it was apparently funny. Actually most of what he said was humorous, though the jokes were obviously lost to me. (-_-);;

Later in the concert when he made the introductions for the band members, Kohta said some English in his MC: "Nice to meet you." ...though with him it came out more like, "Naisu chu miit yuu." :) That was the only thing I caught out of the intro MC's because I was watching Kirito make sleepy time next to the drum set. Though, I think when he got to Toruxxx he said something about him never having been in the States before... but don't quote me on that.

To introduce each member, starting with Takeo, he'd say, "Angelo no duramusu..." and the crowd would yell, "Takeo!" This would happen a few times and then Takeo would have his MC. He did this with Kohta too. Though, I noticed when he got to Toruxxx, he didn't say, "Angelo no gitaa," he just said, "Gitaa." Interesting... When he got to himself though, I think he went through the actions but when he actually said his name, I swear he said, "Blah blah blah Marty Friedman desu." phhhhfffftttt~~~ X) ...you dork... The only other thing I can remember... that was not really something said but something he did, was before they performed HE IS A MONKEY, he was talking and said something about a monkey and then did a little impression of a monkey: scratching his chin with one hand and the top of his head with the other going, "OooOooOoo," in the process. :3 I guess it was one of those 'you had to be there' kind of things.

RA got to experience the 'Kirito Pee Dance' first hand. She was utterly mesmerized by his movements. Though one thing he did a lot of that I don't remember from last time was that he kept smacking his butt all the time! X3 (RA said that he'd do something amusing and she'd look over to me to see if I'd seen it but apparently every time she did, I was, " 8D ," at him and wasn't paying attention to her.) While he has such charisma and a dominant presence in his performing, you have to laugh at his 'dancing'.

This is the first time I have heard SISTER and ULTIMATE WORLD in there entirety, since at this point in time the single has not been released yet. SISTER is mad catchy. ULTIMATE WORLD on the other hand is... interesting. I can't think of another way to describe it. I can't wait to get the single so I can see the lyrics. There was a line or two of English that I caught in there but couldn't completely understand. Kirito's English always intrigues and amuses me. Though the song itself, in my opinion, seems like it's going to sound better live than it is recorded. But we shall see. Though, I can honestly say that I have now heard all of their songs at this point live. When I saw them last year, they only played maybe 4 songs from "THE FREAK SHOW" album: ~~CHRIST~~ HE IS A MONKEY being the only one announced by name.

In the middle of the main set, Kirito and Toruxxx left the stage. Kohta moved up to front and center and began strumming the first chords for the duet between him and Takeo.

It was the same song they played during the "THE FRENZIED EMPIRE" final. It's a catchy little tune. I wish I knew if it had a name. Nothing was said on the "TFE" DVD. ::shrug::

Sorry, RA failed and didn't get any pictures of Kirito. (-___-);

Kirito & Toruxxx came back (Kirito having done a slight costume change). The new shirt that Kirito had on showed off his tattoos on his left arm. :D~ ...and looked much better with the plaid pants he had on.

At the end of the show, the band threw stuff into the audience. Kirito threw a handful of towels right at me but with everyone else grabbing at them, I grabbed them oddly (breaking my one nail in the process) and knocked them to the ground, but one of the other American girls reached in and grabbed one and the Japanese girl next to me got them. (¬_______¬);; Whatever, it's not like he used them. I did manage to grab one of the CHAOTIC BELL promo posters from the wall in the venue since I didn't get one with my single. I think RA said she snatched one from the ladies room. :)

I still had my present to give to Kirito. I decided to give him a T-shirt from the Harley Davidson store right by me so it says specifically "Trenton World Class HD" on it. ..I still think the shirt I got him was too small though. :( Too late now. Anyways, while RA was in the bathroom, I stood around looking for a staff member who looked like they'd be able to give the gift to Kirito. Lo and behold, Shouji-san made an appearance on the ground floor of the venue. I ran over to him and asked him if he'd be able to make sure Kirito would get the gift. He said he'd would make certain he'd get it. He asked what it was and I told him and he seemed happy that it wasn't anything weird. Then he handed me a piece of merchandise in a white box. I was really excited about this because A) it was from that 'Mad Fascist' line of stuff they have and B) there was no merch table so I couldn't buy anything even if I wanted. As I was thanking him for the box, RA came walking to my side and upon seeing the merchandise in my hand, made a pouty face at Shouji-san. He smiled and handed her one of the black boxes in his hand saying to her, "Here, you deserve it!" RA made googly eyes and thanked him. We ran off to the side to see what we had received and to watch the stage being disassembled. RA opened her black plastic box to reveal the chopsticks. I opened the one end of my white cardboard box and got super excited. It was the fan that I had been eying on their site for the longest. 8DDDDDDD

As we were playing with our stuff off to the side, a lady came up (it might have been the same lady from JATV, I don't remember) and asked us how the show was. RA said it was great and stuff. I think I just agreed with RA and said I'd like to see them back here soon. We played with out stuff some more and eventually went over to get a drink. (I got free bottled water. Oh snap~) Then we left to go see who was leaving through the back door. When we got out there, Toruxxx was getting into a van with other people. Two of the people looked like Kirito and Kohta, but then they didn't so we honestly didn't know. But Shouji-san jumped into the driver's seat. So we at least waved at him as the van drove away. =)

After that we walked back to the hotel and went to bed since we had a 9:00 flight the next morning. :0 Ugh, the flight to Phoenix, we were stuck behind a guy that smelled like day 3 of a con and the lady next to me didn't smell like roses either and thought my ribs were part of her elbow's space. )X But the 5 hour flight back to Newark was spent stretched out over two seats, so I guess I can't complain too much.

~~ FIN ~~

So, what are you waiting in line for?

2008-08-18T01:08:35Z

A concert.
-Who's playing?
Glay.
-Clay?
No, Glay.
-Can you spell that?

The other most frequently asked question was, "Why is there a line for the post office?" I'll get to that later.

RA & I woke up at about 5:30/6:00am to go down to the venue. We could actually see the venue from our hotel room so we could keep an eye on it... but we couldn't tell if we saw people or not, but we didn't see a line so that was good. We went down and got in line at about 7am. There were two girls in front of us, Isabelle and... crap I can't remember her name, but she was from LA. The two of them had been in line since midnight. About 5 minutes after we got in line another two people showed up (coincidently, the girl that got in line after RA and I was the same girl from Oregon that got in line right behind Jess and I at the Anaheim hyde show; small world eh?). I think another group showed up not too long after them. Isabelle (who is from New York, yeah, go east coast!) said that a guard from last night said that the line was going to move down to the post office so the sidewalk wasn't being blocked. So since there were about 8 or 10 people there now, we decided to go ahead and move the line down to the post office. And there we were for 12 more hours.

We had a little angst with the line but nothing the people in the front couldn't handle and at a bit past 7pm, we were let in. I got up in the center of the stage in front of Teru which is where I wanted to be. So everyone came in and at 8:16pm, the show started.

GLAY: ｢VERB TOUR 2008 IN U.S.｣ Aug 12th -tues- The Fillmore

Here's the set list for that night:
VERB
Yuuwaku
Guroriasu
Ikikeku Tsuyosa
Giant strong faust super star
STARLESS NIGHT
AMERICAN INNOVATION
Lock on you
SORRY LOVE
HOWEVER
Kuchibiru
Kanojo no" Modern..."
SHUTTER SPEEDS no Teemu
Piiku Hateshi Naku Souru Kagiri Naku
BEAUTIFUL DREAMER

Encore
SOUL LOVE
ROCK'N'ROLL SWINDLER
SUFFRAGETTE CITY yes, as in the David Bowie cover
ACID HEAD

Takuro was the first to walk out, followed by Toshi (drummer) the keyboardist (who I think they called Piano-ouji?), then Jiro, Hisashi and finally Teru. TERU IS SO HOT IN PERSON!!♥♥♥

But all of that aside... Here's what they were wearing:
Teru: A black shiny shirt with a black suit jacket with shiny stuff dangling from the pockets. He had shiny but matte looking black pants on with black boots.

Hisashi: Black pin-stripe 3/4 pants, black boots, a black net shirt with another black button-down shirt over top if it, but it was missing its left sleeve.

Takuro: Dark blue jeans, a zebra print red & black sleeveless shirt with a long black vesty thing and, of course, black pointed toed boots.

Jiro: A black T-shirt with a white design on it, but I couldn't tell what, black pin-stripe pants and sneakers.

So they started out with VERB, which was to be expected, but they next song was Yuuwaku. I couldn't believe it. It's only the second song and it's already an old song. And it's one of my favorites.

I did the math and just under half of the night's songs were from before 2000. I was actually really surprised and elated with this. I was expected all newer stuff, like off of their last 3 albums, and maybe an older song here and there, but no. It was about equal. A good mix.

So anyways, during Yuuwaku, Teru was beckoning the audience to sing the English parts and some of the chorus and for the most part we obliged. When that song ended, he took his coat off and put his one foot up on the speaker in front of him and a piece of the set list got stuck to the bottom of his boot. And it stayed there until the encore! XD

So the first MC came up. His English was so cute♥ He said, "Thank you for waiting for us for so long and thank you for coming. I love you. Everybody rock!" And then he did a little faux introduction, "You know Takuro?" ...waited for crowd responce... "You know Jiro?" .. and then himself and then Hisashi.

Jiro bounces a lot. And he has such a baby face. He kind of reminds me of Jun from his Pierrot days, but bouncier. Teru liked blowing kisses at the crowd and jumping off of his speaker and landing on the ground for the final chord of said song.

Teru also liked getting us to say things along with them, like for STARLESS NIGHT, in the beginning, he would say, "Oh yeah, woh," and then have us repeat it a few times or like during AMERICAN INNOVATION, he had Toshi drum out a little rhythm for us and we'd clap it back in return.

So, they were getting ready to play Lock on you and Teru pulled a tambourine out of nowhere and he held it while he gave another MC actually introducing the members. So he started with, "On drums..." and looked at us for a response... but I don't know how many people knew the drummer's name. I know very few knew about the keyboardist. Anyways, so he'd say, 'On said-instrument...' about 2 or 3 times before finishing it off. "On drums... Toshi! On keyboard... Piano-ouji (and they laughed when Teru said it like it was some inside joke or something ::shrug::) On bass... Jiro!" Of course, when he got to the actual members of the band, the crowd all knew them so they yelled them out. "On guitar... Hisashi! Next, on guitar... Takuro! Next... (pointed at self) On vocal... Teru!"

In my opinion, some of the best fan service is vocalist/microphone and we got some of that during Lock on you. Teru was all over that thing in addition to pulling on his own shirt and making sex faces and feeling up his chest and all that good stuff. I like that song too; it's a hot song.

Though, just so you know, Teru sweats A LOT! It started off with the usual sweat spot on his back and under his arms but then it eventually encompassed his entire shirt and I can only assume his pants too. During SORRY LOVE which is a slower song so he stayed in one place, I just stood there watching liquid pour from his elbows, like someone had attached a hose to his arm and kept turning it on and off. For some reason I was mesmerized by this. o.O

But I digress, prior to the start of SORRY LOVE, there was a short pause for a 10 second rest. The crowd started calling out Jiro's name, but he looked at them and then pointed at Teru, motioning to yell for him. It was kinda cute. So at the start of Kuchibiru, the lights went down for a dramatic effect for the start of the song. During said song, Teru looked like he focused in on someone specific in the crowd, pointing at them and giving them a big smile. The person must have been singing along a lot because Teru bent down and put the mic up to the person so they'd sing into the mic, but I think they chickened out as soon as the mic was there because I didn't hear anything different. Don't worry dude, I'd've done the same thing. (-_-);

The next song was Kanojo no "Modern..." THEY PLAYED THE ONE SONG I WANTED TO HEAR, KANOJO NO "MODERN..."!!!!! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ I grabbed RA had "XDDD" at her. I sang along and rocked out for this one. When the song finished, I grabbed RA and just started shaking her. They played it, they played it!! *___________________*

The next song after that, Jiro came to the front and did a bass solo and then started to sing. I thought that was cool (note: later RA pointed out to me that the song was SHUTTER SPEEDS no Teemu. And we both kinda went, "Oh, that's why this song always sounded weird... -_-;) So Jiro sang and then Teru took over the vocals again and decided to climb on top of one of the speakers on Hisashi's side of the stage and just chill up there for a while, observing the crowd.

Later there was this song that I'd never heard, Piiku Hateshi Naku Souru Kagiri Naku. There's this one part in the song that isn't written in the lyrics that he had us yelling out. During the live, I heard, 'Glory days, woh...' but after listening to the song, I think it's actually, 'Woh, it's my life.' So, I don't know. Epic fail, I know. So anyways, during the middle of the song when it got to that point, the band stopped playing and Teru had us sing that part. As the line finished, he'd yell out without his microphone, "Motto!!" And we'd repeat. We did this maybe 4 or 5 times until this one point when a bunch of people in the crowd decided to yell back, "Motto" along with him. Teru seemed highly amused by this and the song continued.

So Teru gave another short MC: "I have a dream... I wanna see you again. Next song, BEAUTIFUL DREAMER." And they played. In the middle of the song, Teru kept randomly saying stuff like, 'I love you,' and 'I want you.' That ended and he gave a closing MC. "Honto ni Arigatou! Arigatou! I was very happy to see you! Thank you. Arigatou. San Francisco saikou!

In my opinion, the crowd did a lame call for an encore, just clapping. But the band came back out; starting with Takuro, then Teru, Toshi, Piano-ouji, Jiro with his camera and finally Hisashi. Jiro started taking pictures of the crowd. RA pointed out to me that Toshi and Piano-ouji had started to go over to their assigned areas, but Teru hailed them back over to center stage. The band wanted to take a group photo with the audience in the background. Of course Teru kneeled in front of me so RA pulled my hand over in front of her. So if we ever get to see these pictures, there might be a random hand sticking out from behind Teru. That's me. (-_-); So as they were getting ready to take the picture, Teru turned and said, "Special time. Minna smile... smile!" After that, Teru started talking in Japanese and he lost me completly. (o.o) Though a girl behind me said at one point he said that he had studied English really hard before the tour. awww...♥ He did ask if anyone in the audience spoke both Japanese and English really well. One girl on the other side must have raised her hand because he went to her, but she blurted out something about liking them a lot and Teru laughed. So he tried again, singling out the girl who stood next to me. But her voice was so high and nasal, I couldn't understand a word she said into that mic (@___@) (Really random note, that girl next to me couldn't sing either.)

So anyways, the encore started with an old song, then a new one. I would have personally liked to have heard the U2 cover from their 'VERB' single WITH OR WITHOUT YOU but instead they decided to do David Bowie's SUFFRAGETTE CITY which is the B-side on their single coming out next month, 'Aka to Kuro no MATADORA/I LOVE YOU o Sagashiteru'. So they finished off the concert with ACID HEAD (which RA said she always heard 'a shit head' when she first heard the song XD). It's an oldey but a goody. Both Hisashi and Takuro each had a guitar solo in that song.

Random observation: Teru decided to fling water over the crowd and then finished off the bottle by pouring it on himself. After doing so, he pushed all of his hair back so it was slicked back and down. In my opinion, a lot of Japanese men tend to have really large foreheads so they look kind of weird with all of their hair pushed strait back. But Teru did not. He did that and I just kind of stared at him. "You have a normal placed hairline and a really handsome face. You, old man, are freakin' gorgeous! (*-*)"

Teru gave his final words: "Thank you San Francisco! We will see you again. See you San Francisco. Domo Arigatou! Arigatou! Aimashou. Motto aimashou! Aiseruze (or something sounding like that)." The band all came to center stage and joined hands. They counted down: 3, 2, 1... and then jumped.

"Thank you San Francisco! Thank you America. Thank you (something incoherent). Thank you World. Thank you Everybody!" They all walked off stage, but Takurou managed to get one more "Thank you" into the mic before leaving.

Then began the epic fail.

Where I was, there were a lot of Japanese girls around. So I figured that they would have started to chant, "Ankoru, ankoru," for a second encore. But no. They decided to follow the wimpy little American fans and just half heartily clap. You guys realize that if they don't hear you, they aren't coming out again, right?? If everyone clapped, then maybe it would have been alright, but no. So finally I got fed up and started yelling at the top of my lungs, "Ankoru!!!! Ankoru!!!!" as loud as possible. Finally, the girls around me started yelling out for an encore, but by that time it was too late. The staff in front of us were telling us the show was over and the stage hands had already started to turn the equipment off.

A moment of cool: One of the girls behind me (who's name was Sakiko) that was kinda translating some of the MC's for me caught up with me after the show and asked me fill out this little note card for the band. So I got to write something to GLAY. Totally unexpected and really nice of her. ^____^

More fail: The merchandise consisted of tour shirts; which is nice except they didn't have my size, so I came home with nothing. On the way out, I at first didn't grab a poster (which is shown above) because I didn't know what it was. So I had to argue with the guy to get one. And it turns out I can't really look at it because I feel like I'm going to have a seizure.

But oh well. It was a great concert. I am glad I got to go. GLAY is one of those bands that I heard when I was first getting into Japanese music. If it wasn't for them, I might not like it as much as I do now or I might like a different form of J-music. They are one of those bands that I also thought I'd never see. And I hope they do come back, because I will definitely try to go again.

~~ Fin ~~

July 5, 2008 - LM.C @ Crash Mansion L.A.

2008-07-10T04:26:17Z

[random]
The day before the concert, Jess picked up an L.A. newspaper to see if the venue had advertised LM.C and sure enough, there was a little blurb in there for the show:

Crash Mansion L.A.
Sat. -- LM.C. A dose of "lovely mocochang" electropop from the Japanese twosome.
-- LA Weekly --

Hahahaha ...... what? In addition, there was a tiny picture for them on another page. Ooooo... and the House of Blues was advertising GLAY for next month too! (^-^)
[/random]

So Jess & I got in line some time between 8 & 9 am... I think. Most of the people in front of us had been there since 6:30am. We were somewhere between 20-30th in line. It remained shady until... well I don't remember really but it was until Jess left to go to her other engagements. It was so hot and dirty outside. Not as bad as the D'espairsRay CBGB's concert, but close.

But I digress. As they were getting ready to let us in, security decided to move the line around, which in turn confused everyone and a bunch of people who were behind me for most of the day were suddenly in front of me. What the hell...! Anyway, we were let into the barely air conditioned venue and I went over to Aiji's side. While I wanted to be on his side to begin with, it happened to have the least amount of people there. The only people in front of me were a few of the Japanese girls that were in the line. I figured that if I was going to be behind anyone, let it be behind people who's movements are predictable. Jess joined me not too long after that and we waited... and waited for the concert to start. I think they started about 15 minutes late.

As we were watching the stage be set up, I noticed that Aiji has two flame guitars. It's never dawned on me that he'd have two of the same guitar. ::shrug::

The crowd started chanting, "Rock, rock the LM.C," prior to their start and finally the stage hands in the ski masks came out and waved their hands for everyone to cheer. NO.9 started playing and Jay Kay (keyboard) came out, followed by KAEDE (drums), HIKO (bassist) and then DENKI-MAN. Aiji came out and waved to the crowd and then maya.

LM.C - July 5th -sat- Crash Mansion L.A.

The set list is as follows:
Loud_Mucker_Complex.
OH MY JULIET.
*BOOST+BUSTERz*
Bell the CAT
mR.century
Haunted House make a Secret
marble-s
88
CRAZY A GO GO
@FUNNY PHANTOM@
METALLY
Boon!!
Sentimental PIGgy Romance
Yellow Beauty
BOYS&GIRLS
JOHN
LIAR/LIAR
little Fát Màn boy
☆Rock the LM.C☆

Encore
OH MY JULIET
BOYS&GIRLS

I was highly amused with Aiji with this weird little dance kick thing he was doing during the first song. And then he kept making these wannabe sexy faces that were so funny looking. During OH MY JULIET, maya joined Aiji on his side of the stage. It was one of the few maya/Aiji interactions during the live.

Jess and I watched Jay Kay for most of the concert. He was all about singing along and motioning for the crowd to wave their hands or pump their fists. While the two ski masked stage hands did the same, motioning for the crowd to make certain hand motions that is, Jay Kay would add in extra motions: putting his hand on his chest when talking about heart or pointing at his eyes when the lyrics were about looking at something, etc. I honestly don't know what all but one LM.C song is about but while watching Jay Kay, I could discern what was being said even though I didn't necessarily know the meaning of the song. He also made the cutest faces while doing all of that. Jess and I kept giving him googly eyes throughout the concert. (*___*) I think he saw us and would smile in return.

DENKI-MAN is the guy who wears the full headed skull mask. I believe his role in the band, besides banging on two cymbals and moral support, is to create symmetry on stage. With him there, the stage looks even. I think his official title is "VJ & Performer". Performer, yes. VJ? Jay Kay looked like more of a VJ than him, but whatever. In the end he seemed rather pointless to me.

After OH MY JULIET was the first MC. Maya was like, "Yeah! Woo! What's up L.A?! Are you ready to dance? Are you guys ready? Yeah!!" The beginning of *BOOST+BUSTERz* started and the crowd began to jump with such furry that the floor was shaking. Maya was doing some little hand motion/para-para thing to the song and Aiji was doing... well I don't know what he was doing but it looked kind of retarded. (^^); We learned that Jay Kay does the chorus for this song (or at least during lives). This might be a serious song because maya had a really stern look on his face as he was singing this one. In the middle of the song, Aiji and HIKO joined each other in front of the drums for a little jam session and DENKI-MAN was jumping around the stage yelling out, "Boost Busterz!" during the chorus of the song.

Bell the CAT was the next song and the crowd cheered when the song started. Maya clapped his hands for this one wanting everyone to follow along. During this song, the stage hands and Aiji were motioning back and forth about the sound. It did seem really loud in there, like louder than it should have been. It might have just been the one speaker on Aiji's side because he and his stage hand kept pointing at that one speaker. I think they eventually fixed it.. or just gave up because by the middle of the concert I didn't see them worrying about it. So the song ended with DENKI-MAN dancing across the stage and clapping his hands to the end of the song.

The next song was mR.century. Maya waved his hands for everyone to follow and put his finger to his ear for everyone to scream. I also noticed that above the stage was a second floor and LM.C's management was up there watching the crowd. I also saw the PonyCanyon representative totally bobbing her head and jamming to the song. Haha... I saw you! Anyways, during the lives Aiji does the electronic distortion for this song so I thought that was cool. Also, in the middle of the song, maya looked down to the crowd in front of him where it was really rough and asked one or some people in the crowd, "だいじょうぶ? [Are you alright?]" That was cool of him.

Jay Kay was being super cute during Haunted House make a Secret (that is such a weird name...). It was almost like he was showing the crowd the furi for the song. His grin was so cute! And maya seemed very satisfied after marble-s.

After marble-s was another MC. Someone in the crowd... or a bunch of people in the crowd yelled out, "I love you!" and maya turned and was like, "What?" So he continued, "Yeah! You having a good day?" ...and then said something about it being hot. At this point he couldn't find the girl from the other night so he brought the PonyCanyon lady on stage to translate for him... but she was a bit difficult to hear. And Aiji stood there listening with his gay little fan. XDDDD

So maya started with, "You guys are so quiet." (o.O) And then let Aiji talk for a little bit. Aiji went, "What's up? Saiko na blah-blah-blah... Are you ready?!" Then maya came back with something about the stage being pushed forward.. "Back! Back! Don't get rowdy if you're gonna push." la-dee-da-dee-da... "Aishiteru, aishiteru..." Then he went off on some other tangent. "If I say, 'Yeah!' then you say, 'Yeah!' If I say, 'Woo!' then you say, 'Woo!'. That's a Japanese thing." Then they started talking about tongue twisters and I missed that whole conversation. (-___-);;; At one point he turned to Aiji and asked if he was okay and Aiji said, "Yeah," and chuckled.

Maya started saying, "Are you good at shaking your head? I'm used to the Japanese shaking their heads hard so are you going to do it? Next song, when I say go, you head bang. Now it's our new single, 88." Even though he said 'next song' it wasn't the next song because 88 isn't a head banging song. ...but CRAZY A GO GO is! So we did... even myself. (^^) Aiji and HIKO switched sides and maya threw water onto the crowd. It was a pretty wild performance.

DENKI-MAN put some red Christmas lights around his head for @FUNNY PHANTOM@ and maya & Aiji were at the front center of the stage egging the crowd on. Aiji guitar solo is love. After that was METALLY and maya got the crowd to start the "wohs wohs". DENKI-MAN came over to Aiji's side with a spotlight and got all up in the crowd. The stage hands had spotlights too and were shining them around at everyone and everything.

Somewhere around here, the stage hands were handing some water bottles out to some of the crowd because of how hot it was in the venue. That was cool of them. Boon!! started and DENKI-MAN put a big white Mickey glove on his one hand. I guess Jay Kay was suppose to have one too because he threw one over at Jay Kay who totally wasn't paying attention and it smacked him in the face. It surprised him and he laughed as he picked it up to put on. So the two of them waved their big Mickey gloves back and forth for that song. Aiji and HIKO also switched sides again. This time though, HIKO came right up to the edge of the stage and people started feeling up his legs and such. He kind of had this look of, "Uuuhhh... o~kay. Well this is different.. ::shrug:: Whatever." As Aiji was walking back to his side, he walked into the stage hand. phhhtt~~

Another short MC:
maya: Yeah!
crowd: Yeah!
maya: ::rolls tongue::
crowd: ::attempts at rolling tongue::

Sentimental PIGgy Romance is such a cute song! I'm so glad they performed it and it seemed like a favorite to perform. Maya made such cute faces while singing it. At the end of the song, he snatched someone's fan from the crowd and finished off the song by flailing it around and then making faces behind it. XD

OMG THEY PLAYED MY FAVORITE SONG YELLOW BEAUTY!!!

Afterwards, someone in the crowd had a banner they made to give to the band... but it wasn't the one that I had signed, it was a different one. Maya took it and held it up, of course making faces behind it. He rolled it up and gave it to DENKI-MAN but one of the stage hands came over and took it to put across the front the drum set. At this point, maya went around and quickly introduced the session band. "Bassist - HIKO. something-something - DENKI-MAN (though I didn't hear that). Drums - KAEDE (and I didn't hear that either). Keyboard - Jay Kay (which sounded more like Jei Hei, but whatever). Then maya had Aiji introduce himself. "Do you know me?" (.‿.) Then maya jumped in, "This is Aiji." I assume he introduced himself, but I missed it. Oops...

At this point he went to give another MC. But this time he found that girl from the other night so he had her translate for him. So he said something like, "You having fun? We're coming back so we can have some more fun. You know, we all have different worries. Americans and Japanese are different and have different worries but we all have to follow our dreams..."

So that led into BOYS&GIRLS and maya threw confetti onto the crowd. Then he pulled this hat out of nowhere (well, I assume the audience) which said "LM.C" across the front in a graffiti like font. He looked at it, seemed amused and then stuck it on the drummer's head. JOHN started and DENKI-MAN went running around the stage like he does in the PV and the stage hands were off to the sides doing the running man. And Jay Kay does the whistling.. and does it well.

LIAR/LIAR started and maya threw some candy into the crowd and the entire band turned to face each other and had a little jam session in the middle of the stage. little Fát Màn boy is the one where they bring out these beach balls with the LM.C logo on them and they get tossed around. Jess said Aiji could probably feel the "I wanna pelt you in the face" aura coming from me, so Aiji went to the other side of the stage for that song. But that's fine because he got pelted in the face anyways. Needless to say, he backed off the front of the stage for the rest of that song. hehehehe...

And, of course, what would an LM.C live be without an energetic performance of ☆Rock the LM.C☆? (-__-); It started out with maya chanting, "Rock, rock the LM.C," though it sounded like 'Lock" but what else is new and then he finished that off by telling us to jump. The stage hand on Aiji's side whipped out this plush hat shaped like a hand giving the peace sign and was colored like the American flag. zomg... XD During this song, maya went down to grab peoples hands in the crowd but apparently they started pulling back and wouldn't let go. He practically got his arm ripped off in the audience. Once he got his arm out of the crowd, he looked at his wrist like 8O and stepped back to his little table to fix his wrist bands. After that he was all about the high-fives.

At the end of the show, they tossed out water bottles and picks. Down in the front next to the stage was a girl in a wheel chair. HIKO walked down and gave the girl a pick and a bit after that, maya went down and gave her one of his water bottles. I though that was really nice of them. Aiji just smiled at her. Aiji said, "Thank you very much!" and maya said, "Thank you! バイバイ!" And then everyone left the stage.

It took a while for the crowd to start, but eventually they called for an encore. While the stage hands didn't turn the amps off, the band made it seem like that was the end of the show. Neither Jess or I knew if they were going to come out for an encore, but they did. DENKI-MAN came back on stage to rial the crowd up and have us cheer. I think maya said, "Everyone, please be louder." "もっと! もっと! Yeah!" So they came back to play OH MY JULIET and then BOYS&GIRLS. Since they repeated songs, we didn't think this was planned. [EDIT]-Jess got the official set list and it didn't state an encore on it. So anyways, during the songs, maya tried putting that hat on but it didn't fit on his hair so he gave it to Aiji's stage hand. They threw some more stuff and smacked some more hands. And that was that. Oh and Jay Kay threw one of the lollipops into the crowd and I got that. So I'm happy. I think Aiji and maya gave another ending comment but I was so deaf by that point that I could only hear maya say, "おりがとう."

Afterwards, I stopped at the merch booth. I got a tour book... that was totally not for this tour and a bandanna set because that came with a free little photo of them.

After that, we went to Subway and went back to the hotel. Jess and I were leaving the next day and needed our sleep. All in all, it was a great concert and I would definitely go and see them again. I don't know if I would fly to see them again but if they were performing around me, definitely.

~~ FIN ~~

July 3 & 4, 2008 - LM.C @ Anime EXPO (Live and Q&A)

2008-07-09T04:35:24Z

Before I begin my account of the weekend, I would just like to say that my opinion of the band has slightly shifted. I don't view maya as the retard I had previously thought him to be. While he still has a tart~ish sense of humor, I have come to find that he also has a sense of sarcasm about him but is also really kind hearted. And while I still find Aiji to be a complete dill-weed, he does seem genuinely sincere when it comes to the fans. He appears to be happy where he is and compliments maya, as maya also compliments him... kind of like an old married couple. Though I must admit, if you had asked me prior to seeing them who my favorite member was, I probably would have said that I was conflicted between Aiji because of where he came from and maya because Aiji is an ass-hat. But if you ask me now, I would say without a doubt that their session keyboardist Jay Kay is love♥♥♥ He is so freaking cute and hawt to boot. (*__*) I want him to become an official member. That would just make my day.

But all of that aside... Thursday night was LM.C's first performance. I was waiting in line for 3 or 4 hours, 2 of which were spent asleep (so now I can officially say, Yes I have fallen asleep in a convention center). When we were let in, me and Christie followed Jess to the center. We had good seats, I think. All of the chairs had GaaGalinG fliers and LM.C postcards on them, so those got put in our bags.

I'm so glad maya didn't have his 80's crimped retarded lion hair. It looks dumb. This weekend, it was more like the back photo.

The first band to come on was GaaGalinG. MYM is too adorable! I also like them better live than I do recorded. The bassist Jun was cracking Jess and I up with his little wannabe hokey-pokey dance moves.

After GaaGalinG was the actual 'Battle of the Bands'. It was kinda pathetic but whatever.

As we were waiting for LM.C to set up, they showed some of their PV's from the DVD they just released. They got through 5, I think, with a significant amount of time between each. In other words it took them forever to set up. Finally, as NO.9 started playing and the first member (DENKI-MAN) came on stage, everyone left their seats and stampeded up to the stage; and there was no barrier so we were right at the platform. I was able to get up to 2nd row by Aiji. Once he took the stage and was standing in front of me, it was a rather emotionless but surreal feeling. I was just like, "Oh. There you are. You do exist. You look exactly the way you do in pictures. Your hair needs a die job and a good trim." I didn't really move about too much; only when I got got bumped into. The crowd was actually rather rough for this first performance.

Anyway, the songs they played that first night were (but not in this order):
☆Rock the LM.C☆
OH MY JULIET.
88 (Which I learned is said 'Hachi Hachi' not 'Eighty-eight' or 'Hachiju-hachi')
BOYS&GIRLS
Liar/Liar
little Fát Màn boy

Maya did most of the talking. While he understands English, he chooses not to speak it, though he did say some stuff. He asked the crowd if anyone spoke both English and Japanese and a girl in the crowd raised her hand so maya had her translate for him; and she did well. While she had a really high pitched voice, she was loud so everyone could hear her. He pretty much said stuff like, "Is everyone having fun?" and "Everyone rock!" and "Everyone come see us on Saturday," ...stuff like that. Also, the last time I had that much water dumped on me was at a D'espairsRay live on their first tour over here. They had, like, a water bottle quota or something that night because they'd take a mouth full, spray it on the crowd and then fling the still full bottle of water into the crowd. I also had Aiji jerk off one of his water bottles in my face. Lovely... Oh and Maya also sweated in my eye. (¬__¬) Maya also threw alot of candy into the crowd. The bassist (HIKO) threw one of his picks over to our side, but some little girl got it. DX

But that was that. It was a short but enjoyable first taste of the band. Before we left, Jess and I ran around and snatched up a bunch of the LM.C postcards and GaaGalinG fliers... so if anyone wants one...!

So the next day was the Q&A. Jess ran into the GaaGalinG panel since that was right before hand and I went to get in line for LM.C. I was waiting for about an hour or two before they started to let us in. At the start of the panel was a video showing clips of all their PV's and a little message from the two of them. After that, maya and Aiji entered and everyone cheered and clapped for them. Maya said, "Nice to meet you!" Then Aiji said, "Hello! LM.C. My name is Aiji. よろしく!" (Nope, that's a direct quote. I didn't leave words out, he did.) Then maya came back with, "たのしい blah-blah..." (I missed the rest of that... ^^;;) The panel started off a little weird. First we were told to go to the center aisle. So some girl got to ask the first question, "What is your favorite American band?" Then the panel people decided to change that and have some guy run around with the microphone to poeple and then also finally stated, "No inappropriate questions," though they didn't specify what was inappropriate. Needless to say, the girls question never got answered.

So here are the questions from the panel. They might not be direct quotes because I wrote these down in sloppy broken short hand. (-___-);; I have some commentary to add to some of these too. Also, "M" is maya and "A" is Aiji and "LM.C" means I don't remember who said it.

The girl who asked this first question didn't speak English well, but insisted on forming the question in English anyway so it came out really odd and didn't make complete sense with the way she worded it. But in essence it was:
For maya: If Aiji or any other band members were to fall, who'd you help first?"
-- M: I'd say myself.

The next one wasn't really a question per say. Someone had a gift to give to them but then we were told that we could give it to them during the autograph session.
-- M: I look forward to it.

How was the live last night?
-- A: It was great!

It was announced that you'll be performing in France soon, but will you be coming back to the US?
-- LM.C: We'd like to.

What are your favorite PV's?
-- A: I love them all because they're darling creations. (I doubt he actually said 'darling' but that's how it was translated. XD)

What are the main influences on your music?
-- M: Japanese anime songs.

Is this your first time in the Untied States?
-- A: This is our first time as LM.C but we've each been here for personal reasons.

What is your favorite anime?
-- LM.C: REBORN (As in the one that 88 is the opening for e_e)

How do you feel about doing the opening for REBORN?
-- A: Greatest.
-- M: Great!

Before LM.C, what kind of music did you listen to? You know, because their music interests totally changed when they joined together... (-_-)
-- M: Matsuda Saiko. (That name might be wrong. He said it and no one knew who he was talking about... and then he apologized for confusing everyone. ^^)

Do you have any bad habits?
-- A: None at all.
-- M: I have a lot.

Have you had any embarrassing moments?
-- M: Being stared at by everyone right now. (o.o*)

How is LM.C compared to your previous bands?
-- M: Different number of members.
-- A: ._.;

Have you done anything fun while you've been here?
-- M: This right now.

When are you most happiest?
-- A: When performing live.

How do you get ready for a performance?
-- M: First, we get to the venue. Second, I go to the men's room. The rest is just perseverance. ( XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD )

What is your favorite flavor of candy?
-- M: Right now... (looks at lollipop) it's lemon. (He then proceeded to try to feed it to Aiji who wasn't having any of that.

To you, what's the difference between Japanese fans and American fans?
-- A: Facial features, but the energy is the same. (Actually when he said it, he said, "かお... かお," with a bit of an attitude in his tone of voice; almost like you'd expect him to say, "Yo mamma," after the fact. It was kind of odd.)

What advice can you give to an aspiring music artist?
-- M: You want to try to stand out and then go for what you believe in.

What's your favorite character in Japanese or American? (I think it's safe to assume the person meant cartoon character)
-- A: I rarely have a favorite character in anime, but I like that gameboy game... you know the one with the yellow character...
-- M: (Points to the kid with the giant Pikachu stuffed animal in the audience) Pikachu!

What is the process behind the costume designing?
-- M: We talk with the stylist for that... (Okay, I totally ADD-ed for this one and I have no idea what he said. Oops, my bad...)

お元気ですか? [How are you?] (Whoever said this one & the next one was obviously American and wanted to try out her Japanese on them...)
-- A: 元気です。[I'm good.]

スポーツが好きですか？ [Do you like sports?]
-- A: I guess volleyball and soccer.
-- M: I have no hobbies so I just stay at home.

How did you get the name LM.C?
-- M: We didn't want a name that had any meaning at the time. We wanted something that would develop its own meaning as time went on. (Though I think "Mocochang" was the name of maya's dog)

At this point, maya jumped up to rial the crowd because we'd quieted down. As he jumped up, he spilled his water.
-- M: o____O;;; Uuuhh... I spilled my water.

Do you like video games?
-- A: Yes, I love them.

I saw the videos for ☆Rock the LM.C☆ and OH MY JULIET and I noticed that you two had on these fuzzy wrist bands and none of the other members had them. What's up with that?
-- M: It was cold. (That was a great answer because that was a dumb question!)

Other than concerts, what else are you doing while here in the States?
-- A: We don't have any days off so we aren't going to have time to do anything. But with the amount of work we're putting in, we're getting a lot of press time so you'll be able to see us that way.

What are your blood types?
-- M: Unknown.
-- A: A.
-- M: What type do I look like?
The crowd proceeds to yell blood types at him...
-- M: Still unknown.

I had a question to ask, but I was on the far side of the room and I never got called on. But my question was, if you're wondering, "How were you chosen or how did you decide to do a song for the LUNA SEA MEMORIAL COVER ALBUM and why did you decide to cover IN MY DREAMS?" But I guess we'll never know... Oh well.

After the last question, maya made a comment about how someone had asked him if he'd ever had any cavities and he said he's never had any ever. I don't know when this was asked but, whatever. ::shrug::

The two of them were asked to give closing comments for the panel but I decided to miss out on that and run down with a handful of people to go get in line for the autograph session. At some point during the panel, we were told that the autograph session started 15 minutes after the Q&A ended (yeah right) and it was down in 'artist's alley' which was on the other side of the con center. Of course we all started by quickly walking out of the room, half way there we were all speed walking and by the time we got down to the dealer room area, we were at a full run... until security yelled at us. (^^);;;; As someone yelled out along the way, it really was a fangirl stampede. XD

As I was standing in line, I noticed that a lot of people only had magazines or posters or the DVD they were selling at the con. I didn't see anyone else with a CD in their hand. Seriously? Because, you know, magazines totally support the artists... (¬.¬) From what I was told, only about 150 people got an autograph and there were probably close to 300 in line. Luckily, I was #111 so I was able to get my CD signed.

[side note]
I hadn't eaten yet that day so I munched on this little purple shortbread biscuit that Christie had given me the previous day. As I was finishing it, it dawned on me that purple food items usually turn your mouth purple. So I whipped out my iPod (because I totally use that as a mirror) and sure enough, I had a purple mouth. So I stuffed gum in my mouth in the hopes that it would take some of the color off my tongue, but it was old gum so it was half disintegrated by the time I got up to them. O.o;
[/side note]

So I got up to the table and the lady there asked me what I wanted signed so I handed her the CD booklet (I decided to get my Trailers [Silver] single signed. It's the one with the DVD so I guess it's the limited one. ) So she took it and when it was my turn, I walked up to Aiji as the lady handed him the booklet. He looked at it, signed it and then looked up at me. He stretched out his hand to shake mine as he said, "Thank you." I grasped his gnarly old man hand, bowed my head and responded, "ありがとうございます." He looked sincerely thankful, bowed his head and threw back an, "ありがとう." He handed the booklet to maya who took it and proceeded to sign it as a poster was put down on the table which pushed my booklet away from maya who moved his hands after it and then picked it up and finished signing it on his lap. When he was done he handed it back to me, put his hand out to shake mine and said, "Thank you!" I smiled, shook his hand, bowed and responded with another, "ありがとうございます."

maya's is on the left with the weird looking rose/sperm/face and Aiji's is on the right with an unreadable signature.

Before I left to go wait for Jess, I ninja~ed a couple of pictures of the sides of their heads since we couldn't take pictures any other way.

Aiji is hiding behind maya in both pictures, but he's there!

~~ To be continued... ~~

Japan (March 28-29) ~ Entitled: X Japan〜Night of Destruction〜 @ Tokyo Dome & the return home

2008-04-13T00:10:54Z

Just a warning: This is a long post. The day itself was eventful, not just the concert. So, I hope I can make this interesting enough that you'll want to read the whole thing. No promises though! I would also like to add that I have not seen the concerts on YouTube; though I am sure many of you have. This report is coming from my own memories and from the notes I totally took during the concert. I can show you the scribbles in my little notebook if you want. :D

RA and I got up at about 8:30 or so and went down to breakfast. We met with Sana down there and she told us that Mary had gone to Harajuku with someone else and she didn't have anyone to go to the Dome with. Originally, I think, she and Mary were going to go by themselves but Sana was without a buddy that afternoon. So we gladly told her to come with us. We were going over earlier than everyone else in the group (who were leaving between noon and 1pm and stopping to look at Sakura trees on the way. ... ) and we were meeting a friend on the way. At 11am we met in the lobby and made our way to meet with D. Off we went, meeting D at the Akebonobashi station right by her hotel. When we were waiting for her to get to the station, RA called her and D told her about this girl, Sky(sp), that worked at the hotel D stayed at. They got to talking and Sky said that she had an extra ticket for the second night and as it turned out D had bought an extra ticket for the first night, originally for a friend that never got back to her. So the two of them swapped tickets therefore letting D attend both the first and second night of the concert. ::jealousy!:: So anyway, we got her and got back on the train to go to Tokyo Dome City.

So we got to the station, Korakuen specifically, we looked for signs leading to the Dome exit. Like this one...

It says "Tokyo Dome" on there... somewhere...

As we were getting up to the outside exit, the four of us decided that we would get to the top of the stairs and move off to the side so we could survey the area and figure out how to get to the Dome because none of us knew where in the city it was located and we weren't sure how far we had to walk or where to go to get there. Well, as we were walking up the stairs from the subway, this greeted us:

As you can imagine, it wasn't that hard to find it. (¬.¬) So we got up to the surface and just kinda stood there and stared at the vastness of the Dome. You could hear the band practicing inside so RA, Sana and D fangirled on each other over that. We moved over toward the Dome and found a merchandise line right by the walkway we were on. The line didn't seem that long, so we got in it to get stuff before we made our way down to the will-call booth. We were only in line for maybe 20 minutes? As we were standing in line, across the way there was a roller coaster...

By the time we got up there though, the hoodies had sold out but we got everything else that we wanted. Though, we found out that the mint tins (yes, RA & I totally bought frisk mint tins) are defective because the mint cases don't stay in them. I am sad about that. Almost everything they had, besides saying ‘X Japan’ on them, also had the ‘to resume its attack in 2008 I.V. –towards destruction-’ logo on them. But all that aside, by the time we got up to the actual merch booth, the line had grown 5 or 6 fold. So we got our stuff and made our way down to Gate 22. After D figured out where the will-call booth was, she, RA and Sana proceeded to get some pictures of cosplayers. Then D got in line for her tickets. RA and Sana went off and were helping a lady get a hold of one of the girls that was in the tour group with us. D got her ticket and we regrouped and ran around getting pictures. We also found a group of people handing out little red pom-poms. We got one each from them and they told us that the pom-poms were to be used only during Kurenai. We thanked them and ran off for more pictures. Of course the one picture, I think, everyone gets when the go to Tokyo Dome is them in the front under the "Tokyo Dome" sign:

After we found someone to take that picture, RA, Sana & D ran around some more to get pictures of the cosplayers:

After running around like crazy people, we took a seat at the top of one of the staircases and just people watched for a couple of hours.

Can you tell where all of the hides are?

While we were sitting up there and just chillin', these guys that were a couple of steps down from us, turned around and asked if they could take our picture. We were just like, "Uuuhh.... okay...?" So we posed and they took a picture of the four of us. Then they got up and ran away. Crazy... When we saw people starting to crowd around the entrance we decided to start heading down that way. We slowly made our way over to the will-call booth area where we met up with Mary and two others from our group, Kim and Jason. So the seven of us just stood around in the middle of the crowd, totally being in people’s way, waiting to see what was going on. While we were standing there and getting to know each other, the BBC totally interviewed us for a radio program. The BBC. Now that is random. XD I can't find it on their site so it was probably already taken down. I haven't even heard it. ::shrug:: They got a picture with us and they went on their merry way. A little later a girl who wanted to interview us for her graduate thesis paper approached us. So she interviewed us and said she'd send us a copy of the paper when it was done. Well isn't that spiffy?

Not too long after that, it started to drizzle. When it started that, the crowd went forward in an attempt to get under the overhang, but we didn't really make it underneath. I just put by merch bag over my head and that was fine. Everything in the bag was in plastic and the bag was big so it made good cover. By this time, we were already about 2 hours late going into the Dome. One of the guards started making announcements and stuff, but I couldn't understand anything that was being said A) because the guy was talking too fast, B) because my Japanese is shit and C) because the Japanese speak really quietly and even a bullhorn doesn't amplify their voice enough to be heard. X| When they did start letting us in, we were not in a line but a grouping. So what they did was let 50 or so people into the gated area at a time, let them go through "security" and then let another 50 or so in. Obviously, we had assigned seating so it didn't matter when we got in but we wanted in as soon as possible. XD Our little group got kind of separated but I hung onto RA so we went in together. As the crowd was going in, I looked up and around the Dome. There were helicopters in the sky circling the Dome; news copters, no doubt. And behind us was the Tokyo Dome Hotel where almost every window had a person in it looking down upon the sea of what probably looked like pandemonium below. We got in and to "security". By "security" I mean they had a couple of tables set up with people standing by them who look at your bag. And I mean just that, they look at your bag. I walked up with my bag off of my shoulder ready to hand it to the person and to be patted down and all she did was look at my bag. I opened it after she nodded saying that it was fine and she glanced in it but she never touched it, just looked. o.O RA said her person took a peak in her merch bag and didn't even glance at her purse that was to her side and bulging with stuff. 8O Very strange indeed...

So, we got into the building and we were handed a flier packet and we made our way into the back hallway. Now it's a baseball stadium so their are food vendors lining the walls, all of which were open too. It was very odd going into a rock concert and having old men sitting there with a hotdog and big gulp. (-_-); So, RA and I examined our tickets to try and figure out where on Earth we are actually sitting. As we walked down the hall a bit, we pass by one of the doorways into the stadium and our jaws just dropped at the extreme vastness of the stadium and the stage setup and the everything. (*_____*) We saw a Dome employee standing off to the side and we approached him to see if he could help us with finding our seats. I held the ticket out and pointed to it, and it turned out he spoke some English so he was a big help. ^^ He said to go down to such-&-such a door and go down. So we did. And down we went. We went down to the bottom of the bleachers where we had to pass through a gate where a guy was checking tickets to make sure you belonged on the floor seats. We got more fliers and the guy pointed us forward, so we kept going and the stage kept getting bigger and bigger. We got to another gate and passed through that and then didn't know where to go. So we had to ask someone again. I think we found a couple of people from our group at this point trying to find their seats too. So we kind of followed them. The security guy escorted us to the correct aisle and pointed us down. So we went that way, which was the 'S' section. The chairs were all numbered so we had to find our seat that way. We were in the 'A' block and I had seat #96 next to RA. So we kept going forward toward the front of the section. I sat down when we finally found our seats and then actually looked around as to where exactly I was in the Dome: 9th row, 5th seat from the center runway! There were a few other people there and when we all sat down and looked around, we all had the same response, "::blinkblink:: Yeah... ridiculously close. 8O"

To kind of give you an idea of where we were sitting in the Dome... The picture is from X Japan's MySpace and my edits are not to scale. =^.^=

To try to give you a visual of the stage: either side had big elaborate "X"'s (maybe 50 feet tall?) behind the large side video screens. A large lighted "X" was at the center top of the stage with an elaborate design of machina and roses on either side of the "X". The stage extended out to both sides of the concert area following the side seating and there were also runways on the outer edge of the 'S' section along with the center runway. The main stage was shrouded in a somewhat translucent curtain all the way around. There was a huge disco ball in the center of the stage and an X-shaped light set-up behind the drums. The drums, obviously, were already set up along with Yoshiki's piano. Some seats were set up somewhat behind the stage, off to the sides so it was about a 270º view. 3 hours after the original starting time, X Japan's first concert in 10 years finally began.

X Japan: 「I.V.～破滅に向かって～破壊の夜」 March 28 -fri- Tokyo Dome

'S' section. ...because 'S' comes before 'A' because it means special. XD

The set list for 〜Night of Destruction〜 is as follows:
The last song
Rusty Nail
Weekend
Silent Jealousy
Pose - hide Solo
Say Anything - Toshi, Heath, Pata Solo
Without You
I.V.
Kurenai

Encore: Art of Life

The lights went down and The last song started to play. Yoshiki was the first to come out and take his place at his drum set. Then Pata made his way out shortly followed by Heath. People were waving around the little light sticks that were sold at the merchandise booth. I managed to drag my eyes away from the stage and look at the rest of the Dome behind me while everyone was waving around their light sticks. It was an amazing sight that I wish I could have taken a picture of; although a picture wouldn't have done the scene justice. Finally Toshi came out, announcing his appearance by singing the words to the song. I think we all started singing along with him eventually. They didn't really play the whole song though. About maybe halfway through, the "X Lady Announcer" started talking. I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was probably the same thing that she says at every X concert. I know she said, "Thanks for coming. Introducing blah~de~blah. Something~or~other X Japan-Japan-Japan-Japan..." etc etc. Then they jumped right into Rusty Nail. Flames shot up from the stage and the curtain dropped to reveal the stage and Toshi went running down the center runway. Since he ran out of my sight, I turned around to look at the stage again. Heath was in this white outfit with feathers on his one shoulder and it was hot. *.*

Speaking of, the security guard in our section was really hawt. I pee'd all over that. ^^;;;;

But I digress; on the right side where hide would have been standing there was a cylindrical screen that displayed images from DVD's of hide playing whatever song it was; in this case Rusty Nail. I think the videos were specifically from The Last Live DVD in this case. I was impressed by how they figured out how to get all 5 members on the stage to play. Also, there were smaller screens above the center of the stage that displayed each of the members as they were playing, hide's screen of course playing the DVD footage. Also, the big screens to the side switched back and forth between the members, including hide. I couldn't even imagine the time it took to cut and edit together and time all of the video footage for hide for the concerts. It's utterly mind-blowing. But it went together very well, I think.

I noticed that the drum set that Yoshiki was using was not his usual clear one but looked more silver in color. I also noticed that Toshi looked very tired. After Rusty Nail the members all threw stuff into the audience. One of the guys from our tour group caught Yoshiki's drumstick. X( blah! Toshi gave a short MC, I think, apologizing for the show starting so late and then Yoshiki took the mic and gave short MC too; about what though, I do not know. The next song was Weekend. During this song, Yoshiki took to his piano and did his solo in that. RA was giggly during this song because in a very recent interview, Heath said that was the one song he was looking forward to playing the most and I know RA wanted to hear that one too anyways.

After that, they played a short hide solo. Usually before Scars, hide did this short little rap and it was played during the live but they did not play Scars after the fact. Instead, it went into Silent Jealousy. During this song, Sugizo came out to play hide's guitar part. During our show, because it was shortened, he was the only stand-in guitarist. The other two men, Wesley Borland and Richard Fortis did not make an appearance. I don't know what Sugizo was wearing but it showed a little leg and it was hot. :3 Sugizo rocked out enough to not look like a bump on a log but not so much as to draw attention to himself. To me, it seemed natural that he should be there. I believe he represented hide very well. If you are interested in reading his feelings on the subject, read this. As the band finished throwing things into the crowd, Yoshiki went ahead and started to destroy his drum set. He hit the gong that was set up off the back of the stage and then proceeded to banzai into the drums. Then he died a couple of times, falling randomly onto the stage.

When he was done being destructive, Yoshiki dragged himself off the stage for a short intermission. Staff came out and disassembled what remained of the drum set and shuffled that off. When the stage was cleared, the giant lighted ‘X’ that sat behind the drum set started to separate at the center and his clear drum set was then brought forward. Earlier before the concert started, the row that RA and I were in joked about how the stage looked like a machina, like it should have started to transform. And here it was transforming in front of us. (Okay, well we thought it was funny. -_-;;;)

The next part of the concert was a little odd in my opinion. Usually, all the members get a section of the concert to perform something from their solo works. If they didn’t have to cut the concert short, there might have been a Heath solo, but there wasn’t. But they did keep the hide solo. I don’t remember what concert it was from, but it was his performance of Pose where he had the booby dancers and the radioactive suit on. What they did was have the video recording of the performance playing on the main screens off to the side and also on a big screen at the back of the stage. But, Heath and Pata came out to play guitar and bass and the booby dancers came out and performed as in the original performance (well, I don’t know if Heath was in the original performance because usually just Pata comes out with hide. ::shrug::) Heath and Pata didn’t stay on the center stage but walked off to the side runways and the dancers worked the center runway. I really couldn’t see Heath and Pata for most of the performance and the dancers were out of my line of sight, so I watched the video on the back of the stage for most of the time. I thought the performance was a little… well, sad; like hide should have appeared at any point but never did. I think it was because there was so much visual stimulation and the freaking dancers (one of which I got a good look at her face and she looked old enough to be one of his original dancers =V ) but not the main attraction. I think that performance they could have done without.

After the hide solo came the acoustic trio. Toshi, Pata and Heath came out to perform Say Anything. They joked around with each other and Toshi gave a little MC. In his MC, he apologized for his voice, saying that his vocals for X Japan are a lot different then his vocals for his solo work and he was still having trouble with the transition. And he tried to play it off by jokingly coughing and clearing his throat. Say Anything was so pretty live and the crowd did begin to sing along. Complete side note: the camera zoomed in on Toshi singing and his teeth are kinda busted. (-_____-);;;

After that, there was a minute or two of nothingness and then Yoshiki came out. He threw roses into the front rows, which I think he usually does at lives and then took his place at the piano. He played a little bit before Toshi came out to take his place beside the piano. It was touching. This is the first time I’ve heard Without You in its entirety. As they performed the song, clips from really old lives and old backstage footage were played on the video screens. It was an emotional performance, I suppose. Well, the guy next to me started to cry…

After the song was done, Toshi started talking and Yoshiki decided to be cute and curled his legs up so he was sitting indian-style on the piano bench. Toshi and him started joking with each other and Toshi kept trying to get Yoshiki to say something but Yoshiki refused. Toshi handed him the microphone but he didn’t take it, so Toshi started poking him in the back with it. It was too adorable! XDDD

When they were done being playful, the lyrics for I.V. started to appear on the video screen at the back of the stage. Yoshiki started to play a little bit of the piano part from that song then and Toshi walked down onto the center runway. The performance started out with the chorus of the song first. Toshi would sing his main part and then I think he wanted us to sing the background (or the echo)… but we kind of failed at that. Well, it was also the fact that the only people who were trying to sing were all of the foreigners that could read the English lyrics that were being displayed; so only about a thousand out of 50,000+. Oh well… The rest of the band did eventually come out on stage to take their places. The lyrics remained on the screen throughout the song so we could sing along. Randomness during the song: At one point it sounded like someone turned Toshi’s mic down and Heath and Pata are so cute when they are playful with each other. XD

The last song was Kurenai and Sugizo came back out to play for this song. We finally got to play with the pom-poms we all had and during the song, streamers exploded from the ceiling so RA and I got to bring a handful of those home. When the song was finished, the band put their instruments down and walked off the stage. Toshi was at the back of the pack and before he completely left, he turned around and waved, yelling out, “Bai bai!” as he left.

At this point, I sat down to finish writing a few notes in my notebook. As I did that, I started yelling out, “Ankooru! Ankooru! (Encore, encore),” but nobody else around me was. I could barely hear the rest of the stadium yelling it out so I could only imagine that backstage couldn’t really hear it either. RA looked down at me like she didn’t know what I was doing. She later said she didn’t realize Toshi had said, “Bye,” so I am willing to bet that no one else in the group around me had any idea that Toshi just said they were leaving. I think during this time, the crowd tried a wave, but I don’t remember if they ever really got it going or not.

The band did come back out for an encore and Toshi did say that this was going to be the last song. (So if anyone tells you that the show stopped because Yoshiki fainted tell them they’re dumb and don’t know anything. XP) The people around me were making bets with each other as to what the next song was going to be; most people though it was going to be Tears. Boy were they surprised when the cover to Art of Life came up on the stage screen and the beginning riffs were played.

Fucking Art of Life, yo!

Nobody was expecting that. RA was ecstatic because that is her favorite song, but she never thought it would be played so she didn’t even bother putting it in her list of songs she wanted them to play that night. And to top that off, not only was it Art of Life, but it was the full version! (Well okay, maybe it wasn’t the full 29 minutes but it came pretty damn close!) For this performance, there was a hologram screen set up to display a 3D image of hide playing guitar. Now it wasn’t up the whole time, only during his specific guitar solo parts but they did show video of him on the screens throughout the song. It was pretty neat how they integrated him into this performance. I’m going to take a guess and say that the hide images were from the Art of Life DVD? The only part of the song that was missing was the piano part. Yoshiki decided to stay on the drums the whole time. They might have had some piano recording in the background, but I don’t really remember.

Yoshiki put his heart and soul into this performance because when the song was concluded, he collapsed into his drum set. He fell down in between the drum pieces and the crew had to take the set apart in order to get him out. It took 3 or 4 people to carry him off the stage. The rest of the band had already left the stage by this point. Everything that was happening on the stage was displayed on the big screens so everyone could see. After the fact, the ending announcement was made and the house lights went up. I think Crucify My Love was the exit music… but don’t quote me on that one. ^^;;

At this point, it was just confusion as to what was going on all around. The performance was too short and a lot of the songs that were staples at all of X Japan lives weren’t played. No one knew what was going on. I’m not going to lie; the concert was actually kind of a disappointment. I know they had so many technical difficulties before the show and since the show started so late, it still had to be let out at a certain time because of the trains and people having to get home. I know that’s why but, I guess, I went there with certain expectations, everyone did, and they weren’t met. So many of us went away with a bitter taste in our mouths. Everyone wanted to say that it was phenomenal, that it was a dream come true but they didn’t. As RA said, “I should be happy, but I’m not.” And to top that off, many of us were only going to the first concert. A handful of people in our group were going to all three nights. They were lucky. From what D said, since she got to see the second night too, we got jipped. The first night was nothing compared to the second night, and I could only imagine to the third night as well. That is to not say that I am not happy that I got to go. I am. It was a once in a lifetime experience. It’s just, as I said, I had certain expectations… and 10 songs for $2000 wasn’t one of them.

So, after the concert was done we all left. After a bit of angst, we made it back to Yokohama station and caught a cab to the hotel. RA and I went out for some food (spending the rest of our coins… all ¥3200 of them on sandwiches, milk tea, pocky and Frisk Mints to go with our defective mint tins. 8) ) We did a bit of packing and went to bed.

Quick notes on the day of our departure: RA fell on the sidewalk while trying to give the bus driver her luggage. She ripped her jeans and skinned her knee. What did I do? I pointed at her and laughed. XD Kim laughed at her too. The driver on the other hand started freaking out and tried to help her up… which in turn only made her laugh harder. We were a little late leaving for the airport… =\ We did get there in time. RA’s suitcase was over the limit by about 4 or 5 kilos so she had to put stuff in my suitcase. All of my merchandise was in my carryon bag. I put it on the scale to see how much it weighed: 10.5 kilos or 23.1 lbs. Yes, I lugged… well, dragged, that thing with me through the airports. When we got on the plane, a stewardess was walking around handing out Japanese newspapers. I asked the lady what ones she had and then looked at me like I had 2 heads. So I asked her to give me both papers that she had. I can only imagine what the people behind us were thinking when these two foreign girls were looking through these huge Japanese newspapers and then started freaking out and squealing when they got to one page. On the last page of this one sports paper, there was a two page spread of the concert…

The X Japan report was surrounded by porn advertisements… just so you know. And can you find the Nori-P? :3 Oh, and my mouse ninja~ed into the picture. Oops...

On the flight home, we hit a storm over the Pacific and at one point we dropped, like, 10 feet in the air. People came up from their seats and drinks got spilled. That was scary. Then RA and I slept for the other 10 hours of the flight. When we got to DC, we almost missed our flight back. But the plane was late coming in, so that was to our advantage. Well, that’s it. The next day, RA and I didn’t wake up until 5pm and the remainder of the week was spent getting over jetlag. It was a great vacation and I can’t wait until I can go back!

P.S. ~ Before we parted, we got a group pic of RA, Sana, Mary & myself in Newark.

~~ FIN ~~

Japan (March 27) ~ Entilted: X Japan Reception and Tokyo Tower

2008-04-12T20:10:23Z

The next morning, RA and I woke up later than we wanted to. RA said that her neck and legs were sore from the night before... but it was a good hurt. (^^) We mosied on down to breakfast where we saw Sana and Mary and told Sana about CAC being canceled. Mad lame, man.... mad lame! D8 After that we went back to our room to finish getting dressed for the Tour Reception at 10am.

The reception wasn't anything really special. They had food, lots of food, but RA and I were like, " 8Þ ...No more food..." We just sat and talked with everyone at our table. We were introduced to all the leaders on the tour with us, other staffers for JRR and other important people like Jonathan Platt who played an instrumental key in organizing JRock Revolution (I know this only because I just read an interview with him in the latest issue of PurpleSky like, 2 weeks ago). We were told that we were supposed to get a big special surprise at this reception. The surprise was that Yoshiki himself was supposed to come and thank us personally for coming. But alas... the band was up until 3am practicing and too much stuff was going on on his end so he wasn't able to come. Instead he gave everyone a signed poster. Coincidentally, it was the same poster I had him sign at Otakon when he was there. ... Also in the bag of goodies that we got was a copy of the Last Live DVD...which I also have a copy of because I had to buy that in order to get the poster that he signed for me at Otakon. ... (Needless to say, these will be going to the Marcie, because she does not have any of thee above.) We did also get a tour shirt, which was good because it saved a lot of people from having to buy one at the live. We also got a special promo DVD with the I.V. PV on it. RA just kinda went, "Oh... ::sigh::" She already bought the Saw 4 DVD for the PV and also bought the latest $200, 10,000 disc, concert box set that they released and it also had the PV. So now this was her third copy. (^^) We were supposed to watch the PV and a couple of performances from the Last Live at the end of the reception, but they were having technical sound difficulties, so the PV had no vocals... which sounded funny. They couldn't get the sound to work properly so we ran out of time for the Last Live performances.

Originally, we were supposed to pick up our tickets at a will-call booth at the Dome on the day of the concert, but the staffers were able to get us our tickets so we'd have them in hand when we went to the Dome, so that was cool. The staffers also informed us, since so many people had asked, where we were sitting. Well, they were kind of vague about it stating that we were, "Ridiculously close." ...okay~ At the very end, they had a drawing to win that concert box that RA already has and Sana won it. She said that she never wins anything so I was happy for her. Before we all went our separate ways after the reception, we got a group picture of everyone.

Our second appointment of the day was to meet with Meg's other friend Tracy to get the rest of her stuff and Tracy was going to show us around and such. So we met her in Shibuya at Hachiko.

Tracy was cool. She took us to the Tower Records, where I bought a couple of Guy's Family and a few serial NUMBER CD's. I also got free gifts with two of my CD's: DOREMIdan and kannivalism buttons. Too bad I don't care all that much for either band. (^^);; Maybe I'll sell them....... After that we stopped in the HMV store.... more just to see what the actual store looks like since I buy from their web site ALL THE TIME! I think RA got something there. After that we walked around a bit and Tracy wanted to find something to eat. She took us to a Yakiniku place, which just means that we cook our own meat. I will have to say that grilled cow tongue isn't too bad... but we had regular beef too.

We stopped in an arcade for about 5 minutes at which time we got a call from D saying that she got into Japan and has a cell phone. She was on her way to her hotel and wanted to meet with us later that night. Okay~! The last thing we did before our third appointment was purikura. We got some fun pictures!

Here are a few. I was like, "Uuuhhh... don't know how to pose myself... whatever..."

While Tracy and RA were putting last minute touches on the pictures, Dan called saying that he was on his way to meet with us for our third adventure that evening. So we all headed back over to Hachiko to meet with Dan. Tracy and us exchanged info and we said our good-byes.

The one thing RA wanted to do while in Tokyo was go and see Tokyo Tower. So Dan said he would take us that night. So off we went to... well, I don't even remember where it was quite honestly. On the way, we got to hear all about Dan's adventures with Ellegarden and other punk/rock lives. He was also telling us about the Chuo Line and how that's the line people usually choose to jump in front of. (So off-ing yourself there is nicknamed Chuo-cide. :D) He also pointed out on the train TV screens, when they give the announcement for train accidents, the Japanese specifically says "Human Accident" whenever a person is involved. ...and now that he pointed that out to me, I kept noticing that there are a lot of 'human accidents' with the train. (o___o);;

But anyway...at the base of the tower, there was a temple (the Zoujouji Temple, I think...?) and there were sakura trees all over. It was at night though, so we didn't get the best pictures, but a couple came out decent.

Sakura in the moonlight...

The tower also looked pretty cool at night...

We went up to the first level and then to the top level. We got some nice pictures of Tokyo at night.

I thought, I uploaded more, but I guess not... (-_-);

The Tokyo Tower mascots are phallic...

After that we walked back to the train station and went back to Shibuya, back to Hachiko to meet D and get some dinner. Dan didn't follow. He decided that he should go back to his place to sleep since he had a busy day the next day. So we said our good-byes on the train and went to find D. We found her and we decided on McDonald's because RA and I knew where one was in Shibuya and they have an English menu so we could just point to what we wanted and not have to talk. We all decided that we liked this idea. 8)

We found a table in a little corner of the sitting room and we sat there and talked for an hour or so. Then D looked at her watch and said it was about 11:30pm. 8O It's a good thing she did because if we didn't leave then, we would have missed the last train back to Shin Yokohama. We like getting that last train. DX

We also decided that instead of going with the tour group to Tokyo Dome, we were going to meet D on the way and we'd all go together. So we called her when we got back to the hotel to get directions from her and also where to meet her. We didn't stay up too late since the next day was what we went there for...

~~ To be continued... ~~

T.M.R. @ NY Comic Con

2008-04-05T06:02:47Z

Here are some last minute details about TMR's appearance in NY... in case you didn't know...

Pre-reg:
Week-end - $45
Saturday - $35
Since it's after March 17th, you have to pick up your badges/tickets at the door. If you prereg-ed before that, then they would have mailed your stuff to you. Oh well~

At door reg:
Week-end - $65
Saturday - $45

Form to purchase your pre-reg tickets...

It says that all tickets can be picked up at the Jacob Javits Center Lobby: 12 PM – 7 PM: April 17, 8 AM – 8 PM: April 18, 8 AM – 7 PM: April 19 & 8 AM – 5 PM: April 20. It also says that pre-reg is open until midnight on the 17th (the day before the con).

T.M.Revolution's concert takes place at 9 PM on Saturday, April 19th in New York Comic Con's 3,000-seat IGN Theater.

His autograph session is between 1:30pm - 3:00pm on Saturday. This is a ticketed event. The tickets are free and can be picked up at the TM Revolution booth (#1065). They are limited though! I assume you can start to get them at 10am, which is when the other autograph ticket pick-ups start, and can be gotten on the 18th and 19th. See where booth 1065 is... It also says that his autograph signing will be at the autograph tables in the back of the exhibition hall. It says table 1?? ...but I don't see a table '1' back there. ::shrug::

Japan (March 26) ~ Entitled: シリアル⇔NUMBER, Dolly & DuelJewel @ HEAVEN'S ROCK Kumagaya VJ-1

2008-04-01T21:13:02Z

Five o'clock the next morning, we were awake. Apparently, so was everyone else for the most part. We woke up and watched some more TV and slowly got dressed and made our way downstairs. We were supposed to meet with up with people for breakfast at 9am... but we were early so we kinda chilled in the area until we saw people make their way in. We sat, talked to Jess and said "hi" to peoples as they went in. I must say that the hotel had the best scrambled eggs.

We found the group. Everyone introduced themselves and we all went over what we were doing that day. It turned out that, while other people wanted to go to the DuelJewel live, RA and I were the only ones who could get tickets because the show had apparently sold out. Dan ftw! After breakfast, we hopped on the train to go up to Shibuya to meet with Dan to actually get our tickets from him. So we met him by Hachiko, got our tickets and then went back to the train station to go up the Shinjuku to meet with a friend of Meg's.
Really random billboard in the Shibuya train station... really random...

We got on our train and took a seat but the train didn't move. Their were announcements coming over the intercom but we couldn't understand what was being said. People kept getting off the train but more people would get on. We just stayed put. Meg's friend did give us a call and we explained that we were on the train, but it was stopped so we'd be there as soon as we could. About 20 minutes ...half an hour?... went by before the train was on it's way again. As we were nearing Harajuku, Dan called us to see if we were okay. It turned out that one of the trains on our line was in an accident and it was about the time we got on our train. We told him we were fine and we continued on to Shinjuku.

When we got there, we found Meg's friend Chris and explained that there was an accident so the train was stopped. She said, "Yeah... someone jumped in front of a train again."

Again?

"It happens all the time. With graduation... kids deciding life is too hard and they fail at life and everything. ::shrug::"

(O.o) O~~ka~y...

So she took us around to a couple CD stores: PureSound, Closet Child, Like an Edison... Pure Sound in Shinjuku is weird. It's really small, having many of their CD's on shelves in the stairway down to the main store and CD's are only half of the store. The other half is porn videos. It's quite odd being giddy about a fanclub video you just found for your favorite band and then you look up to a couple of very naked women on posters staring back at you. (o___O) So after that we went to Closet Child. 8D I didn't find a lot of CD's that I was missing (though I did come home with a couple of first presses) but I found fanclub magazines and two Pierrot photobooks, one of which I didn't know existed, and both being fanclub only, I think. I walked out with about 10 lbs of merchandise which caused the handles on the bag to break therefore making the bag extremely hard to carry around.

Chris met with another girl in Closet Child...who's name I do not remember, but she hung around for the rest of our time there. We stopped in another CD store to pick up flyers and they had a display of Alice Nine's Alpha costumes in the one corner. Chris said the store probably wouldn't allow photos, so I had to ninja a couple of shots. XD Only one of them came out well and from where I was standing I could only get 3 of the 5 outfits in the shot, but there you go.

After that, we stopped in Like an Edison to get more flyers and look at all the autograph boards on the walls and ceilings. After that we stood on a corner trying to decide what we wanted to do now. In that time we got great train directions from there to Kumagaya where the live was later that evening and also great directions back. They were a little faster than the ones we got from Dan, so it was huge help. After that we went our separate ways and RA and I decided that we should head up to the livehouse for sheer lack of anything better to do and that way we also had enough time to find the place.

On our way back to the train station, we saw this:

Well, it's not the X Japan 18-wheeler that was going around the city, but I suppose this is 2nd best?

We found the train and it was a fast one. It only took us maybe 15-20 minutes to get to Kumagaya from Shinjuku... unlike the 2 hours to get home. (@_@) When we got out of the train station though, I got us a little lost. oops~~ I didn't see the road in front of the exit because there were bushes in front of it. I couldn't see through the foliage. XÞ So after wondering around the neighborhood for a while, we called Dan to see if he remembered some landmarks by the live house besides the hotel and we figured out that we didn't go far enough down the one road. So we found it and everything was good. It did start to drizzle while we were waiting in line, so we took shelter underneath this overhang and were eventually joined by two guys. Yes! There were totally guys there; three of them actually though one of them was totally with his girlfriend. The two by us though... well, I don't know what their story was, but the one had a fabulous purse with him. And it wasn't a man bag, it was a purse. So cute. :3 Finally they started calling numbers. I think RA and I cut in front of a couple of people...? They got to the B-30's and no one was moving up to the door... so I pulled RA with me and we went even though we were B-39 & 40. Oh well. We got up to the top of the stairs and were met by the oldest D'espairsRay poster I've ever seen. I couldn't even tell you what costumes they were in but it looked like the picture was old enough to have been taken in the first week they were a band... and it was signed. I wish I could have gotten a picture. So anyways, we got lockers (RA bought this Gackt...thing...for Jess and it was too big to put in the locker with everything else, so we had to get another locker for her stuff. XD) We bought merchandise and went into the main room.

シリアル⇔NUMBER/Dolly/DuelJewel: ｢Triple Circuit｣ March 26th -wed- HEAVEN'S ROCK Kumagaya VJ-1

We went in and found a spot which was about in the 7th or 8th row on the left side. RA wanted to be in front of Yuya, so we stayed on that side. She looked around at how everyone, save for the one guy in the back of the room, was shorter than her and gave me this, 'Oooohhhh.... this is what Jess sees' look. =3 Now, once again, we had to pull an Angelo... that is, we had to keep checking the time to make sure we left at 9:45, or we would not have caught the last train we needed to get home. So RA had the phone for the first two bands and I had it for the last one.

[[ed. note: Please understand that all of the following set lists are A: not in order & B: written down after the fact so we might have a song wrong, especially with Dolly because we weren't as familiar with their stuff. We tried our best though! m(_ _)m ]]

The first band to come out was シリアル⇔NUMBER. The songs they played were:
SAL Koushinkyoku~Kichou Yori~
COLOR STYLE
Adiosu! Eru Amiigo (Adios! El Amigo)
Ban Uta Seishou
Sara Bai
Ravu Piisu (Love Peace)
Kemushi (Kari)
milk tea

serial⇔NUMBER is toooooooooooo cute~!!!! While they aren't anything out of the ordinary or anything completely original, they made up for it in personality, I think. The vocalist, Sasaki Jin, had such an adorable smile! (*-*) RA wanted to pick up the other guitarist, Kazune, and stick him in her pocket... and she probably could have because he is so small. =D They were wearing their COLOR STYLE single outfits: school wanna-be uniforms, each accented with their individual colors.

It was really cute too; during Adiosu! Eru Amiigo, Jin taught us the para-para for the song so we all got to do that. RA has had that song stuck in her head since the live. And Jin made really cute sounds during that song too. "Uon... chuu... surii... yeEEAahhh~~...! I don't remember anything from the MC's though.

Between sets, all the saizen from serial⇔NUMBER came out and the new groupies went into the front. During the switch, I pushed RA up a couple of rows so we ended up in the 5th row for Dolly. I accidentally pushed RA into some other girl and RA said the girl didn't seem too happy about that, not that that was surprising. I didn't know; my bad...

Next up was Dolly. The songs they played were (hopefully):
bitters marmalade RIP
Orenji (Orange)
Haru Urara Kana, 503 Bou
Alice in Dizzypit (we're still questioning this one...)
Ringoshou
Ussetsu Doroppu
INject Candy
Sakuraimu

A lot of people were there for them. And there was too much furi to follow along with... but I tried my best. (^^);;;; Their music is harder than serial NUMBER's is so there was a lot of headbanging and such. And their one song, INject Candy has the same move as one of Guy's Family's songs in which the entire crowd started moving to one side and then back. (Well everyone that is, except that girl RA bumped into. ~~oops.) I have to say though that Dolly is hot! The singer....who's name I don't know, is really sexy. I also have to say, though, for not being completely familiar with them, I did enjoy their performance a lot. Once again, the MC's are lost to me.

So, Dolly ended, their saizen came out and DuelJewel's went up. RA stepped up to the 4th row and I stayed caddy-corner behind her. Also, by this time it was only about quarter-after 8pm so we felt confidant that we'd be able to stay for the entire performance. Yay!

DuelJewel took the stage. They, of course, had the biggest crowd responce. Their set list included:
Tsuioku no Kiseki
Reincarnation Flow
BULLETxSTAR
Life-On
Shine of Air
Konsui xke xke Doll
Aishuu Melancholia
outsider

Encore: Trust

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh....they were awesome!! I don't think RA headbanged so hard in her life. There were times when our heads were at our chests and we went down to the floor. Even during the slower songs, we were moving to the music and lightly flailing about. I couldn't understand about 98% of what was being said during the MC's, but I do remember that VAL was talking about something and at the end he said he loved everyone... or he loved someone. And everyone giggled and he looked embarrassed about it. Yuya got the mic and he started rambling about something and then Hayato said something about him being a super model and Yuya agreed with him I think. I also think then Hayato asked Shun a question and Shun went to answer but then couldn't think of anything to say so he stood there with his mouth open contemplating a response. He eventually said something. Natsuki.... I don't remember. During the middle of their performance, RA got pushed back next to me, but she didn't seem to mind. At one point, she turned to me and said that Natsuki winked at her and she proceeded to fangirl at me. When they finished the main set, the band went to leave and Yuya was the last to walk off. There were two doors on the one side of the stage, one to enter and one to exit. He totally tried to go out the 'in' door until the security guy standing there pointed to the other door. XDDDD He turned to the audience and tried to play off his embarrassment and half skipped over to the exit door.

So the crowd started to call for the encore. A sidenote: throughout their performance, RA got to witness the Japanese~fangirl~growl. So, from behind us we heard the girls calling out, "NatsukiNatsukiNatsukiNatsuki!" or "Yuuuuyaaaaa Yuuuyaaa Yuuyaa YuyaYuyaYuya!!" RA turned to me and was, like, "Wow...that's annoying." XDD Anyway, they came out for the encore and this is when RA also got to experience the jumping-on-the-three-rows-in-front-of-you-because-you-don't-have-a-bar-to-throw-yourself-over move. RA and I chose to stay where we were and just throw ourselves over.... well, ourselves. We grasped hands and went down as far as we could without falling over. We figured, eh... let them pile on each other....And besides, my moshing streak would come out and I'd end up hurting all the little people that were around us.

So, the show ended and we split. As much as I would have loved to stay and 'Otsukaresama' them... we had to go. We had a two hour train ride complete with 4 transfers ahead of us. (@_@) But we made it back. I think we got in at about 1am or so. We stopped at the Family Mart for food and went back to the room to fangirl at each other about the live and actually look at all the stuff we bought that day. Awesome!

~~ To be continued... ~~

Japan (March 24-25) ~ Entitled: Back to Japan...

2008-03-31T03:57:19Z

I must say that this trip was too short. It started out with Jess driving RA and I to the airport and us receiving a call from her later on that she got lost going home and ended up goodness knows where. (¬.¬) Everything went smoothly. I managed to remember how to check in at the airport and not mess anything up.

While we were sitting at our gate waiting for our flight, we saw a flight attendant who looked like Jess' friend Midori. We saw a guy who looked like he could be Hitler's brother.... or a Hitler coplayer.... We also saw someone who kinda resembled Lida and someone else who just looked generally familiar. When we got to Chicago, we saw a guy who looked like Takeshi from Ellegarden with Light's (DeathNote) hair. He was on our plane to Tokyo. I found out that he is about 2 or 3 inches shorter than me and he doesn't put the seat down after he pisses... in case anyone really needed to know that. RA and I tried to sleep for most of the flight there. I managed to watch most of one movie but fell asleep in the middle. poo...

When we finally got to Japan, the first thing we did was customs. That was confusing. They kind of had general areas of where people had to go marked but the lines ended up as a mosh pit on the one side of the room. As we started to proceed over to where we thought we had to go, all of a sudden another line started coming toward us and the lines intersected and crossed and RA was on one side of the line and I was on the other and the other line was moving too fast so we had to cut people off and push people out of the way to get over the the actual line that we needed. (@_@) One thing they changed from when I was there last year is that they take a face scan and your index finger prints now. I think the sign said that it was initiated Nov 23rd? ...I think. We eventually got through and we got down to get our ludgage and proceeded down to the ground floor where we were supposed to meet with the tour group.

And there was the lady with the "JRR X Japan Tour Group" sign. Her name was Yoko-san. She had said that she was really surprised when she got this job of meeting a group of foreigners who came for a concert. She also was surprised by the fact that Japanese music was pretty big outside of Japan and was asking us about what other music besides X Japan was popular overseas. We had some time while waiting for other people to get there so RA and I went to exchange our money. The exchange rate was crap this time around. The better of the two exchange offices had ¥97 to $1.00. We walked around a bit and then went back to see if anyone else from the group had arrived. That's when we met these two girls, Sana and Mary who were totally on our plane from Newark to Chicago to Tokyo and all of us were too shy to ask anyone else if we were all in the JRR Tour Group. Epic fail! But we finally introduced ourselves and they themselves and everything was cool.

Eventually everyone made it to the spot we were supposed to meet and we made our way to the tour bus that took us to our hotel in Yokohama. Yokohama Prince Hotel from Narita Airport is about 2 hours by bus. But we got to see a lot of the city at night. We also passed by Aqua City which was where X Japan filmed the I.V. PV, but we didn't get a picture of it.

Yeah, it totally wasn't daytime on our way to the hotel... but I'm cheating a bit here. (¬.¬);;

The hotel was really nice but our room was small! I think three of our hotel room would fit in the apartment that I had last year. And we didn't have a microwave so I couldn't get my microwavable udon. (T-T) I was sad. But the toilet was heated so that was cool.

We made ourselves comfortable, played with our cell phone rental...

Burt Jr.!!

...and then went out for a walk around the neighborhood. We found the nearest 7-11...but it was a bit far away, so for the rest of the trip we ended up going to the FamilyMart that was connected to our hotel. I showed RA the subway and how to use the ticket machines and then we headed back. For the rest of the night, we pretty much just watched TV. We did not see one Gackt commercial. That was fail.

Here are a couple of shots from our hotel room which was on the 28th floor:

There's supposed to be Mt Fuji in the background. The hotel said you should see it from the higher floors, but it was really cloudy.

Yokohama Arena

I don't think that car should be in the center of the intersection. ::shrug::

~~ To be continued... ~~

March 15, 2008 Taste of Chaos Tour: Asbury Park, NJ

2008-03-16T17:47:54Z

Originally I wasn't going to write up a report, but I since I haven't written one in a while, I figured, "Eh... why not?" =)

The weather was really nice yesterday but the wind was cold. Even so, it wasn't too bad sitting outside for the 4 hours that we were. It was kinda funny, I think, how the lines were divided up with the 'Jump The Line' wrist band people in one line and the 'Just Ticket' people in the other. In other words, it seemed to be the JRock fans in one line and everyone else in the other line. At one point, RA and I were sitting there and just watching the cars go by on the street and both of us saw a large RV drive by with 'Roof Patio 390' printed across the upper-side of it. RA and I just start laughing at each other. It's kinda an inside joke. On D'espairsRay's 2nd tour here, that was their tour bus that H-Lo broke and was parked outside of our hotel room during Nekocon. But the time went by quickly and before we knew it, we were being let inside.

Of course, the Japanese music fans seemed to be the first ones in and all of us ran for the front while everyone else just seemed to wander in at their leisure. I didn't get bar at this concert, but it was fine because Jess is cool about me headbanging on her back. (THANKS JESS! ♥)

From what I understand, all of the shows were set up the same: with the main stage in front and a smaller stage off to the side where a smaller, not so known band would play while the main stage was being set up for the next big band so there was no space of no music. So a band was playing while D'espairsRay was setting up. I don't know who they were and I didn't think they were that good.

D'espairsRay took the stage and they were awesome! The set list was as follows:

DAMNED
MIRROR
Infection
SIXty∞NINe
[Fuyuu Shita Risou]

They looked so happy to be there; so excited, even ZERO, who never changes his facial expression. And HIZUMI didn't try to look all serious like usual and his English keep getting progressively better... though there were still some things I couldn't understand but that might have also been the acoustics in the hall. I still wished they played Hollow but it's fine. I wanted one old song and I got it and [Fuyuu Shita Risou] is a great live song so that made me happy.

After D'espairsRay ended, another band played on the small stage while MUCC set their stuff up. Now, I think the band playing at this point was called Idiot Pilot. At first I didn't realize there was a band playing because I was too busy watching Tatsuro being curled up on a bench backstage. I think I was told that Idiot Pilot was booed at one of the shows prior to mine, but I honestly didn't think they were bad. They were different... imagine that. I'm not saying I would go out and buy their music or anything, but I wasn't appalled by what was coming from them.

But that aside, MUCC finally started. Now I am not a MUCC fan. On occasion, Tatsuro's voice irritates me. At JRev, me and Adrienne went and napped in the back of the venue during their performance...granted it was the last performance of the weekend... but whatever. I remember only liking two of the songs they played though I know not what they were. But, I have to say that a fully enjoyed the performance they gave last night. I don't remember if they played 4 or 5 songs, but the last two were:

FUZZ
リブラ

Tatsuro's English was cute. I guess he had note cards on the floor because he looked like he was reading from something as he was giving his little MC's. Do MUCC usually look bohemian when they perform? I didn't watch them at California so I don't know. It fits them, I think. YUKKE's skirt looked cute on him.

Apparently though, a lot of the American music fans... mostly large sweaty guys, decided that MUCC is moshing and crowd surfing music. 8| The security guys at the front were totally on top of that though, pulling everyone up and out as they came to the front, though I had one of the guys dragged across my head and my hair yanked. Not kosher dude.

After MUCC left, the Underneath took the small stage. All I have to say is that I pee all over the vocalist Taka. Mmm, that was hot. But that aside, their music was pretty good. It was really hard. It was hard to make out the vocals because of the accoustics in the hall and the bass was turned up so high. I think I would have to listen to their recorded stuff before I decide if I really like them or not. Taka (who's English was excellent) did announce 2 or 3 of the song titles, but I couldn't tell you what they were.

Meh! Trying to get out of the crowd after the Underneath was a pain in the ass. Everyone kept rushing forward and being a douche about letting us through. But whatever. After that, RA and I left. We didn't stay for the autograph and meet-and-greet. I have so much stuff signed by D'espairsRay that I don't really care anymore and I don't really care about MUCC and both of us are broke as shit because of Japan so we couldn't even buy something for any of the bands to sign. And besides, we had to get home because the dog had been in the house all day and totally hadn't eaten since that morning... though when we got home, we found they never finished their breakfast anyway. (¬_¬)

private__enemy @ 2008-03-15T02:56:00

2008-03-15T06:57:11Z

Soooooo weird..... but at the same time, kinda cool.

Angelo Romaji Lyrics

2008-02-22T19:29:04Z

Recently, boo from centigrade-j made posts in his blog with translations for a handful of Angelo lyrics ::inserts cheering:: domestic_hooker made a post pertaining to that here. But as I was looking through them, I noticed that he didn't post up the romaji for the songs, just the translations. I'm sure there are other people like me, in that while I love to understand the lyrics, I still want to know what is actually being said. So! I took it upon myself to romanize HE IS A MONKEY and I thought I'd share.

HE IS A MONKEY

現実を見ないふりして偶像に祈りを捧げて
身動きのとれない君を今奪い去るから

所詮獣が造り上げた幻を祀りあげた
終わりの見えない茶番劇を蹴散らそう

そんな「正義」に騙されないで磔の詐欺師に唾を吐いて

この腕に抱かれていて燃え盛る炎の中
憎んだ世界はそう二人に跪く
その目で確かめて深い眠りを越えて
目覚めた朝にはもう全てが君のものに

所詮獣が造りあげた亡霊に未来を描いた
救いようのない茶番劇を蹴散らそう

そんな「教義」に騙されないで磔の詐欺師に唾を吐いて

この腕に抱かれていて燃え盛る炎の中
憎んだ世界はそう二人に跪く
その目で確かめて深い眠りを越えて
目覚めた朝にはもう全てが君のものに

そんな「美意識」も踏みにじって磔の詐欺師に唾を吐いて

この腕に抱かれていて燃え盛る炎の中
憎んだ世界はもう振り向く価値もなく
その目で確かめて深い眠りを越えて
目覚めた朝にはもう全てが君のものに

Genjitsu wo minai furishite Guuzou ni inori wo sasagete
Miugoki no torenai kimi wo ima ubaisaru kara

Shosen kemono ga tsukuriageta Maboroshi wo matsuriageta
Owari no mienai chabangeki wo kechirasou

Sonna [Seigi] ni damasarenai de Haritsuke no sagishi ni tsuba wo haite

Kono ude ni dakareteite Moesakaru honoo no naka
Nikunda sekai wa sou futari ni hizamazuku
Sono me de tashikamete Fukai nemuri wo koete
Mezameta asa ni wa mou subete ga kimi no mono ni

Shosen kemono ga tsukuriageta Bourei ni mirai wo egaita
Sukuiyounonai chabangeki wo kechirasou

Sonna [Kyougi] ni damasarenai de Haritsuke no sagishi ni tsuba wo haite

Kono ude ni dakareteite Moesakaru honoo no naka
Nikunda sekai wa sou futari ni hizamazuku
Sono me de tashikamete Fukai nemuri wo koete
Mezameta asa ni wa mou subete ga kimi no mono ni

Sonna [Biishiki] mo fuminijitte Haritsuke no sagishi ni tsuba wo haite

Kono ude ni dakareteite Moesakaru honoo no naka
Nikunda sekai wa mou furimuku kachimonaku
Sono me de tashikamete Fukai nemuri wo koete
Mezameta asa ni wa mou subete ga kimi no mono ni

Interested in seeing more?

Ugh!

2008-02-18T21:29:20Z

I don't wanna fight with Japanese fangirls at CAC. Stupid Free-Will! Maybe not a lot of them will come.

>(

private__enemy @ 2007-12-16T23:19:00

2007-12-17T04:25:49Z

I Have Too Much Freaking Manga!!! DDDDX

But! I finaly got all of it squished onto my 4 bookshelves and I still have a little bit of room to spare.

.....

Now I need a place for all the magazines. (@_@) ::face fault:: (The SHOXX & Cure feel like 60 lbs!)

P.S. - 12's new album wins! 'THE MOON' & 'DISPUTE' are love ♥

Kaya~ ♥♥♥!

2007-12-10T21:21:45Z

Zomg! Hagakure is love! Kaya was just so freaking cute~♥ They had such bright, fun costumes and a happy stage performance. Granted his vocals were hard to hear at the live, but even after listening to his recorded voice (I bought a CD. Go me...) I still like him alot. Yes, I agree with Jess that he has this Kana-esque quality to his voice, but it's listenable. His English was cute too; actually his support members' English were pretty good as well.
I even bought a plushie of him!

Ssssooooo cu~te!

∀NTI FEMINISM on the other hand, I have no words for. Kenzi is just a bundle of what-the-fuck. o.O From him coming on stage with a burlap bag on his head to him jerking his mic off to him just jumping around like a mad man on stage and eventually jumping into the crowd with a basket of thumbtacks...? I didn't find their music anything special per se, but it was good if moshing or thrashing is your cup of tea. I did enjoy the headbanging I will admit. And the bassist was hot!

Overall, it was a great show. It was lots of fun... despite everyone being soaked from the rain while waiting in line. That was lame.

Japan (May 15-16) ~ Entitled: Angelo @ Nagoya Club Diamond Hall & The longest day of my life.

2007-06-11T02:28:21Z

You'll have to forgive my specialness in the line up from my previous post. I've been informed that I screwed it to hell. Apparently the line up is as follows: Fifth Wheel - Hard Core Fanclub - Silence Kills The Revolution - The Cherry Coke$ - Kick Like Kato - Coquettish. SKTR had scary vocalist, KLK had Dan from The Suicide Machines, C had guitarist with bleeding head. Gee that kinda failed. (-_-)

After sleeping forever the day before, I woke up Tuesday morning at, like, 4 am. I had nothing better to do so I watched some TV until everyone else got up a couple of hours later. I watched a lot of the Discovery Channel but also some news and Hello Kitty…not a lot of HK though. Five minutes was all I could stand.

Eventually, later that morning, Shelby and Jess woke up and we all kind of slowly got dressed and ready and stuff. Since we didn’t have to be in Nagoya until about 5:30 that evening, we didn’t have to rush around and such. We decided that we were going to go back to a couple of places in Osaka before going to the JR station… again.

The first stop on our list: the mall in Kyobashi with the Shinseido. I had seen X Japan’s Blue Blood album there last Friday and I still had to get something else for Rae. She didn’t pick the phone up then so I didn’t buy it because I couldn’t remember if she had it or not. That and Jess still needed to buy stuff for her family so the mall was a great place for that. So we went to the subway station completely bypassing the 7-11 (8O ee~gads!). We easily found our way back to the mall and into the Shinseido…and somebody totally bought the Blue Blood album! What!? Who the hell else buys X Japan CD’s?! >\

So anyways, we continued to walk around the mall. Shelby and I went off in search of fans to take with us to JR Rev for Kagrra,’s performance, but we didn’t see anything that was inexpensive or what we really wanted to begin with. So that was a bust but Jess found some nice stuff for her family.

After that, we went back to Shinsaibashi to revisit the store of doom, Pure Sound… I wanted to look at more of the Pierrot stuff since I knew there wasn’t anything else I really needed to buy from then on out (o.o)… oh and Shelby needed a bank, like hard core. But we took another line into Shinsaibashi than we did the last time so we ended up at a different end of the station and we couldn’t figure out where the hell we were in the city nor could we figure out which way we needed to go in order to get to where we wanted to go. It was super annoying. Though we did find a bookstore in the mall there and I finally found the June Fool’s Mate I wanted so the trip wasn’t a complete bust for me. But after that, we gave up and just went back to the apartment.

We had maybe an hour and a half before we had to leave to go to the JR station in Shin Osaka. We wanted to stop and get some food before heading off to Nagoya since we weren’t going to eat again until late-late that night when we got back. But instead of the 7-11, they wanted to go to the McDonald’s that was right there. So we went.

Zomg! They had white grape Qoo! 8D Micky-D’s FTW!

We just relaxed while we ate lunch and then off to the JR station it was. Now, we didn’t want to run into the same problem we did in Tokyo with missing the last train and such so prior to leaving, we went over the train schedule like mad. The last available train back from Nagoya was at, like 9:45 or something. The point was, we had to watch our time and we had to probably leave at about 9:00. I was at odds. We could not stay in Nagoya because we were leaving Japan the next day and we had to be out of our apartment by 10:00 am. …but it was Kirito… D=

I knew what we had to do so I was fully prepared to leave the Angelo concert early whether it was before the encore or during a song during the main performance, but we had to leave. (T-T)

So off to Nagoya we went. Luckily, Nagoya is a lot closer than Tokyo! It was, maybe, an hour and a half train ride north. Once we got there, we were smart and timed ourselves so we knew approximately about how long it would take us to get from the venue to the JR Station. We were also smart and bought our subway tickets for the way back while we were there so we wouldn’t have to wait in line for that later. Boo-Ya! S-M-R-T!!

Now, of course, once we exited the subway, we weren’t really sure what way we needed to go. We stopped for a minute to look at our map and decided on a direction…and then we noticed a hoard of girls who looked like they were going to a J-Rock concert… so we decided to follow them. And besides, they were headed in the same direction we were going to go in anyway. =P

So we follow them and lo and behold, there is the Flex West Building about a block from the subway. Awe~some! So that was about 15-20 minutes from the JR station to the venue which meant we could stay until about quarter after-ish but 9:25 was the absolute latest we could stay. We had to leave then. Again, I was fully prepared to leave during the encore.

So we walked up to Club Diamond Hall and stood out in front listening to the two guys shouting directions at everyone. They were saying that certain numbers had to go and stand over there (pointing into the complex) but they kept saying 500 or less… I guess. We were numbers 945, 6, & 7. They weren’t saying anything that high, so we didn’t know where to go. One of the guys (who was really cute) kept eyeing us while we were eyeing him. We probably looked lost and he probably noticed that we looked lost. So finally he kind of started to approach us as Jess decided to kind of approach him. Anyways, he ended up escorting us to where we had to stand, which was in the next building over and 5 or 6 floors up. Yeah, we were at the end of the line.

There were these really great looking Kirito and Kohta cosplayers doing their outfits from the last tour ‘Broken World After The Heaven’. Eventually the line started moving and we headed down into the actual venue complex. We passed by a bulletin board that had a tour poster on it. I said to the girls that since we’d probably be leaving early, if no one’s around when we came out, the poster was mine. >) After going up more steps, the guy checking the tickets at the door gave Jess a really nasty look, probably because she was a good foot and a half taller than him, and we went inside. They actually asked us if we had cameras so there was defiantly no picture taking in the venue. But I was there and in about half an hour I was going to see Angelo.

Angelo: ｢Easter For Treason｣ May 15th -tues- Nagoya Club Diamond Hall

So we got in the venue and just got our bearings for a second. I wanted to go the merchandise booth first because we wouldn’t have time later. I walked up and just pointed at stuff. “That, that, that, that, that and two of these. Here, have money.”

We put everything in a locker and into the concert hall we went. It was standing room only so everyone was spread out. Jess started walking down toward the front so we just followed her. We found a nice spot that was really open in the center.

For being 945, 6 & 7, Jess managed to walk us up to about 11th row center. And I was dead center… in front of Kirito the whole time. 8D~

The Kirito cosplayer was on Jess’ left (who was on my left) and there was this girl in front of me, who from behind, reminded me of Becky; but only from behind. As soon as she turned around and I saw her face, I was like, “D= Ah! You’re not Becky.” Shelby was to my right and to her right was some guy that didn’t move much during the concert. The stage wasn’t anything spectacular; a banner hung on the back wall of the stage with the “Angelo, The creature was reborn out of hades” logo on it.

The show started with Takeo being the first to walk out, followed by Toruxxx, then Kohta and finally Kirito. Takeo had a lot of eye shadow on, a lot of eye shadow, but his hair looked nice; Kohta looked freaking hawt in general. Then finally Kirito came out. I think Shelby said I grabbed her arm and started screaming anf flailing? I honestly do not remember doing so. Okay, I remember screaming a bit. In person, Kirito’s blond hair doesn’t look that bad. I still wish he had his black hair though. But he had blue contacts in? Errr… I like his black eyes. But the net shirt he had on look good. (^^) So they took their places and jumped right into the show.

The show opened with ‘Ikyou ni Saku Hana’. I did think that was going to be the opening song because it just sounds like an awesome opening song, and it was. Uuuuhhh…after that I’m really sketchy on the set list. (¬.¬) I think that ‘REBORN’ was the second song…third song…? They went through their entire discography, playing ‘REBORN’ twice: once in the beginning and then as the last song in the encore. They also played some new songs; 4 actually: ‘CEREMONY’, ‘Destruction impulse’, ‘NEO HADES’ & the best one of all, “CHRIST IS A MONKEY’. The first three songs Kirito didn’t announce (I got those names from an April 1st report in a magazine so I can only assume the names are correct for my concert too?). But during the encore, he gave an MC and then announced that last one.

The only things I remember from that song is that the first and last lines of the song are, “Christ is a monkey” and the song was really catchy. And he does this thing where he stands on his stand and stretches his arms out to either side of him (like he’s…well…on a cross, I guess) and does this head roll thing and makes really special faces.

Jess says Kirito dances worse than Gackt. I think I kind of disagree. At least you can call what Gackt does an attempt at dancing. Kirito does this… I don’t know. It’s a pee-pee shimmy in place or something… and he does it a lot. He just squeezes his legs together and moves them in the opposite direction of his upper torso. It just looks like the man has to really go to the bathroom…either that or he’s in pain. And then, of course, he’ll put his hand to his face like he really needs to go so bad it hurts. At least he didn’t do that mega bathroom dance he did during his ‘Fef of Hamln’ concert. Now that was some bad dancing! X0

There was lots of headbanging! Not really para-para per say. Just more “do what Kirito does”. If he raises his hand, you raise your hand… if he does a fist pound, then you do a fist pound… if he scratches his butt…well you get the idea. Though he does do this thing where he wants everyone to move or headbang or something and if he catches you not doing what he wants, then he seeks you out, points at you and taps his own head. If he wants you to sing or be louder, he points to mic toward the crowd and beckons you with his hand. Once everyone is doing what he wants, like bent over headbanging, he stops, crosses his arms and just observes the crowd with this quirky smile on his face.

Now most of the talking is coming from Jess’ memory. She tried her best to understand what was being said and she didn’t know how accurate she was. Well, she did about 1000 times better than me so I don’t care.

Anyways, according to her, during the first MC, Kirito was like, “Woo! There’s a lot of people here!” and asked how we were and if we were having fun. He also said, “We are Angelo,” in English (I did catch that for myself, thank you very much). We think there was a really short second MC, but we wouldn’t swear to it. During the third MC though, he said something about how on the way to the venue, they had gotten lost in Tokyo and it was Takeo’s fault (so I guess Takeo was driving? XD). He handed the microphone to Takeo who said something like how he usually gets blamed for that kind of stuff because it’s just the easiest thing to do. After Takeo finished, Kirito took the microphone back and said that the real person to blame is ‘this guy’ and looks at Kohta, because ‘he was giving the directions’. Kohta said something like how it really was his fault but like Takeo said; it’s just easier to blame him (meaning Takeo) anyways (awww, poor Takeo **huggles**). After Kohta, the microphone went back to Kirito who then walked over to Toruxxx’s side of the stage and said something about ‘this guy being no help because he’s a pervert and just read porn in the back of the van the whole time’. So he handed Toruxxx the mic and all we remember was that he didn’t deny his being a pervert. He said other stuff, but we kind of zoned out during his talking because he doesn’t count and just makes us mad anyway (¬.¬). So Kirito took the microphone back and said that he ‘needed some help because he didn’t remember who he was.’ (-_-) “Who am I?” We called out, “Kirito!” And he said back, “I can’t hear you,” so we yelled it back, “Kirito!” And then he made his little hand motion for us to yell his name louder and we did. I think that’s when he announced they were going to perform ‘CHRIST IS A MONKEY’.

Over all, it was an awesome concert. I can not count myself among those lucky enough to have been able to see Pierrot, so I can not compare the two but Angelo seemed to be energetic and the guys seemed to be highly enjoying themselves. The crowd gave them much energy and I think it was returned.

Now, periodicaly during the concert, Jess would nudge me for the time since I said I would hold onto the cellphone for the night. 9:15 kept approaching faster and faster. The concert ended and the crowd began calling for an encore. We still had time. And the crowd was calling for one with much excitement; the chanting didn’t die at all. They came out and did the encore and then it ended. Zomg… we still had 5 minutes before we had to start getting out of there. We made it all the way through the concert!! XDDDDDDD

Jess went for her drink and I went for our stuff in the locker. We regrouped, I handed my letter for Kirito to one of the merchants at the booth because I totally bypassed the present box on my way in. We definatly high-tailed it out of there. I would have loved to hang around and see them out of the hall, but unfortunatly, that was impossible. To the subway and to the JR station. We made it with 5 or 10 minutes to spare. What a wonderful night! 8)

To be completely honest, the experience was so surreal that even now, I don’t even believe I was there. It happened so fast and I can’t wait for the next time. D8

Random note: The subways were all closing when we got back to Osaka. When we were walking down the one set of stairs to go toward our exit, this conductor guys jumped out of nowhere and started yelling at us. All I heard was, “jkkw wenioehgef8 jkrdfioejk nwf !!!” Luckily Jess was listening. The guy just asked if we needed that train because it was the last one. Ahh, startled me. I think we made one last stop at the 7-11 and went back to the apartment to mellow out on our last night there.

The day we left was fucking long as shit!!! 8O!

Let me try to put it into perspective. Jess called Kitto, from Japan, at about 9:00 in the morning on Wednesday. We were getting ready to check out. Kitto was at work in the evening on Tuesday. Our plane was not going to get into Newark until about 10:30 pm Wednesday night. From the time we left our apartment to the time we landed at home, Kitto would have worked a full evenings work, gone home, gone to bed, woken up, gone to school, gone back to work and gone back home to go to bed. Now isn’t that a mind fuck. (@-@)

The ride home was long as hell and so uncomfortable…and I slept through ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ on the plane. And to top it all off, We were about 50 minutes late leaving San Francisco and we had to circle Newark for about an hour because of the weather. Our plane landed at 12:30 and I had to be up at 7 am for work. >\

The only interesting thing about the ride home was hangman on the way from Japan, the conversation about smelly feet while in San Francisco and the old senile man who kept taking his seatbelt off and walking toward the exit with his bag in hand while we were still in the air and landing.

It was kind of a shitty way to end a fabulous vacation, but there you have it.

I’m determined. In the spring, I’m going back!

~~ The End ~~

Japan (May 13-14) ~ Entitled: Adventures in Tokyo & The Cherry Coke$ @ Shimokitazawa ERA

2007-06-10T01:39:33Z

I’ve decided not to post a JRRev report because they are everywhere and I really have nothing different to tell. Just know that I had a fabulous time; not only was it a weekend packed full of JRock~ness (Isshi-san!!!!! ♥♥♥♥) but it was drama free on our end and the only real stress I had was figuring out whether I was getting on the correct bus to take me back to the hotel and whether our hotel room was safe since the flip lock came off of the door. (o_o).

But all that aside, let me return to Japan…Tokyo specifically.

Sunday morning we got up kind of early because we had to take the Shinkansen up to Tokyo. From Osaka (or Shin Osaka more specifically), it’s about a 2 ½ to 3 hour train ride. I think we got into Tokyo some time in the early afternoon. From Tokyo Station we had to take the subway to Shibuya to meet with Dan. We were instructed to find the statue of Hachikou (I think that’s spelled right?) and Dan would be in that area.

Hachikou if the statue of a dog, an Akita. I’m quoting this from memory so some of this might be incorrect. From what I remember, the dog would follow its master to the train station everyday and see his master off to work. The dog would stay at the train station until his master returned in the evening. Well one day his master died while away and the dog refused to leave the station because his master never returned and so the dog died there because it refused to leave. So now there’s a statue erected of it in Shibuya right by the train station there.

Anyway, so we found Dan and we were off to the town where the live was that night, in Shimokitazawa. We wondered through the little town and found the venue where the concert was, Shimokitazawa ERA. Now originally, we were under the impression that this was a one-man but it wasn’t. The Cherry Coke$ were playing with a multitude of other punk bands all of which I had never heard of prior to this live so we were defiantly getting our moneys worth. Now Dan does stuff for The Cherry Coke$ and he takes photos for the band at their lives and such so he had some special privileges…like letting us meet the lead singer and letting us sit in on the sound check. And we got to see the sound check for one of the other bands too, but I have no idea who it was and that singer wasn’t there for the sound check, which was fine because the singer was kind of scary. We got to go in the special back entrance with the really special elevator that would close on you if you didn’t exit it right away. Not kidding. (o.o)

So after maybe 40 minutes, an hour or so, we left and decided to go off and find some food. Dan took us to a ramen shop. This was the first time we had actually eaten in a restaurant because Dan could talk for us and we didn’t have to say anything. (^^);; We had to take our shoes off and sit on the floor. For me, it was uncomfortable. I like to sit up at the table and I couldn’t get my legs crossed and underneath at the same time…that and the little pillows kept sliding. So I cheated and stretched my legs out. (¬.¬);; While eating my awesome ramen, off in the distance I heard a familiar voice… I quickly look up and around and found Shelby doing the same. I think Jess’ head sprang up and was wildly looking around too. The three of us heard the same familiar singing voice. Our eyes eventually found the little TV on the wall on the other side of the room and there on the TV was Gackt. We were waiting to see him somewhere in Japan. Low and behold we saw him in a commercial in Tokyo… then the same commercial played three or four times while we were there. We laughed…and then got stared at for our sudden outburst.

After we were done eating, we went back to the venue and just relaxed outside for a little while and looked over the train time table to see when we would have to leave. We unfortunately realized that there was no way we were going to go to this live and make it back to Osaka that night. The last available train left about half an hour into the concert. I’m not going to lie. I was mad. I didn’t want to stay in Tokyo that night. We didn’t have a hotel and Dan said his place was too small to fit three other people in it so he was going to try to set us up in an internet café.

But at that point we decided not to worry about it. We headed into the building and up the special elevator. When we got in they were just letting people into the venue. That’s when we realized that we totally didn’t go in the front door. (We honestly didn’t realize we were going in the wrong entrance.) So we didn’t have to pay for a drink ticket and we were able to find our little spot at the front by the speakers before anyone else was really in there.

Eventually everyone filed in and kind of hung around in the back; not really approaching the front right away. We were so out of place there but it was fine. So after half an hour of waiting, the live started. Wow! …just Wow. The show was awesome and the music was great, especially the ‘The Cherry Coke$’ but honestly the crowd was more fun to watch. Punk shows in Japan win!

Coquettish/Fifth Wheel/Kick Like Kato/Hard Core Fanclub/The Cherry Coke$/Silence Kills The Revolution – May 13th -sun- Shimokitazawa ERA

I can only assume the bands came on as they were stated on the ticket, so I’m going with that which would mean ‘Coquettish’ was first to perform. The crowd was still warming up during their performance so it wasn’t too wild. They had good music. The second band got the crowd moving a little more. I think by this time the mosh pit was starting in the center of the room.

Unlike most of the concerts I’ve been to here where if a mosh pit breaks out, the whole crowd kinda moves with it because you don’t have much of a choice while there everyone still has their personal space. So if you don’t want to be in the pit, you stayed in the back or off to the sides. The area right in the front center was for everyone who wanted to run around in a circle and run into each other. And if they hit someone who wasn’t in the pit, they usually stopped or turned and apologized, like the one really cute guy who was standing in front of Shelby for a little while when we were up against the wall. The crowd would run into him and he would be pushed back into Shelby. Then he would turn around, bow and apologize. He did this like 3 or 4 times. Shelby was perfectly prepared for him so it didn’t faze her any.

I guess it would be ‘Kick Like Kato’… or was it ‘Hard Core Fanclub’, with the wild and crazy singer. The singer came out and made sure nothing was sitting on the front of the stage and the speakers were pushed back because he liked to run along the front of the stage. Whoever it was, the music wasn’t anything to rave about but the singer defiantly gave you something to look at. During the first song, the singer went leaping off of the stage and ran through the little crowd, leaped up on the merchandise table and dove onto the crowd in the back. (O.O) Seriously, he was all over the place; he was constantly stage diving and running into the crowd.

Oh yeah, earlier in the night when, I think, the first band was performing, all of a sudden this guy came running out of the audience and jumped up on the stage and started screaming into the mic along with that singer. I thought it was some random fan but later we realized it was the crazy singer of this band. The back entrance door was behind where we were standing and this girl and this guy came walking through it. The singer ran off the stage, bypassed the girl, grabbed the guy and started screaming the lyric at his face. The poor kid was like, D8;;; Then the singer and one of the other fans grabbed each other by the neck/head/shoulder(s) and started screaming into the microphone in the middle of the audience. Shelby and I looked at each other and Shelby motioned kissy faces and I nodded. They were totally faux making-out. By the end of the band’s performance, the singer was on the ground with his faux making-out partner and a bunch of the other guys just started to pile on top of them. It was an orgy in the middle of the concert venue. It was pretty freaking funny. XD

Between sets, we met a couple of foreign girls, Canadian specifically, that were there for the show. The one girl didn’t say anything at all. The taller one, who was really wild, moved there because she felt like it. Random. She loved the punk music scene there and was disappointed when we said that we were only there on holiday… ha! She called it ‘holiday’. We said vacation.

Anyways, so The Cherry Coke$ took the stage. Most of the crowd was defiantly there for them. Jess and Shelby decided the bassist/vocalist/madolinist was Reita’s (Gazette) alter ego. He was amusing to watch. He looked really hard core; tattoos all over, bandana, baseball cap, vest with patches and he would be jamming on his bass and then… he would whip out a mandolin and go to town on it. XD And the drummer looked cute… and also looked out of place. They have fun upbeat music. And their one song “Bullet for Vapid Beer” was a crowd favorite.

Shelby: Weeeee~~ This is fun...
Jess: Erm, Shelby that guys gonna hit you if you don't move in a hot second

Can you find Jess's arm? They are such camera whores. XDD

By this point in the concert, there was plenty of stage diving. That was awesome to watch. Everyone looked out for each other. If someone was up, everyone made sure they stayed up and everyone was ready to catch the surfer if they started to fall and they would be hoisted back up to the top of the crowd. There was this one guy with the most awesome mohawk that jumped from the stage and he hit the crowd wrong and did this weird flip thing and ended up falling face first toward the floor, but at the last moment, the crowd grabbed him and flung him back up to the top and shuffled him across the crowd. It was pretty amazing.

Now, the last band to go on, which I assume was ‘Silence Kills The Revolution’, was actually two bands, I guess. The singer of the band has another side project with the guitarist Dan Lukacinsky of the American band ‘The Suicide Machines’. He decided to test their 3 song discography out on the crowd that night before the actual band from the night’s line-up performed. The crowd went wild for both performances. At one point, Shelby and I were hiding in the back of Jess against the wall because the mosh pit exploded and was huge and encompassed most of the front, so we moved over out of the way. Jess leaned back and poked me and motioned to the guitarist of ‘SKTR’. “He’s bleeding,” she said. Shelby and I looked around her at the guitarist. He had blood pouring from this little dot on his forehead all the way down his face. I think someone said he leaned down real fast and hit his head on the guitar and cut his head open? Later he was walking around with a band-aid on his face.

Now at some point, we had asked Dan if we could maybe get a pick from the bassist of The Cherry Coke$ and he said he would see what he could do. Shelby also said she would love to get a drum stick from the drummer because she had taken a liking to him…especially after seeing that he wore stripy socks. (^^) So, after The Cherry Coke$ were done their performance, he appeared and gave each of us a bass pick from the bassist Hiromitsu (who says he respects Bob Dylan, likes tofu & hamburgers but hates vegetables, & love the movie Goonies! [I was totally watching that last night]). At some point Dan came out with the drum sticks from Tomokazu (who likes a girl who’s happy with small things, is scared of motorcycle racers approaching him from behind at night & likes to picnic on his day off). Zomg, he chewed those things to bits! Jess couldn’t figure out what the hell he did with them because they were cut up every which way. Dan said to the drummer that the girl in the audience collected drumsticks and wanted to know if she could have one of his so he forked over both. Cool!

After the show, we hung around in our little spot while everyone else went to the bar or filed out. We ended up meeting Dan from ‘The Suicide Machines’ after the show and were talking with him for a little while. He was saying how he was surprised by the crowd reaction, thinking that the audience was going to listen to the music since they’ve never heard it before and instead partied hard like it was old news. He said he noticed us (well, we were standing right in front of him) though and appreciated our reaction, which was standing there bobbing our head? Anyways, he was cool. He wandered off and we saw that some of the members of The Cherry Coke$ were out and about including the drummer. Shelby wanted his autograph so we told her how to ask for it though she didn’t go over right away. When it looked like we really were going to have to leave, she stood there looking like she wanted to walk over to him but hesitated. So I pushed her. >D She stumbled forward but kept walking toward him. Jess and I stood back and watched as she walked up to him and tried to get his attention without completely butting into his conversation with someone else. So he noticed her and she bowed with the drum sticks held out in front of her and we saw her ask him. Then he yelled at her face, “WoooaaaahahhhhhhH!!!” Shelby laughed and looked back at us like, “O.O” So Tomokazu was all happy and bubbly that he got asked for his autograph so he took the drumsticks and the sharpie and had his friend hold them as he signed them.

We walked over to them and watched as Shelby got her autographs. So he handed the sticks to her and she thanked him. Then he turned to her and started talking in really fast Japanese to Shelby. D= “What… Jess, what did he say???” “Hmmm…what? **blink blink**” Then he stopped, realizing she didn’t speak Japanese and apologized. Shelby started freaking out because she wanted to know what he said but no one heard him and he wouldn’t repeat himself.

Shelby: Omg. Why do J-rockers always yell things at my face?
Tomokazu: XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!

Not long after that, we departed from the venue, waving goodbye to Katsuo, the singer and watching him and Dan (our Dan) do their little secret handshake. As we walked away to go back to the subway station to go back to Shibuya station, Dan told us that when he went to ask for the bass picks, he told Hiromitsu that we were in love with him and wanted some picks. Apparently he started cracking up and gave Dan picks for us. (e-e) Oh, and as we were walking down the one street toward the subway station, we passed by a Taka no Yuri store (that would be the hair removal product that Gackt endorses in case you don’t know).

While waiting in the Shimokitazawa station for the train, we ran into Dan from ‘The Suicide Machines’. He was on his way back home because he had work in the morning. He asked us what way we were going. We were headed in the opposite direction of him, so he bid us farewell and goodnight. The train came and we went our separate ways.

Once in Shibuya, Dan took us to an internet café where he was going to set us up for the remainder of the night since we couldn’t all fit in his apartment. We got there and the guy at the front desk asked us for our ID.

Jess left her passport in the apartment in Osaka.

She said she dropped it. So we were trying to figure out what to do then. At that point I wanted to stay there. I was tired and cranky and I wanted to sleep. Dan said he’d set Shelby and I up here and Jess would come back with him to his apartment since they wouldn’t allow her in without an ID (they needed to confirm age). So, Shelby and I made our way back to our little (and I mean little) cubicle. We would have had to get two if Jess was going to be with us. I posted on here real quick… well not really. The keyboard was special to use and it took us 10 minutes to figure out how to type my name in since the underscore was not where it was supposed to be, though I managed to find it later.

I have come to the conclusion that the reason most Japanese bands put stuff in all caps like song titles is because they are typing it on a Japanese keyboard and if they don’t capitalize everything, random hiragana show up in the middle of a word.

Off to sleep I went and shortly after me, Shelby was asleep too. Five am, we woke up, left the café and headed into the streets of Shibuya to the train station so we could go back to Tokyo to meet with Jess in the JR station. On the way there, we stopped and took some pictures since it was only us and 5 other people on the streets… oh and the homeless people. We got back to Tokyo, found the Shinkansen line we needed and there was Jess just chillin’ on a bench by the train platform entrance.

Of course we ask each other how each others’ night was. It turned out that Jess did not go back to Dan’s but stayed on the streets of Tokyo and had the most fabulous adventure of her life. From her run-in with the Yakuza to Mr. Owai to the train station officer shooting the trash cans. It is not my story to tell, so you will have to read gackt_mervilles’s journal when she finally posts that up. It’s so freaking fantabulous that she couldn’t make this up. And to top it all off, as she finished her story of her night to Shelby and I, the train station officer came walking over to the trash cans that were in the middle of the waiting area we were in and made a little gun with his hands, aimed them at the trash cans and went, “Piu! Piu! Piu piu!” at each one and walked away. (O___O);; Shelby and I looked at the guy, looked at each other and then at Jess. “See!! I told you.”

Of course, we got on the train that stopped at every single stop from Tokyo to Osaka so our train ride back took four hours! By the time we got back to Shin Osaka, Jess’s bronchitis decided to start really showing itself. We made our way to the subway station and up to the 7-11. Back at the apartment, we were waiting for the elevator and I made the comment on how the last time I went to the bathroom was yesterday before we left.

I do not suggest trying this at home kids. I already would rather not use a public restroom if I don’t have to but I refuse to use a Japanese toilet. Call me a pussy, call me weird, call me irrational, I don’t care. It’s not going to happen and it didn’t. In fact, both Shelby and I went 26 hours without peeing. Is that a world record? I should check that out. Needless to say, we were fighting for the bathroom when we got into the apartment. Jess cheated in the train station. XÞ~

Shelby collapsed into a coma. I took a shower and got dressed and went to sleep; Jess was comatose too. Suddenly we would all wake up at the same time, have a conversation about nothing and go back to sleep. At some point, Shelby and I went to 7-11 because we were hungry and Jess wanted more orange juice. At that point we were awake…until we got back to the apartment. We ate and then fell comatose again. The original plan was to get up later that day, hang with Jane since that was the last time we were going to get to see her and do some other stuff. Jess wanted to go to Osaka Castle and actually go inside. Anyway, the next thing we realized was that it was 11:30 at night and Jane had called us 4 or 5 time that day but we were so asleep it wasn’t even funny. I think we talked to her and maybe watched some TV or something and eventually went back to sleep. Monday was a complete waste of a day, but we needed it. Especially Jess who was super sick that day. Oh well. It rejuvenated me for Tuesday because I could not be tired for Tuesday. That was the Angelo live.

~~ To be continued… ~~

Japan (May 12) ~ Entitled: Heaven & Hell exist in one building & Guy's Family @ Osaka MUSE

2007-05-24T04:42:06Z

I have no idea what time we woke up on Saturday. What I do remember is that Jane had stayed at our apartment Friday night since BIG CAT was closer to our place than hers and she was just going to come back Saturday so we could spend the day with her. Well, when Jane woke up that morning, something was wrong with her eyes or at least one of them because for some reason it kept…I don’t want to sound gross…but it kept mucousing on her eye. She did sleep with her contacts in but she said she usually does and they’ve never bothered her before. Granted she was getting over a cold but I think she just blamed it on D’espairsRay because I think she’s another one that gets sick whenever she sees them. D’Ray brings the plague. D= Anyways, she didn’t bring her glasses with her and didn’t want to put her contacts back in so she was pretty much blind for the remainder of the day. =( Poor Jane.

We made a brief stop at the 7-11 to grab some breakfast/lunch before heading off to Shinsaibashi…at least I think it was Shinsaibashi. I don’t think we went anywhere prior to that. At one point, we made a stop at a point alone our subway route and Jane asked where we were, not being sure if that was the stop or not since she couldn’t see well. So one of us read off the sign on the wall and Jane said to get off because it was our stop. Except when she got closer to the sign, she saw that it wasn’t our stop and was in fact the next one so as we jumped off the train, we had to immediately turn around and run back onto it. I’m sure everyone on that train was thinking, “Dumb foreigners…”

Shinsaibashi is magical! (*__________*) It’s where Osaka BIG CAT is located; actually it’s on one of the top floors of Big Step, which is a mall in the town. We walked around the neighborhood a bunch. Jane took us to the h.NAOTO store there. It’s a completely black building with a little name plate on the outside next to the door. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, you’d probably pass right by it. The steps leading up to the store looked like someone stood at the top of the stairs with white paint cans and just threw it down the staircase. It was neat looking. All of the employees were dressed in gothic/lolita/visualistic type garb. I do have to say, if I had to listen to the music in the store for more than an hour, I might have to punch myself in the face. I’ve no way to describe accurately. It consists of the vocalist repeating “h.NAOTO” over and over again at different intervals & at different voice pitches. At one point, the person just screams it really fast in a high and scratchy voice. My lord… I did end up buying a couple of things and yes they were overpriced. I bought a bracelet for like ￥2900 (that’s about $27) and a shoulder bag for about ￥8200 (that’s around $75 o.o). So I purchased my stuff and the shopping bag I got was awesome. It was a fabric tote bag with a giant ‘h.NAOTO’ logo on it. I liked the free shopping bag just as much as my $75 shoulder bag. =D

After that, Jane took Shelby to find a bank and Jess and I chilled out for a little while in Big Step. When Jane and Shelby got back, we went up to a music store where Jess and, I think; Shelby too raped the flyer case. They had a lot of older DVD’s but none of us bought anything form there. Then I think it was a ‘Black Peace Now’ store…? Or was it ‘Sex Pot Revenge’…? I think it was ‘Black Peace Now’. It was one of those name brand stores where everything is cool but overpriced and won’t fit you anyway.

Now here’s where I forget what came first. I think at this point it was about 2 o’clock or so and Jane was going to take Shelby to HOLIDAY Osaka since we couldn’t find it the previous night. (I think this is what came first because I remember having my h.NAOTO bag but not my CD’s. My CD’s should come later. Jess or Shelby, correct me on this if I am wrong about this course of events, but I’ll just go on as if this is all correct. (-_-);;;;;)

So, we hopped on the subway to Umeda. At this point my feet were killing me and Jess’s knees were giving her problems so we decided to rest on the ground (because there is nowhere to sit) on the side of this alleyway from a parking garage and just people watched as Shelby and Jane went off to HOLIDAY. Again, Jess and I got a lot of stares. We saw a lot of interesting people: really gorgeous salary men… really gorgeous men in general, a girl with legs smaller than Shelby’s arms (o.o) and some very interesting fashion. We were there for maybe half an hour… 40 minutes or so before Jane and Shelby came back. We then went back to Shinsaibashi because Jane needed to take us to one more store before going to the Guy’s Family live that night.

But Jane, for the life of her, couldn’t remember where it was located in the town. I think she messaged her friend to see if she remembered where it was. I think we sat outside of Big Step for half an hour, maybe, before a security guard told us we couldn’t sit on the ground so we went up into the mall again into one of the other little stores. I think it was the one that had nothing but those pink bears with the claws and blood all over it. What are those things called? I honestly can’t remember. (-_-);; Anyway, eventually we ended up at this little store called Pure Sound. Jane said that this store definatly sold Fool's Mate magazines because I was looking for the June issue with Angelo on the cover. Well, I didn’t find the June issue of Fool’s Mate, but…

O.M.G.! If you are one of those people who has a CD collection, a collection of the one band that just kicks you in the ass and eats your wallet for breakfast, that one band that for some reason you feel the insatiable need to own every single CD/DVD/VHS/cassette etc. and even some random odd and rare merchandise for, then THIS is the store for you. (O____O)

So we walked in and Jane points out the magazines on the shelf and I look but I didn’t see the June issue. But I notice that they have a lot of older DVD’s and CD’s on the shelves above the magazines. And as I am looking, I notice that this stuff is really old. Jane had said that this place also sold old tour merchandise and such for a multitude of bands. So I figure, I defiantly have the money right now, let’s see what Pierrot items they have. I look and look for the Pierrot section and I find it down on a lower shelf in a corner. I look at the selection they have and I don’t think my eyes have ever bugged out of my head that far before.

I just see armfuls of CD’s and DVD’s that I don’t have. So I dropped to the ground and start pulling CD’s out from the shelf, examining each one. “I don’t have this single, or this single, and this is a first press limited of this album, and this is fan club only and OMG!! D8 So I had this pile of Pierrot CD’s on the ground in front of me (I had to ask Shelby for a pen because I had to keep track of how much I was spending; I had so much in front of me) and I pull out from the depths of the shelf Pierrot’s PARADOX single. It was a mystery single that was only sold in 2001 at Tower Records in Shibuya and was limited to 10,000 copies (I have #02091). Then I looked at the price. (T-T)

Jess was standing next to me going through all of the D’espairsRay CD’s and she looks down at me with the most angsty look on her face as I look at her with this ‘Zomg-I-am-totally-going-to-pay-this-much-for-this-CD’ face. She says to me, “T-T This is MaVERiCK 1st press! It’s ￥4200! Ahhrgghh…!” I said to her, “Aaaahhhh… I am about to pay ￥18000 for this single! D8 That’s how bad I want this!” Just so you know ¥18000 is about $165. I totally paid $165 for one single, and it only had one song on it. (O.o) I have such a problem! (I found out later that the PARADOX single was never opened; it was still in the original sealed packaging, which is probably one of the reasons it cost so much. But I am now 4 singles and 1 omnibus away from having Pierrot’s entire CD discography. (^.^);; ) I looked through some tour merchandise for other bands and ended up walking away with a Gazette patch. I also quickly went through most of the cassette tapes they had looking for demo tapes. I didn’t see any though for Pierrot. But I don’t think I got through all of them. My first trip through the register (yes, I went through twice, but the second time wasn’t for me, I swear), I spent roughly about ¥50000. That’s like $450!

After that, I went back and looked through the PLC CD’s and stuff for RA. Since, I didn’t know what she had; I called her at, like, 2am to ask her what she had. So I bought her $50 in PLC CD’s. Now I think she’s only missing a single or two from their discography. Finally, I stopped and stood at the exit with Shelby. We were looking through the glass case display they had at the entrance. In there were all of Gazette’s first indies singles and some old Gazette merchandise. ::drool:: Then I point at the one shelf, “Hey,” I said to Shelby, “Look at all the La’Sadies stuff…” Shelby shoved me out of the way and stood there with her hands and face pressed on the glass. The case was so beautiful to look at. But not everything in the case was for sale and if it was, it was super expensive. Eventually we walked away from the shininess. ::pout:: When we regrouped outside, I pulled MaVERiCK 1st press out of my bag and gave it to Jess for a birthday present. It was really pricey for her so she had put it back on the shelf, saying she would come back & if it was there she’d buy it, if not, oh well. So I bought it for her and she loved all over me for a couple of blocks. (^^)

After we walked away from Pure Sound, happily angsty, we headed down to Osaka MUSE which was maybe half a mile…a mile from where we were at that point. So we walked down and found the place. We put our stuff in lockers and sat in line. We weren’t waiting for all that long, maybe 30 minutes for them to call our numbers. We had B-100-and-something. But we got up to about 4th row or so. By the end of the concert we were 3rd. I wish I had bought something now, but I didn’t. =\ So we just stood around as the roadies set up the stage. And then it started.

Guy’s Family: Oneman Live Tour ｢ハイピースジャッカー｣ May 12th -sat- Osaka MUSE

It was cute! They came out on stage. Of course their eyes drifted toward us since A) we are the only Caucasians in the venue and B) we are the tallest people in the venue. Reo’s (G) eyes lit up. Actually I think they all seemed surprised, but we were pretty much in front of Reo the whole time (that would be the right side of the stage) so I saw him the best. So they gathered in the center of the stage in front of the vocalist’s (Kight) little platform. There were glasses of ‘wine’ sitting there and they all took a glass and did this little toast, took a sip and then jumped into the show.

I unfortunately am not familiar with all of their music; in fact I only knew one song: ‘No No Spare Key’. If you are interested in seeing the PV for it, here: No No Spare Key PV. This all was a new experience for me and the rest of us, though we caught onto the para-para and furi-furi pretty quickly. There was this one song where the entire crowd would do this jump/shuffle to the right and then do the same thing moving to the left and then repeat. The whole crowd somehow remained in relatively the same position in the crowd but still moved from left to right with the crowd. It was too much fun! There is no way we’d succeed with that in the States.

Jess warned us about this from the D’espairsRay show but there’s nothing like experiencing it for your self. You know how there are some songs where the front row throws themselves over the bar in the front? Good stuff! There was plenty of that. But the people behind the first two rows obviously don’t have a bar so instead they throw themselves into the rows in front of them. (o.o) All of a sudden I had 3 or 4 girls slam into my back. I totally wasn’t expecting it. The only thing you can do is throw yourself into the person in front of you so the impact from behind isn’t as much. I clocked some girl in the top of the head with my eyebrow (yes my eyebrow was able to make contact with the top of her head) so I put my arm up to protect my face and then hit another girl with my elbow. Oops…my bad. (^^);; But as everyone threw themselves on the person in front of them, they all immediately backed off so everyone stood up and braced themselves for the next impact and then backed off again. It was amazing. At one point during the encore, GF played the really heavy song that they played earlier in the show and at one point when I was thrown forward, someone behind me had a spiked wallet or a spiked belt or something with the spike on it because it stabbed me in the back on the leg and it hurt badly. It took a day or so for the bruise to show up, but it was very big and very purple… and it hurt like a mof. >\

During one song, Kight came out with a bouquet of flowers (it might have been the first encore song) and was throwing them out into the audience while he sang. The first flower he threw toward us. Jess got it, but the flower head fell off. They also threw balls into the audience with numbers on them. They might have been signed too; I’m not sure about that. But they were selling “BINGO” cards before the show and if you got bingo, you got a special prize, I guess. At one point, Reo threw a pick into the audience at me, except he failed and it fell too short so the girls in front of me got it instead.

Oh, and there were crowd surfers (well…crowd rollers) through I think Shelby and Jane were, like, “Nah-ah” and didn’t let them roll over them. Soooooo, some people ended up on the floor. >D

After the show, we went and got our drinks and then went outside to wait for them the leave the venue. We were probably outside waiting for a good hour or so…or at least that’s what it felt like. So the van pulls up and all of a sudden girls come rushing out of nowhere to stand and wait for the band. So we watch them pack the van to max capacity. Seriously, nothing else was fitting in that van except for the band. Finally the band comes out and we all rush over to greet them. We kind of stayed in the back (it’s not like they wouldn’t be able to see us) and the other girls went up to them and got their autographs and thanked them and stuff. So they got in the van and we went over to the other side of the street so they’d see us from the side window and we waved at them. I think we were joined by some of the other girls too. The window opened. I think it was Reo…maybe Kazutake (B)? Whoever it was, Kight was sitting in the middle. He leaned forward to look out and then leaned back and then leaned forward again really quickly and started waving frantically. It was cute.

So after all of that, Jane took us back to the subway and we went back to the apartment. After a quick stop at 7-11 and a shower, we all zonked out. We needed sleep because the next day, we had to go up to Tokyo and we needed to be up early to catch the train.

P.S.: I totally forgot some things that happened on the first day that were funny enough to be worth mentioning. When we took the train from Kansai Airport to Tennoji Station, we had to go up a floor or two to get to the surface streets to catch a cab. We took the elevator because of our luggage and when we got in, this husband and wife (I guess) got in with us. It was kind of a tight fit from the suitcases and the gentleman didn’t get in all the way so when the elevator doors closed, his butt got in the way and they closed on it. What made it funny was that he made an amazing face of surprise and cried out, “Oh No! D8” His wife laughed at him and eventually he chuckled a bit while we tried to stifle our giggles.

Also, well this is one of those ‘you had to be there’ kind of things, but that night when Shelby went to 7-11, she got what she thought was a bottle of green tea. She said she got it because the bottle was pretty. (._.) She started to drink it deciding that it tasted really funny and smelled funny too. So she asked me to smell it and I did. (x-x) It smelled gross. Jess said it smelled like sesame seeds to her. But Shelby was really thirsty so she tried it again. It didn’t taste any better. So the moral of that story is, “Don’t buy anything just because the packaging is pretty.” (¬.¬)

~~ To be continued… ~~

Japan (May 11) ~ Entitled: Adventures in Osaka & Tama-chan was cute~!

2007-05-21T05:17:35Z

The first half of the first day was spent just getting our bearings. I think I woke up at 6 o’clock in the morning and watched some TV while everyone else woke up. Most of the channels had news on. The top story of that morning was one of the girls from Morning Musume, or Mini Moni more specifically, was getting married. It was on every channel. Oh and randomly, Hitsugi from Nightmare was on one of the variety shows for a couple of minutes. =D His make-up wasn’t done as per usual but he still had his big contacts in. I love his contacts.

After we were all dressed and such we went for a walk around the neighborhood we were in. We first went to the 7-11 for some brunch (7-11 is going to be all over these posts). I got a sandwich and some milk tea. The sandwiches win hard core. The lettuce was super fresh and they cut the crust off of the bread. Crustless bread ftw! We walked down to a nearby park and ate lunch there. After lunch, we walked around the park and then headed up to the main highway to go to the Lawsons that was around the corner because you can buy concert tickets there. That night was the D’espairsRay concert at Osaka BIG CAT and Jane’s friend wasn’t able to get us tickets. So Shelby & I were going to try and get some that morning. No success though. Lawsons wasn’t able to get them. (T-T) I think after that we decided to do a little site seeing before attacking the subway stations because we were supposed to meet Jane later that afternoon.

So we walked up to the park with Osaka Castle. It was a pretty castle, or at least of what we could see of it. We just walked around it and were going to save actually going in to the castle for Monday when we had nothing to do. On our way around the castle, this group of high school girls came walking past us. Of course they were enthralled with Jess’ height. As they walked past us, they started talking to themselves about Jess. Jess turned around to see one or two of them turned and looking at her. So she waved at them and then they got all giddy. It was the highlight of the afternoon.

So after walking around for about an hour, we go back to the subway station to figure out where we have to go and how to get tickets. The station right by our hotel was the Tanimachi Yon-chome station …it was where the dark green and purple lines crossed. First we stared at the ticket machines like o.O dur…I don’t know…then we started at the subway map to figure out where we needed to go. We had to get on the light green line and we decided that instead of trying to switch trains on the first day, let’s just walk down to the next station and get on the light green line there, which would have been fine, if it wasn’t for the fact that we walked in the wrong direction first. (-_-) We ended up at the wrong station so we turned around and walked all the way back and then kept going to get to the correct station.

On the way up and down that main highway, Jess and Shelby were getting the best looks from people. I lagged behind them just for the shear amusement of it all. There were plenty of guys checking Shelby out, and not even trying to be stealth about it and a lot of people giving Jess dirty/inquisitive/curious looks. So we found the station we were looking for and then attempted to figure out the ticket machines. We got the tickets and found the right train to take us to Kyobashi. We got there and went up to sit and wait for Jane to call us. We had to walk down the street to get to the really big Kyobashi station where we were to meet up with Jane. So we walked down the street and around this little neighborhood before we found it. We got inside and saw where we had to meet her.

But we had some time to kill so we stopped and just leaned on this pillar. Then all of a sudden the two most gorgeous men we had ever seen came out of nowhere and were about to walk by us. Jess was the first to see them. She proceeded to grab Shelby’s hand and squeezed it really hard. She let out a yell therefore causing the two men to look at Shelby, like, “Wtf is wrong with her?” So they continued on their way and we could only gawk at them. I had to agree with Jess when she stated at the time, “If they are not in a band, somebody punch me.” They had that look about them. They screamed ‘Rock Star’. So we stood there for a good minute contemplating ‘Should we follow them? Should we follow them? Fuck that was gorgeous! Should we follow them? Let’s follow them!’ So we went off in their direction but they were already out of site.

Well the path we were going down went right by a mall and there was a large window that said “Shinseido”. So we all had the same idea, “We lost the pretty guys. Oh well. Music Store!!” X) We went in and Jess found an Ellegarden DVD that had clips from the Japan Nite US Tour. We both picked that up. I also bought Kagrra,’s newest album since I didn’t have it. Shelby and Jess both found other shinnies too.

Anyway, it was time to go meet with Jane. Jane and Jess were going to the D’espairsRay show and Shelby and I were going to go and find HOLIDAY Osaka because there was one thing Shelby wanted to do while over there and that was to see the Dir en Grey costume exhibit at HOLIDAY. We met up with Jane and she tried to give us directions to HOLIDAY. So her and Jess went one way and Shelby and I went the other.

Unfortunately Jane’s directions weren’t the best so we got lost in Umeda, which is where HOLIDAY Osaka is. We were told when we came out of the Umeda station, go out exit two and take the center road and the venue will be down there. If you get lost, ask at the Lawsons, they’ll know where it is.

. . .

So we came out of the station and I looked at the map. It said Exit Two was up, around the corner and then down. So we walked through the mall connected to the station and found what looked like it should be exit 2. There was a moving walkway and Shelby said she remembered Jane saying something about it. So we went up the walk way and came to the end. Jane said we would see Hep Five and Hep Navio and that there would be a right road, a left road and a center road and to take the center one. So we did and when we got to the end of it we turned around and walked back. So we decided to try the other road to the left and when we reached the end of that road we turned around and went back. Back down into the station we went to try again. We went back to where we started from and Shelby sat by this one wall while I went back to look at the map I was looking at earlier.

I found the map, looked at it and then went back to Shelby. “Shelby, Exit Two is,” points down the hallway next to where she plopped on the ground, “right there.” ::Shelby flail::

So we went out exit 2 and took the most center road and when it took us nowhere, Shelby called Jane and told her we were lost. Jane gave us more detailed directions so we went back to the original exit we went out of and took the little alley that went between Hep Five and Hep Navio. Neither of us knew that it was there; the buildings looked connected.

We stopped at the Subway for some dinner. We each got a “Chiikan Shiizaa Rappu” and then saw a handful of people that were on our flight coming over including the really big guy that was totally, like, 6’9”. (o.o) Down the alley, Jane said there was a 7-11 and sure enough there was. But from there we had no idea where to go. We walked down this one street and when we saw nothing, we turned around and went back to the 7-11 to ask for directions. Eventually, I asked the girl there where HOLIDAY Osaka was and she was like, “Hotel?” “No, live house.” She ended up asking her co-worker who spoke some English. Yay! He grabbed a map of the area and took us outside. So he stared at the map, then looked down either street, and looked at the map again. Then he turned the map right-side-up. (¬.¬) He looked down the streets. Shelby tried helping him, telling him where we came from and where we should be going. The guy didn’t know. He apologized and we said it was fine and we left.

So across the street we went. Now earlier when we walked by this spot, there were a couple of guys (who Shelby thought were in dresses but turned out to be aprons) who were handing out fliers and they ignored Shelby. Well, we decided to walk down this one little alley by them to see what was down there. As we were walking that way, one of the guys walks over to me and hands me a flier. To be polite, I took it just as I did with most of the fliers that people kept trying to hand throughout the week. Well, as I took it, the guy starts talking to me about the stuff listed on the flier. Apparently it was for an American-style restaurant. Shelby was on a mission and seemed a bit peeved when I slowed down to let the guy talk to me about this flyer. Of course I didn’t know what he was saying until he asked me if I spoke English. “Yes!” He seemed really happy and eager to try out his English skills on us. So we stopped and started talking to him. He asked us where we were from & I said “America.” His facial expressions were so frigging cute! (*-*) Then asked were in America and I said New Jersey and Virginia, well I tried to Japanify it, so it came out, “Nyuu Jaajii & Bajiinya.” He understood. He asked us why we were here in Japan, though when he said it; it came out more like, “Hawaii Japan.” Shelby and I were confused at first. Shelby was like, “Huh? Japanese in Hawaii? O.o?” I finally got it and told him for lives and for a friend. Then he asked how old we were and I told him, “::points to self:: Ni-ju-roku sai. ::points to Shelby:: Ni-ju sai.” Again he gave us his big eyes of surprise and points at me. “26? No. You’re 22.” ...you flatter me.

Eventually, Shelby suggests asking him about where HOLIDAY Osaka is. So we ask. “Horidei? … Horidei…horidei…This isn’t the weekend. Horidei…horidei… Hoteru?” (-_-) “No, Raibu Hausu.” He then asked his friend and his friend didn’t know. I think he then tried asking if we asked at the 7-11 as he crosses his arms in front of him. So Shelby and I felt the need to do the same saying, “No. No 7-11.” So, then we ask if he knew where the Lawsons was since Jane said that they should know where it is. That he did know. So he directed us down one of the streets we had gone down and said the Lawsons was down there on the right.

But before we left to trek back down the street, we asked to get a picture with him and he seemed really gitty about having his picture with us and I asked him his name and he said it was Tama-chan and then showed us his name badge. He asked ours and I told him Rebecca. He repeated it and after my confirming he said it correctly, he then asked Shelby’s. She said it and he tried repeating it. “Shomi?” “No, Shelby.” “Shee bii… Sheeru bii… Sherubii…” Yeah, close enough.”

So we left and walked down the street passing a porn store, The Kinki Hotel & one… two…three Lawsons. We asked at #2 and they had no idea and I don’t think they even heard of the place. (-_-);; We kept walking down until we reached another subway station and a main highway crossing. We still hadn’t seen the HOLIDAY venue. So we turned around and walked back: tired, discouraged, and a bit peeved. As we’re walking back, all of a sudden Shelby perks up out of nowhere, points across the street and proceeds to yell, “ESP!”

Across the street was a sign by a building that had the ESP logo on it. So we go across to see what it’s all about and it seems to be an ESP guitar school; Shelby thinks where they teach you how to make guitars? The people inside at the front desk must have thought we were nuts; these two white girls dancing around outside the building, one of them taking pictures of the sign.

After that, we gave up and went back to the station where we were supposed to meet up with Jess and Jane after their show except we were about an hour and a half early. After a while, we decided to plop on the ground in the subway station because we were tired. People didn’t like that very much. We got some pretty dirty looks from people walking by. Well, there is NOWHERE to sit in Osaka. After about 20 minutes of that, we decided to brave it alone and find our way back to the apartment.

The way back was an adventure too. We found that the Kyobashi subway station in totally connected to the Kyobashi JR station and the exit number for the Yon-chome stop by our hotel and that the subway system isn’t all that intimidating. We got back to the apartment and Jane called to see where we were. About half an hour later, Jess and Jane show up and we all tell our stories and get ready for bed and pass out. It was a very long first day.

~~ To be continued... ~~

Japan (May 9-10) ~ Entitled: 11 1/2 hrs to Japan & a toilet with a sink

2007-05-20T07:33:49Z

First I would like to say that my scanner does not work so I have no pictures to show…and I also don’t have them developed cause I don't have a digital camera either. So please forgive the posts of endless text.

Omg, Japan.

My entire trip started out with not sleeping for 24 hours prior to getting on the plane to San Francisco so on the 5 hour flight there, I was in a very deep coma. Shelby apparently poked and then shook me to get me to wake up to see if I wanted anything to eat or drink. I wasn’t having any of that. So 5 hours seemed like 1 and before I knew it, we were landing.

In San Fran., I exchanged some of my money and then we kept ourselves occupied in the terminal. By occupied, I mean I sat back as Shelby and Jess went off and stalked these two really good looking guys in the terminal. They kept trying to snap ninja-like pictures of the guys, but I think they didn’t do too good. ^^;

San Francisco to Osaka, Japan is 11 ½ hours. O.o Unfortunately we didn’t get to sit next to each other. I was, like, 3 rows back from Jess and on the left side on the window. The lady next to me was sweet, but she kind of smelled funny and had hairy legs. (¬.¬) I only slept for maybe an hour the whole time. The rest of the time I was watching the movies or the map. The map was cool! It showed our exact position and our speed and altitude and I was easily amused. The movies were pretty good but I must have seen the ending to “Letters from Iwojima” 4 times! That movie was so frigging long. So all of the other movies would end and then there was nothing else on except that and everything had to wait for ‘Iwojima’ to end before everything started over again. XP They also kept feeding us. There had to have been 5 meals served on the flight.

So we landed at Kansai International sometime in the afternoon on Thursday (That would be about 2 or 3 am back home). Shelby and I just kind of followed along as Jess found the money exchange so we could convert the rest of our money, where to get the JR passes and where to enter the train station at. Actually, we just followed Jess around for the first day and a half. (Sorry Jess. ^^;) Got on the train and got off at Tennoji Station. While we could have taken the subway, we found that out later, the hotel suggested to take a cab. So we stood on the street while figuring out how to catch one. There was one parked and I made Jess go and see if it could take us to the hotel. The guy said to try the other side of the street cause we had to go the opposite way of where he was pointed. So we crossed. If we didn’t look lost then I don’t know what lost looks like. (o.o) Eventually we figured out where the front of the line was for the cabs. Again, I made Jess talk. The cab driver had to strap the trunk lid down to keep Jess & Shelby’s suitcases in the trunk and mine ended up in the front seat. Cabs in Japan totally have doilies all over the vehicle. So Jess hands him the paper with the address on it and points. So he looks at the paper and looks over the map and then asks if we have an address. Jess points at it… again. So he calls someone to get directions and we are on our way.

We get to the hotel or apartment actually, and check in. Luckily the head guy spoke English even though he said he didn’t. We had to pay an extra fee because the reservation was for 2 people and we had three. It wasn’t a lot. He handed Shelby her towel set and yukata (we totally got yukata) and we went up to our room, number 402. It looked like it was a ryokan at one point in time but was converted to a “western style” apartment. We had a kitchen with a refrigerator and a microwave, TV and closets all over the place. The one thing I asked for when looking for a hotel was a western style bathroom and this place said that it had one. What it meant was that there was a western style toilet. The bathroom consisted of 3 rooms. The main room where you would actually wash yourself although the drain had been sealed off and I don’t think the faucet in there worked, but we didn’t try it. The room to the left was the toilet room and ahead was the actual “bath”room with the sink. Shelby was the first one to use the toilet and when she walked in, her first response was, “Hey guys… The why does the toilet have a sink on it?” There was totally a sink on the back of the toilet. After a while, it dawned on us that it’s more sanitary to wash your hands in the toilet sink since you have to grab the handle to open the door to go to the other sink. But it was still odd.

Since there were only two beds in the room, we pushed them together for a giant bed and Shelby slept in the center on the crack. X) Luckily she brought her own pillow and blanket because there were only two pillows and we all kind of hogged the blankets at one point or another. We had a balcony too, but there wasn’t much of a view. It faced the other apartment buildings behind ours. Jess' & my yukata and towels were on the beds when we came in. We were going to get a picture of us in our yukata, but that failed and we never did. =( There were also slippers waiting at the doorway into the apartment. Except my feet were never going to fit into them (I have big feet) and besides I did bring my own slippers to walk around in.

After unpacking some stuff I sat on the bed, laid down and passed out again. Jess & Shelby wanted to go down and explore outside so they left me comatose on the bed. Apparently I was snoring so to get back at me, Jess took a picture of me being comatose with my yukata on my lap. They found the 7-11 which we lived out of for the rest of the trip, dubbed this cute guy that worked there the “Sandwich Guy” and they also found park and took pictures of the vending machines and stuff. Meanwhile, since they had woken me up right before they left, I got up and watched some TV. We only got, like, 10 channels & two of them were in English; The Discovery Channel and CNN, though The Discovery Channel was subtitled in Japanese. =)

Not long after they got back, we called people took some more pictures and passed out.

~~ To be continued... ~~

private__enemy @ 2007-05-13T23:57:00

2007-05-13T15:05:44Z

So, Shelby and I are stuck in Shibuya(That`s in ToKYO) Don`t mind the random caps. We ARE stuck in an Internet Cafe because we went to a live up here (The Cherry Coke$ and others) and missed the last train back to Osaka. 　ANyways... this cafe has a Japanese keyboard and it`s special to use. ＾－＾　Random letter combinations get turned into Hiragana. Anywho... I`ve much to tell we I get back. Tata for now!

PS- Sorry Marcie for not calling you the night before I left. I had alot to do. m（＿＿）ｍ

Ok... time to sleep!!!

private__enemy @ 2007-04-22T13:37:00

2007-04-22T17:42:49Z

O.O

It's official. I am going to see Angelo in Nagoya on May 15.

...

I'm going to see Kirito.

...

I am so happy I'm crying. (T-T)