Pretty sure I saw one of Hideko’s future husbands in Oosu the other day.

The one that was so sweet.

Although we haven’t quite gotten to days two and three of Tokyo, I thought it would be best to update about the live while it’s still fresh in our minds.

Honestly, I’m disgustingly horrible at live reports, so this won’t be much of one.

So, today (well, August 15th), Kat and I headed to HOLIDAY NAGOYA to see Beauty and Beast vol. 6 which was a twoman with Lycaon and Juliette, but also featuring MEZE and my favourite band, R指定.

MEZE was first, and their set was super short. They only played three songs. I had seen them a few weeks ago, and they’re okay. Their costumes are interesting to look at.

Next up, as anticipated, was R指定. Naturally, I was extremely excited because it’s R指定 and I love them. And I adore Mamo, who, might I add, is AWESOME. My adoration of him tripled after seeing them live; hard to believe, I know. Although my attention was focused mostly on Mamo throughout their set, the rest of the boys were great as well. Kaede and Nanahoshi sang along to everything, which was super cute. Ultra Z looks like a huggable teddy bear, and Hirotaka just seems so happy beating away on his drums. I really like their newest look… I wasn’t so sure after seeing photos on the OHP, but with the toned down makeup fit for a live, they looked really great.

I can’t remember all the songs they did, but I know they for sure played 「メンタル≠ヘルプ」 (Mental≠Help) which was just recently released. They also did 「盲目少女」 (Moumoku Shoujo). I was so excited to see them, and they didn’t disappoint. Mamo’s really great live too.At the end, I bought a photoset and a mirror. As expected, I chose the photoset where Mamo looked best, haha.

After R指定, Juliette was up! I have to admit that I’ve never really paid them much attention, but they were so much fun! I haven’t seen Ukiru in Juliette before, only in Teddy, but he’s just so energetic and … well, fun. For lack of a better word. Their music isn’t exactly my style, but I had such a good time watching them that I’d definitely go again.

Last but not least was Lycaon; the other band I went there to see. I was also super excited about them because I really like Rito, as he used to be Ichigo in Jaguar… and god knows how many times we saw them live. They were also completely awesome live. It also helped that the majority of the girls there were there to see them, so everyone really put their all into it.

Now, because it was Lycaon and Juliette’s twoman, both bands wore yukatas. They also had special cheki with the yukata wearing.

Yuuki from Lycaon was really cute, because he had his hair piled on his head. The other members referred to it as an ‘odango’ (dumpling). They also said he looked like a ghost, because his yukata was all white. He said that he was a bit embarrassed to be at the live like that. Rito looked… well, pretty. He’s a strange one because he’s not girly at all, and despite his girly yukata (which was purple with flowers), he’s still really masculine in some way. I don’t know how to explain it. Satoshi’s hair was weird, but his yukata looked nice; maybe his hair was too poofy in the back? Or something? Mio had black makeup in a line across his eyes, which he said was combat-like. The other members ended up agreeing that he looked like a post office box (you know, the mail drops). His makeup was also described as Marilyn Manson, and “american” at one point. Last but not least was Eve, who looked totally adorable. He had on a pearl (fake) necklace with his black and pink yukata.

After Lycaon’s set was done, the shacho came out and got Juliette back on stage. They did a bit of talking, and Lycaon joined them. It’s Oban and summer, so he also brought out a watermelon for them to do the whole blindfold, spin around, and try to smash it thing. After some intense rock, paper, sciossors, Rito was first up to try to hit it.

It took forever to blindfold him, partially because of his hair, and after twenty spins, they put a metal rod in his hands and set him loose! At one point, they had him completely turned around and coming back to hit Mio… but luckily, they didn’t go through with it, and he managed to smack the watermelon on his first try. Satoshi came second in rock, paper, scissors, but they decided that it was more fair for a member of Juliette to have a turn. They were going to do another round of rock, paper, scissors to decide, but all the girls started screaming for Masaumi, so the shacho went with that.

Poor Masaumi. Before he put the blindfold on, he had to move his glasses and set them on the top of his head. They blindfolded him, then for some reason the shacho handed him the metal rod they were using the smash the watermelon. Then, he told him to let go of the rod, and he did, sending it crashing down to the ground. Why? I am not sure. He apparently got a lot more dizzy than Rito, and was stumbling a bit. He first headed towards the drum set, but after many screams of ‘MIGI’ he avoided them. Then he was heading for Rito’s guitar… and had totally passed the watermelon. After much direction, he reached an approrpiate watermelon hitting location… and missed. Twice. And hurt his hand. Luckily, the third time was the charm.

When they took the blindfold off, and when he went to put his sunglasses back on, he realized they were stuck in his hair, which probably wasn’t even that funny, but he had both the shacho and Yumeru trying to pry them from his head.

After the whole watermelon thing was done, both bands stayed on stage for a song, which went on forever and was really fun, because everyone was jumping around, into each other, head banging and so on and so forth. Shouya was jumping into the audience, and Mio was spitting his water all over everyone. Kat and I got pretty wet thanks to him. It was delightful.

At the very end it was finally time to celebrate Ukiru’s birthday!! They brought out a cake, decorated with a few candles for him. As the shacho tried to light it, Yumeru totally blew out all the candles with his fan (by accident), causing the shacho to have to start again. We all sang happy birthday to Ukiru and he blew out his candles… shortly after, he also got the cake in his face. He was a great sport about it though, and they wouldn’t let him hold the mic until he was properly cleaned up. The poor boy couldn’t open his eyes for a while, due to all the icing though.

For the finale, each member said a few words of thanks and was asked (by the shacho) how the live was. Then we all joined hands, and jumped. Like you do.

So all in all, the live was really fun. The bands were great, and I was SO happy to FINALLY see R指定 (read: Mamo) live. I also never realized how much I liked Lycaon until tonight. I mean, I’ve been a fan since they started especially because of Rito, but after tonight I like them so much more.

One other random note, is the girl who had the bucket. Wtf.
She just brought a bucket to the live. They didn’t do anything with it.
It was just a bucket. Sitting on the floor.
At one point it was on her head, but not for the actual concert. e_e

We still don’t know the story behind the bucket, and it was a bit weird.

I didn’t write about this yet, and it’s about time.

On Thursday, my friend who lives in Osaka came to Nagoya because one of her favourite bands, DI3SIRAE, was playing at HOLIDAY NAGOYA. She stayed here for the night, and we went together to the live. I always like going to lives, but I don’t really like going alone, so it was great to have someone to go with!

There were a bunch of bands… some that stood out in good ways, and some that stood out in… not so good ways. A couple other girls from Osaka came for DI3SIRAE and it ended up being four of us at the front for half of their set, and another girl joined for the second half. Naturally, I was completely nervous being in the very front but it ended up being a lot of fun and I really enjoyed DI3SIRAE.

Afterwards, we waited around outside a bit to see if we could catch the singer, L. Ended up talking to him (well, my friend did… I was too nervous so I only said like two things, haha). I should also mention that the drummer, Loui, is completely adorable. No seriously. I got a photoset of the band, and a cheki of Loui. My friend wanted to get a cheki of L, and on her first try didn’t. She got Loui, so I said I’d pay her for that one if she wanted to try again. Unfortunately, she didn’t get L the second time either, so I felt bad. :/

I wanted to get Hideko a photoset of EAT YOU ALIVE beacuse she likes Ryohei, but when I went to buy it, the stuff was gone. We ended up seeing him afterwards outside, and my friend told him that we wanted to get a photoset, but the stuff was packed up. So, he went back into the livehouse and brought out three sets for me to choose from. He was super sweet and ended up speaking to us in English, which is amazing. His English is so freaking good, without any hint of a Japanese accent. I asked him if he’d mind signing the photo for her (I explained it was for a friend) and he did, no problem. So nice!

It was still pretty early, and so nice out, so we ended up heading to Oasis 21 for some Baskin Robbins. Omg, it had been so long since I had ice cream, so it was delicious. I’m like a kid though, the flavours I got were Poppin’ Shower and Cream Soda, haha. We also saw a disgusting amount of cockroaches.

ONE OF THEM FLEW.
IT WAS THE SIZE OF MY HEAD.

Okay maybe it wasn’t quite that big, but omg it was so gross. IT FLEW.
Then we called it a day, and ended up just hanging out, talking a bit and sleeping.

It was fun. And I really like going to lives, even if I don’t really listen to the music as much as I used to. I’m hoping that the more lives I go to, the more I get back into it.

The next one is August 15th… providing I can decide which band to reserve with. R指定 or Lycaon?

So, my lovely braintwin was visiting this past week.

You know how they say bad things come in threes, well, we definitely got our fill of that.

I’m too tired to make any sort of long drawn out entry about everything, but she started off sick (jetlagged) for our trip to Ise. Despite being sick, she was a trooper and really stuck out the trip, which aside from her feeling like poo for the latter portion, was a lot of fun.

We went with three of my adult lady students, who are just so awesome. They took us to the Ise shrine, and I got yelled at for taking a photo. I must have made the god there mad. I asked Toshi if I could, and she said it was fine. Two seconds later, the guard is yelling at me. “NO PHOTO”. Ah well, maybe that ticked them off and explains what happened for the rest of the week.

The day after Ise was Kyoto, where we went and got all Maiko’ed out (as in, dressed up as apprentice Geisha). We went with my friend Eri and her sister Miho, who are both just so sweet. So that was really fun, and the photo shook was pretty awesome. I’ll upload some photos into the photo galleries here on the site later.  We went to the Kiyomizudera, Kinakakuji and the Bamboo Tunnel — all great places to visit in Kyoto. Again, photos will come later.

We made a brief interlude back in Nagoya, after Kyoto while we were waiting for the nightbus to Tokyo. We got offered apples in a plastic bag by some completely random guy. It felt like Snow White.

Really though, who goes around offering random strangers outside of a station apples from a plastic bag? O_O

Long story short for Tokyo — I got extremely sick. As in, hallucinating and throwing up for a few days sick. It was weird because I knew what I was saying and thinking wasn’t making sense, but I couldn’t make it stop. I guess I told everyone there was pain in my stomach that was like iPhones, and they were flipping (or turning, or something). Kim, being as sweet as he can be, was so awesome. And braintwin played nurse to me. T_T I felt so bad putting everyone out like that, and I really wish I didn’t get so sick. We were supposed to take the bus back to Nagoya, but ended up taking the Shinkansen, with Kim in tow.

We did end up catching a live (and omg SIN from ViViD is hot in real life), and bought a couple things for S-T, so that’s a bonus. I’m really glad that we got to see lynch. too. They are always good live; never disappoint. アンド (AND) was surprisingly good live as well, very… JOKEResque. If I had to compare, that is. That’s the easiest way to describe them. It felt really good to go to a live, so I’m looking forward to checking out a few more.

Anyways, back in Nagoya we realized that braintwin had lost her glasses. T_T Kim went back to Tokyo to see if they were at his place, but no dice. Turns out, we lost them on the bus. We did get them back, so that’s all good. We spent yesterday wandering around Oosu for a bit, but I was just so easily exhausted because I hadn’t eaten any solid food except a piece of toast for like, three days.

So, overall it was really nice to get a chance to hang out! I just feel awful that I ruined it all by getting so sick. I mean it’s not like I intentionally wanted to (who would want that), but yeah. At least we got to see some of the sights, go to a live, and hang out and talk.

I feel like there are more things to say, but I’m done for now. As they come back to me, I shall update.

Jaguar’s one day revival is about a week before barby’s, and Yuzuki Yuusuke’s band will be playing.

Aww.

Seriously, it’s like a complete flood of memories to think about all these revivals. All we need is for the Ruephy Alive boys, and Ichigo Rock boys to do one.

I could see it happening wtih Ruephy Alive, but I don’t think Ichigo Rock ended overly well.

Hinata wrote that he’s been friends with the barby member’s long since before the band was formed, which made me ‘aww’ a little bit. It’s amazing how much you miss people you didn’t even really know. But all the memories I have connected with them were just so great, that it’s hard not to get all sentimental again.

I still have the pick Akira gave me. And Kei’s drumstick which I caught at their oneman.

It’s hard to believe they broke up three years ago. But I’m really glad they have the chance to do the revival. Hinata (I’m not calling him Shimon… I’m just not) said that the reason for the name change was because they’re playing barby songs and non-barby songs. For barby songs, they’ll be playing FUNNY RED HORROR, Murder Show and 青春DAYS.

I really hope they use their old introduction.

Is it sad that I made Kyle help me find it, and downloaded it… and now have it on my iPod and know most of the lyrics to it? Yes. Yes it is.

I also love the word, 「懐かしい」. For some reason, I feel like it embodies the emotion better than any English words do.

❝ ① Visual Band Baton — 2009 ❞

o1. If you were stranded on a deserted island, which member of a band would you like to have with you?
There are three band members that I can’t choose between, but it would probably be wisest to take the one who used to be a boy scout. It helps that he’s also strong (and stronger than he realizes).

o2. If you had the chance to see a band live that you don’t even know or one you hated, which one would you pick?
One that I didn’t know. There’s a possibility that they could be good, but if I hate a band, I have absolutely no interest in seeing them, so it would be a waste.

o3. Would you ever buy a CD used just to complete your collection? (this includes off of auction sites as well)
Probably not. Not because it’s used, but because any of the ones I can’t get are probably going for quite a lot of money, and I’m just not interested in spending that kind of money on a song or two.

o4. If you were filming a movie, similar to a movie you really like, who would cast as the main role(s)? —state the movie and characters.

o5. As your dying wish, you can only choose to see ONE band live. Which band would you choose?
バービー

o6. Are there any bands you ever didn’t like, but somehow found yourself liking them? If so, please state.
I don’t think so. It takes a lot for me to dislike a band though — I mean, actually dislike. I might say I don’t like a band, but I think I generally use that interchangeably with ‘I’m not interested in them’ which isn’t really the same.

o7. Although Visual Kei stand for Visual Style, do you ever like or judge bands solely on their looks? Be honest!
Of couse, I think it’s hard not to. The visuals are (in general) the first thing that you see, and it’s hard not to base your opinion on it. That said, I wouldn’t turn down a band just because I didn’t find their visuals appealing.

o8. If you could start up your own visual band, what position would you take and who else from the visual scene would you include in your band? They can be from any band, active or disbanded. You choose! The number of members and positions, it’s all up to you. And give yourself a band name too if you want.
I would not want to actually be in the band… I’d rather do like, hair and makeup, or costumes or something like that. The members, I can’t really decide one, so here are members that I would be happy with:
Vocals – Hinata (Shimon, or whatever he wants to call himself), Mamo, Kaito, Sai (but as Miyamichi)
Guitar – Akira, Rito, Kaede, Sae
Bass – Hijiri, Yuuri, Rai, Yamaji
Drums – Reiya, Sora, Ri

o9. Alright now, which band is your guilty-pleasure? One you fear people would question you for liking?
I don’t have one

o1o. Aren’t you tired of all these bands suddenly disbanding? Which band has been the biggest disappointment to you?
Ehh, I’m not really tired of it because I think that for a lot of them, it’s a natural progress. Sometimes, it’s time to give up one dream for another and it’s frustrating to read comments about how a fan is ZOMGSOANGRY or HATES a member or band for wanting to do something new. It’s mostly disappointing when you have no reasoning behind it. Even if it’s simply ‘musical differences’ or ‘hey, I woke up and decided this isn’t what I want’, it’s nice to know. The biggest disbanding disappointment to me was probably Shulla… I would say barby, but the biggest disappointment there was Hinata leaving. I was honestly surprised they continued on as long as they did, especially given the circumstances.

o11. If you could film a PV for any song of any one band (whether they be disbanded or if the song is an older one of theirs), which band and song would you choose?
I don’t watch PVs, but I’d probably choose 死んだ春 (Shinda Haru) by R指定. I think it would make a nice (yet depressing) music video.

o12. If you could be a support member for any band, which would you choose?
I don’t want to be a support member. Unless I could be like, hidden in the wings.

o13. Which jrocker would you be convinced was living a second/double life that no one would know about?
Io. Definitely Io.

o14. Is there a specific area in Japan where you think has the greatest bands? (i.e. Nagoya, Fukuoka, Osaka, Tokyo, etc.)
Nagoya and Fukuoka.

o15. If you could choose any 2 bands to do a collaboration for a song/single, which 2 bands would you choose?
Jaguar and Ruephy Alive. Only so that Jaguar Alive could actually release something, which would amuse me to no end. I’d like to have seen R指定 and INSANITY FRONTIER do something, but R指定 and xTRiPx would be cool too.

From Shattered-Tranquility.net’s Monthly Meme! February 2009.