Here Are The Young Men
Feb. 15th, 2007 01:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
japanesedream_72Okay, kids, here’s the story, in full & gory detail. I’ve broken it up to save you time, though I hope you’ll read it from beginning to end instead of just jumping to the best parts.
In my life, doing anything turns into a big production, with all the forethought & on-site preparation of mounting a military maneuver. Since my grandpa had a bout with insomnia Friday evening, we’d been up half the night, drinking tea & watching cheezy horror flicks on tv (they only show the stuff you actually want to see between 2-5 am, it seems). So there wasn’t an excessive amount of sleep involved, but who could sleep all that much when energised by such high levels of excitement & anticipation?
For a while, it was a disaster, ’cuz getting ready, for me, is difficult enough (I’m tremendously self-conscious, you all know that, but moreso on special occasions!), without going through bad-hair-day-meets-oh-god-I-can’t-find-those-fishnets-I-actually-got-rid-of-years-ago-but-don’t-remember-doing-it moments. Wore the Halloween outfit (sans wings) with my black Capri pants, red tights & black fishnets (I’d been planning to wear black tights & red fishnets). The hair - braided, straightened, teased, sprayed, & inlaid with scent (I had Kitsune-Tsuki on my neck & wrists, but I practically poured Neo-Tokyo in my hair, plus a touch of Escada, to drown out the smell of hairspray) - actually came out looking decent. Make-up wasn’t too bad, either. Although I started to worry that if things had begun in disarray, what insanely bad luck did that portend for the rest of the evening? Would the band be snow-bound in Toronto, where they’d played the night before? Would Kyo’s voice be off? (Hey, even the best singers can have a bad voice day.) Would the trains not run on time? Would I completely forget everything I was supposed to remember from the dry-run & find myself hopelessly lost in the big city? Would I be struck suddenly & violently ill due to all this nervous tension?
Got done a little early (we planned to leave at 1:45), so I psyched myself up (as if I needed to be any more psyched?) by watching the Withering To Death & Family Values 2006 DVD footage, which filled just enough time. Then it was off to the train station.
This was the first but by no means the last time I was grateful to have done the dry-run in January. Knew how to work the ticket machine, & brought the exact amount of cash for the round-trip fare, so that I wouldn’t have to shuffle around the Sacajaweas they give you instead of more commonly-used change.
After getting my tickets, my grandpa & I sat in the waiting area, since there was a bit of time before the train was due to come. Took to people-watching, as one does, & spotted a gentleman on the far side of the waiting room who looked suspiciously & uncannily like Dr. Fred, my chiropractor. I asked my grandpa if that could be him, ‘cuz I was sure it was, & if it wasn’t, then it was his long-lost twin. As he came toward us, I must’ve started staring - I was trying to gague the features of his face, to see whether or not I was right. He caught sight of us sitting there, & sure enough, it was him! He was on his way to Long Island to visit family. So my grandpa went home & Dr. Fred & I rode the train together to Penn Station.
I took this as a very good sign. Perhaps catastrophe did not loom in my immediate future after all. It was fun. We chatted & he asked lots of questions about Diru, ‘cuz a girl he knows who sometimes comes into his office (with her mom, I think he said) liked them & was supposed to be going to the Nokia, too. (I’ll have to ask him about her next time I see him. It would be hilarious if she were one of the people I ended up getting into conversation with at the show!) A little way into the trip, he wanted to take a power-nap, so he gave me one of his Dave Barry books to peruse for a while. Gave me a giggle. After that, we chatted some more, & once the train got in, we walked through Penn Station for a bit, then went our separate ways.
The subway was a lot easier to find this time around, & during the ride to 42nd St., there was a doo-wop trio singing for donations. I’m still kind of mildly astounded by things like street performers - & there are some set up in Penn Station, too - & the like, & these guys were good. Kinda made me wish I’d have brought some change with me. But all I had was 2 quarters in case my cell phone clapped out & I needed to use a pay phone.
Came off the subway & made my way to the street. Remembered from the dry-run that I had to turn left to head for the Nokia. But I’d done some research on-line to find a few inexpensive restaurants in the vicinity (preferably Asian cuisine, as it not only suited the occasion but I just plain dig it to pieces), & my top choice was supposed to be on 38th St., which would mean turning right. So right I went. Passed the Hello Kitty store, & B.B. King’s (which Inez from work likes to go to sometimes), & suddenly found myself on 8th Ave. - seems I’d come out a different subway exit than last time. :P Turned around & headed back toward 7th; was on-track soon enough. Traipsed down to 38th & was halfway down it before I figured there wasn’t any way I was gonna find the place I was looking for, & I wasn’t about to cross 7th Ave. & try down the other side. Instead, I headed back onto Broadway to look for my 2nd choice eatery, which was supposed to be in the 1400’s (the Nokia’s 1515), but couldn’t find that, either. So I thought I’d head for the theatre & try to find something close by.
Approaching the Nokia, saw the marquee spouting off its roster of future acts. Wasn’t long, though, before the screen was emblazoned with my beloved Diru, who had a sold-out show to play to! (I’d checked their official MySpace page the night before - primarily ’cuz I can’t access their official Japanese homepage, which uses an updated something-or-other that I won’t have until I get a ’real’ job so I can get my Broadband upgrade. Last updated on 2/2, it said there were still tickets available for some shows, the Nokia included.)
Right across the street, I found Ollie’s Noodle House, a very nice Chinese place with smatterings of Japanese cuisine, as well. It being cold & windy outside, I reveled in the hot tea & the chance to have some miso soup (with tofu & kelp - just the way I like it!). Also ordered the steamed vegetable dumplings & a plate of vegetable fried rice. Unfortunately, it was a case of my eyes being a good deal bigger than my digestive system. I hate leaving food, but I didn’t want that earlier worry about being struck suddenly & violently ill to become a self-fulfilling prophecy in the middle of a mosh pit. I only left some of the rice & half a fortune cookie, but I did eat all the vegetables, dumplings, & soup. Plus, a glass of ice water (those dumplings were hot!). I thought it rather amusing that, if you’ve seen my Diru credit card parody, I was not far off in my dinner price prediction - & that’s including tip - which ran just a few cents over $17. Of course, there’s one other thing that my happy little satire foretold, but I’ll save that for later. ^_^
Anywho...
I’d noticed, on my way to Ollie’s, that people had already begun lining up outside the Nokia. But I figured these were just early-birds, because I didn’t see too many of them, only enough to stretch across the outside wall to the corner. So I thought I’d have enough time to eat & then just hop in line. Naturally, since I’d just finished dinner, the next logical step should have been to adhere myself to said wall & wait for the doors to open, right?
WRONG.
I spoke to someone at what I thought was the end of the line, who informed me that the line actually went ‘round the corner; security or whomever had broken it up into sections. So ‘round the corner I did go...& go...& go...& go...down Broadway, around the corner, down the block, around another corner, all the way back to the side of Junior’s Restaurant, & down Schubert Alley (that’s what the nice, older, security gentleman I spoke to called it - we would see him again throughout our line time - but I’m ahead of myself.) In short, it was a lot like that line from A CHRISTMAS STORY, where Ralphie goes with his brother to visit Santa Claus, & describes the queue in the department store as reaching “all the way to Terra Haute. And I was at the end of it.”
It was from there that I called my grandpa, & when he asked how I was, I said, “COLD!” Told him I was in line, where I would likely remain for quite some time, probably dying of hypothermia before ever reaching the front doors, but if I survived, I’d call him whilst awaiting the train back to New Jersey. Not long after, people were starting to get in line behind me, & I struck up a conversation with some groovy folks - a fellow named John & a young lady, I believe, of Indian descent, whose name I don’t recall (I only mention her ethnicity ‘cuz Dr. Fred’s girl-who-likes-Diru was, he mentioned, an Indian girl, which is why I wonder if it happened to be the same person - like I said, I’ll ask him next time I see him). We talked about this, that, & the other, mostly Diru-related. For example, I learned from them of a Kyo anecdote I’d never heard before, that he once got so angry at his parents he ‘gave back’ his clothes & stood outside, naked, in the cold. (I can’t remember if it was supposed to be snow or not, or for how long he was allegedly there. Though it is a highly interesting tale, I’ve also read that Kyo is semi-famous for, shall we say, embellishing during interviews.)
We were soon joined by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_schneewittchen, John’s sister (at least I’m fairly certain she’s his sister, & she can correct me if I’m wrong on that), & more chatting, complete with a goodly amount of joking, ensued. Not to mention lots & lots of freezing. The wind picked up, & there we were with scarves around our ears & mouths, our fingers going numb even with gloves on, our toes solidly locked in scrunched position after attempts to curl them up in search of warmth. Concert Calisthenics were born in such moments - marching in place, half-squats, anything to keep the blood flowing & ease the ache slowly creeping into every joint & muscle. Ideas for patents that could net us millions, such as glasses with tubing in them, into which some warming substance could be piped to heat the rims &, consequently, one’s face, were also developed. And just when the circulation seemed to have halted completely, when we were sure our digits were destined to drop off within seconds...
...the line would move forward an inch.
Of course, on occasion, this inch would position us squarely in front of the walkway to a restaurant, & we’d be asked by Nice, Older Security Guy to move back again.
Humour seemed to be one way to stave off at least the mental effects of what was surely the most anyone has endured on behalf of any band (apart from maybe the ultra-insane individuals who had been camping out in front of the place since the previous evening). In fact, I think we started to go a little stir-crazy. We kept checking our watches, counting down the minutes to doors-open (slated for 6 pm), regarding the advertisement for Mexico vacations that loomed overhead as abject torture, designing t-shirts with such slogans as “will suffer for J-rock” & “I froze for Dir en grey”, formulating plans to bombard Diru’s website with e-mails regarding our ordeal (which would probably have to be run through Babelfish in order for them to read it), divvying up which of their bodily fluids we hoped to be slathered in (y’know, blood, sweat, tears, snot, spit, vomit, that sort of thing -_schneewittchen actually did get something [I said it to her & I’ll say it again - Dang!!], but you’ll have to read her post to find out about it), & speculating that perhaps the limousine that passed by contained members of the band, nice & snug & warm with the car’s heater blasting away, laughing their tails off at us, Nelson Muntz-style, even lamenting that they didn’t take the opportunity for extra merchandising, in the form of Dir en grey logo-adorned face-warmers. (There actually was a guy selling hats, gloves, scarves, face masks, & hand/foot-warming whatnot, who walked up & down the line several times to announce his wares.)
Round about the time we were trying to figure out how to beg admission to the building in the band’s native tongue (John is actually studying Japanese, & came up with something akin to ‘please allow me to enter’, though we never did get it fully conjugated), we spotted a Japanese film crew. They passed by a couple of times, actually. So we cheered & waved & flashed V for Victory signs with our stiff, frozen fingers. At first, we thought maybe it was the J-news, but I didn’t see any reporters doing narration or interviews. Takeshi usually does these things, & he’s always there on the scene - they wouldn’t tape it & just have him talk about it from the studio. Given what occurred inside, which you’ll read about later, the more plausible conclusion is that the cameras were with & for the band, though whether for some forthcoming tour DVD or simply for their own amusement is yet to be known.
There were all manner of people joining the line - folks in short skirts, or Dir en grey shirts, others with crutches, even a few anime characters come to life. Often, people would ask us what we were standing in line for. Ahh, a chance to spread the good word & the message of Diru! Though mostly, we just said, “Japanese rock”, or some such thing. Someone came by passing out flyers for an anime-related website, which John put in his shoe to try & warm his feet. (I think he said it actually worked, a little bit.) They said we could burn them for heat, though they’d rather not see us do it. (Where’s a lighter when you need one?) Someone else came by with little sample packs of chocolate mints. But not a hot cocoa vendor in sight.
Finally, 6:00 came...& went. And still, we were stuck in the line. Although at that point, at least, when it moved, it moved about 6 inches at a time. Which, of course, once again positioned us squarely in front of the walkway to yet another restaurant or the entrance to a parking garage, & we’d be asked by Nice, Older Security Guy to move back again.
When we finally rounded the corner onto Broadway, I think we started cheering.
It had to be 6:30, possibly closer to 7:00, by the time our section of the line was actually herded into the Nokia. At this point, we lost Young Lady of Indian Descent, ‘cuz she had a camera with her, & they put her & all the other evil-doers (i.e., people with cameras, or even, I believe, camera-phones) in a cordoned-off corner to the side, while the rest of us got metal-detected & had our tickets scanned. Then it was down a neon-bordered escalator & into the wide foyer of the theatre. It’s very nice in there - the Nokia’s not that old - with lots of coloured lights & flat-screen TVs on the walls - advertising upcoming shows & occasionally projecting “Do you know your album covers?” games & a weird image of pixilated people with highly unstable pixels hugging, then literally breaking apart - along with a wall-size screen (much like the marquee, only smaller) on one side that said NOKIA THEATRE in huge letters. There was music playing - I only recognised a White Zombie song - & a display case for Nokia (the phone people, whose name adorns the place), & a light that projected the shape of a spinning musical note on the floor (John bemoaned the fact that it was not a bass clef). There was a bar on one end & a snack counter on the other, though we decided that we weren’t gonna wear our winter gear into the show, & eventually - after receiving about 6 different sets of directions - got in the line for coat check.
Whilst waiting in yet another line, we engaged in more chatting, a bit of primping, a few more calisthenics to bring back full circulation into our half-dead outer shells, & some people-watching/outfit-gazing. Lots of Asian folks there. Lots of gothy types, of all races. A nifty-looking person with blue, spiked hair dressed in kimono-esque attire. Many Diru shirts.
And thus, we waited.
After I don’t know how long, we finally ditched our coats, scarves, & whatever else had barely protected us against the elements while still allowing us to appear somewhat remotely fashionable, paid the 3 bucks so we could get it back afterwards, & off I went to the loo. All that tea & soup, not to mention what felt like sub-zero wind chills, do tend to go through a person! Nice lavatory, though. Reddish décor, with a neat central station, a sort of circular stand with individual sink/mirror combos. A quick check of hair & makeup, & out once again, this time to the merchandising tables.
I’d read on the band’s MySpace page that there was a thing going, whereby if you pre-ordered The Marrow of a Bone (the new album, which was released overseas on the 7th but isn’t due out in this dumb-ass country until the 20th) at the show, you’d be given a chance to engage in a meet-&-greet with the boys after their performance. I’d already decided that I was gonna do it, so I did it. You pay for the album up-front, & they give you a big ticket, so when the CD comes out, you just present the ticket at the store & pick up your copy. They had 3 big stacks of tickets, & if the one you took had “VIP” on the back, you’d get to do the meet-&-greet. Mine didn’t say anything on the back, which is, yes, a slight disappointment, but I’m not miffed in the least. I got what I came for, & more than I could have asked for, at that show, so I’m not gonna be greedy.
Decided at that point to check out the booth at the far end of the room, & see what other cool crap the boys were hocking, which included shirts, dog tags, wristbands, posters, DVDs, & CDs. The latter primarily consisted of Withering To Death, & the 2 newer singles, “Agitated Screams of Maggots” (which I have), & “Ryoujoku No Ame” (the title means 'Rain of Insult' - it’ll be on the new lp, but I already have a great live version from the Family Values CD, & the additional tracks on the single are just live stuff, not unreleased b-sides or anything). Asked the vendor if they were still gonna be selling stuff after the boys were done playing, ‘cuz I’d have hated to buy something that might get crushed during the show. The guy said he understood, & though it’d be crowded, they’d be there afterwards. Picked up a free postcard (I hate to say it, but that photo SO does not do them justice) & a couple of free tour/album promo cards (note: the dates on those cards only go up to the 19th, but the tour itself ends on the 25th).
By this time, it was a little past 7:30, & the first of the 2 opening bands had begun to play.
Enter stage left*. On the floor. Toward the back. It’s a very nice inner sanctum, the stage area, with a stage not tremendously high off the floor, these big chandeliers overhead, & a groovy lighting setup above the stage. The floor goes back a ways, then there’s a raised tier with a rail in front of it (in front of this were two good-sized cameras set up on tall tripods), & I think another tier behind that with seats, I’m not entirely sure. I didn’t get that good a look. On the sides, there are stairs leading up to a sort of balcony/catwalk-ish area with rails in front, where more people were standing (& possibly sitting, I’m not certain if there were chairs there).
I think it was somewhere in here that we (or, at least, I) lost track of John, but where I learned one of the concert-goer’s most important life lessons from the very wise_schneewittchen: if a space opens up between people, fill it. Those words got me where I am today - namely, really, really thankful I got where I did by the end of that night.
*Please note that my use of 'left' & 'right' in relation to the stage is from my perspective; i.e., facing the stage, not standing on it. My terminology, therefore, may be wrong, as true "stage left" & "stage right" is from the perspective of actually being on the stage. In which case, 'left' & 'right' as I've written them should be reversed. Sorry.
Bleed the Dream was onstage when we walked in. There was a large screen on the wall behind & slightly above them, sporting what I assume is the cover of their album. Behind the drummer, you could see the riser & drum kit that Diru’s Shinya would be using later (he’s always raised up a bit when they play live), covered by a greyish tarpy thing. The band’s tunes were quite good; the vocalist sang really well & had some nice energy to him - he got us cheering with a give-it-up-for-Diru sort of thing, a la, “You’re all here to see Dir en grey?” & then introduced themselves as Bleed the Dream, & sang 1 or 2 more songs. I can’t remember if it was this band or the next that threw their drumsticks into the audience. It was one of them. Anyway, after BtD went off, the techs & roadies came out to set up for the second act, Fair to Midland, & we milled about filling spaces here & there, & complimenting the previous performance._schneewittchen even saw some people she knew. I found myself looking around at the balcony & even toward the side wing of the stage, thinking maybe a Diru boy or 2 might be watching the other bands. I’m still convinced that was Boris I saw watching Shelleyan Orphan at the Cure show (& I have the photo to prove it), but I didn’t see anyone except the sound board person in this instance.
I have a confession to make at this point: have you ever heard the saying, If it’s too loud, you’re too old? Well, it was too loud. That place had the amps turned up so much that it was sometimes difficult to get a completely clear idea of the song or what key it might’ve been in. During Diru’s set, Toshiya plucked a single bass string & the entire floor shook! I pressed my fingers to my ears a little bit here & there during the first two bands, ‘cuz I figured if I was gonna lose my hearing for anybody (mind you, I already have tinnitus), it was gonna be Diru. Of course, when you can hear a band quite clearly even WITH your fingers in your ears, you KNOW that’s some loud stuff.
Fair to Midland was the second opener. As with the first, FtM’s album cover appeared on the screen, & the drummer was set up in front of Shinya’s kit. Their guitarist came out with no shirt on, & they had a keyboard player, who added what struck me as a sort of pseudo-Irish, vaguely Jethro Tull-like vibe to the songs. They weren’t bad, they weren’t great. I think most of us got distracted & tuned them out to an extent, ‘cuz we were all staring at this one bald patch on the lead singer’s head. Seriously. I’m not kidding. You couldn’t help but find your eyes glued to that danged spot. There was something a little off about the guy, too. He sang okay, but there was at least one point in the set where he seemed to disappear completely - the guitarist & bassist started talking to each other while the instrumental part of the song kept going; I had a feeling they were trying to figure out where their vocalist went. But he popped up again, & they finished their singing & jumping around (they did have a good deal of energy, I’ll give ‘em that).
Then we played the waiting game.
I’m not exactly certain how long it was between FtM’s exit & Diru’s entrance. It took a while, though. By this point, I’d moved from the left side back to more in the middle, slightly further up. It was beginning to get a little tight. We were getting shuffled. A couple of us noticed that there were these guys doing something in front of the stage - somebody said they were trying to get back the drumstick one of the earlier bands had tossed into the audience. We later saw a drumstick being waved about by a crowd member, with what looked like a sanitary napkin impaled on it! Well, that’s one way to ensure the band won’t want it back.
After a while, you could tell what was coming ‘cuz the Asian roadies were coming out & setting things up. Slowly but surely, you’d figure it was getting closer - Die’s mic stand with the red picks, stage right; Kaoru’s mic stand with the white picks, stage left; & Toshiya’s black & white bass guitar all began to make their appearances. I think the screaming started when the screen began sporting moving images of the words DIR EN GREY, TOUR ‘07, INWARD SCREAM. This was when I lost sight of_schneewittchen (whom I would find again a little while later, & lose again before the end of the show) & convened with a tribe of Short People.
At 5’3”, I, myself, belong to this tribe. So does Diru’s vocalist, Kyo. There was a girl to my left that said she was 5’2”, another on my right was of the same height. The latter came with her tall friend, who sported an amusing shirt that said something about losing faith in humanity, one person (or idiot) at a time, & something around her waist with the little dog from Invader Zim on it. Her short friend got her to practise holding her up on her back, though I can’t imagine they spent the entire performance like that. We started saying that they should let the Short People move up to the front, that Kyo would understand - “He’s one of us.” We also began pondering why people were already screaming (outwardly). Must have been that stir-crazy thing starting up again, ‘cuz we began to throw out ideas like, “Maybe somebody saw a little, tiny part of one of the guys, like a leg...even a finger or a toe.” Then, we cringed at the thought of people possibly screaming, “Kawaii!” when the boys came on, because it’s probably the only Japanese word these people know, & which would totally suck because Kyo ABSOLUTELY HATES IT. Short People don’t often like being referred to as “cute”, especially Short People who are meant to be taken as serious, powerful, fierce, even unpredictable or slightly disturbing. There were some funny ideas as to what Kyo might say when he came onstage, such as breathy exhalations of “Konnichi-wa” or screams of “Konban-wa, New York!”, as well as some horror stories - because at this point, we knew it wouldn’t be very long before the band walked out & the mad crush began - from friends who had attended other shows (such as Toronto the night before) & had to endure highly violent mosh pits - we’re talking torn clothing, fistfuls of hair being ripped out, & full-on battle scars here. (For all our love of Diru’s newer material, it’s times like this that admirers familiar with their older music & image begin to wish the band were still Visual Kei - goths don’t mosh!) A male Short Person in front of me chimed in here, talking about other artists’ concerts he’d been to with such pits, & how he got hit in the face with a crowd-surfer at one of them, & almost had his nose broken. (Yikes!) Some more time passed, & we began to wonder if the other guys were waiting for Kyo to get out of the loo (too much sake, perhaps?), or if Kaoru & Die were betting on how long they could make the fans wait to see them. “Kaoru says an hour, but Die wants to outdo him, so he says 2: ‘If they love us, they’ll stay.’”
There were intermittent chants of “Dir en grey! Dir en grey!” & even “Di-ru! Di-ru!”, though it didn’t entice the boys out any sooner. One of the Asian roadies came out after a bit & put his hand up with his fingers spread. As I think of it now, maybe he meant 5 minutes ‘til showtime? Maybe it was something for those cameras in the back? Was he waving to the audience? (I think people started waving at/to him, believing this was the case.) Was it some obscure Japanese thing?
It was after 9:00 when something finally happened. The lights began to pulse, matching a lively techno beat (which seemed odd for a hard rock band, to say the least), accompanied by a sound resembling a vocal chant we were apparently meant to shout along with. Initially, this was met with more stir-crazy amusement. Was Diru saying, “Let’s torture them into epileptic fits”? Or, more likely, “Let’s play with them & make them dance”? Okay, boys, you want us to dance, we’ll dance. Of course, it would’ve been nice if we knew what to say for this chant thing. I think it started out as “HEY!” & morphed into something else - I think some people were saying, “Kill”, whilst others were saying, “Kyo”.
I have since discovered that this is an opening move the band uses for live shows, titled “G.D.S.”, though I have no idea what those letters stand for. Regardless, it was then that the real test of endurance began, because the band appeared & the house went crazy - most of all, when Kyo came out.
As they took up their places, Die gave us the finger (his standard hello for live shows), & Kyo said something like “Oi!” - actually, I believe it’s more a combination of “Hey!” & “Hora!” (Look! See! Listen!); you can hear him say it in live clips a lot. I did what I could to look at them, to really see them, get an initial impression (obviously, this looking would continue throughout the show, rendering the impression more lasting). I was maybe 12-deep or so by that point (I’d say ‘12 rows back’, but they weren’t really rows). Despite the need to stand on tiptoe, craning to look around a few heads (something I spent the better part of the evening doing, even early on, during the openers, which is why my neck, shoulders, back, legs, & ankles were sore on Sunday - curse you, Tall People!), I had a pretty good vantage point. I could see their faces. And I have to say, they are just beautiful. I mean, supremely lovely human beings to behold. I will touch on each of them presently (get your minds out of the gutter!), suffice to say that I would think this particular thought more than once throughout the evening.
Then, it happened. And I will always remember this as one of the most astoundingly breathtaking sights I have ever had the honour of being present at. Kyo - being a Short Person - has a box, something like a large, metal variation on those old milk crate things, fastened to the floor for him to stand on throughout the show, when the mood takes him. Short People like to be high up (I do this with my office chairs - they’ve always got to be set in the highest position). So Kyo gets up on his box, positions his hands at his chest (exposed through his open black shirt) in a prayer position, & closes his eyes. It was a Namaste, a greeting to all of us.
There was something so spiritual, almost Buddhist, about it.
In the brief interview clip provided for their segment of the Family Values DVD, Kyo says language is not a problem for them, in terms of communication with non-Japanese fans, because there are other ways they have of communicating with them. In actuality, the band said virtually nothing to the audience the entire night. But there were no barriers of communication whatsoever. Kyo stood in Namaste for roughly a minute, maybe more, & we screamed & yelled & howled (I actually do howl on these sorts of occasions - must be the wolf in me), giving our own salutation, filling the room with positive energy, all of it flowing in his - in their - direction.
They launched into a song or 2 that I didn’t know, & peppered the set with another couple of unfamiliar tracks, likely songs off the forthcoming record, which I won’t have for a couple weeks (as opposed to older stuff I’m not entirely familiar with, since - as of this writing - I don’t have any of the old albums, just my samplers & Withering, as well as having found & heard at least 75-80% of their older material on YouTube during stolen moments at work). By the 3rd song, “Agitated Screams of Maggots” (11 seconds of footage of which can currently be seen on YouTube), Kyo was shirtless (I’m not sure if he threw the garment into the audience or not - there were times when I lost track of what was going on onstage whilst attempting to preserve my status as an upright & breathing individual), & we were singing along with him: when he sang, “I’ll rape your daughter,” we shouted back, “On your grave!”
We did a lot of that, & singing along, sometimes clapping to the rhythm. The choruses of “Merciless Cult” & “C”, the back vocal shouts of “The IIID Empire”, the melodic parts of “Obscure”, “Saku”, “Dead Tree”, & “The Final”, & most if not all of the last number, “Clever Sleazoid” (everybody singing in Kyoglish*, no less!). He didn’t seem to mind one bit.
*This is the term for the language Kyo sometimes sings in. It’s not quite English, it’s not quite Japanese. On occasion, it could be either. It’s been known to be perfect Japanese. Or just heavily-accented English. But it’s often a mixture of both.
On the screen during “Maggots”, there were excerpts from the video playing. There was a bit of that went on, for songs such as “Saku”, “Obscure” (my lovely wandering Geisha!), & the like. I saw other things on the screen during certain tunes, as well, such as the teeth & the spiral of picture frames that I would come to know from the menu on the Average Fury DVD (more on that later). The lights also went into various configurations & colour schemes, depending on the songs.
Just as a reference, apart from the ones I didn’t know, here’s what they played, in no particular order:
1. Agitated Screams of Maggots
2. Ryoujoku No Ame
3. Audience Killer Loop
4. The IIID Empire
5. Obscure
6. Merciless Cult
7. C
8. Saku
9. Kodoku Ni Shisu, Yueni Kodoku
10. Something that sounded remarkably similar in melody to Itoshisa Wa Fuhai Nitsuki, but was either a totally different song, or Kyo changed all the words
11. Dead Tree
12. The Final
13. Beautiful Dirt
14. Clever Sleazoid - this was the very last number; ending the set with a room full of people screaming, “One day, I will f**k your parents” is a beautiful thing!
Musically, I have to say the boys were 100% spot-on. I could not have asked for a more perfect performance - every note, both instrumental & vocal, was in tune, every scream took its rightful place. Lines were not left out to any great extent, nor did the songs degenerate into mere screaming sessions. I was worried about that, ’cuz I’d seen footage & heard live tracks from the last year’s worth of performances, some of which were not all that I believe they could have or should have been. It was as if they saved the best of themselves to give to us, this particular crowd, in appreciation for all we had endured on their behalf. Not that they don’t always give 110%, because they do. It just seemed to all come together that night. (Although I suppose everybody must think that of 'their' show, ne?) And while I sometimes feel sad for the boys, thinking of all the schlepping around a life often spent on the road must entail, you could tell just by looking into their faces that they do what they do for the sheer love of it - there is a genuineness about them that speaks volumes.
Kaoru was ever the stoic. He seems a little stern - I’ve read that he can come off as intimidating - but is really very focused, concentrated. And I honestly believe he gets better looking. He was wearing either a black sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up or a black t-shirt (I could only see him from about the chest up), & has somewhat feathery, dark chestnut hair that falls past his shoulders, with a slight undergrowth of hair on his chin. He helped encourage the audience, something Toshiya seemed to do a great deal of, coming to the very edge of the stage to raise a fist or make the heavy metal devil horns, eliciting cheers & howls & screams & raised hands & fists & horns from all of us. (I swear, I have never, & I mean NEVER, made so many of those horn gestures in my entire life thus far as I did on that night!)
Totchi himself is exquisite - & thankfully, no longer blonde - with soft, deepening brown locks, shoulder-length, perhaps a little layered. He had on a dark sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, or maybe it was a t-shirt, with a picture on it. Something in a circle, I couldn’t tell what. I watched for his “Bass Face”, particularly during “Beautiful Dirt” (I’ve come to think of him when I hear that song, thanks to the Romaji lyric sheet I did for it), & perhaps it was there for a moment (I did get to see him, during at least one song, do that upright bass thing that so intrigues me - a few Japanese bassists seem to like playing their guitars that way, straight up & down), but what struck me most was how serene he looked. That was the word I kept thinking of, serene. He has a very youthful, placid face.
And speaking of faces, I was so very glad I could see Shinya’s! Usually, drummers are just a few tufts of hair amidst a wall of drums, but not our Shinya. He is absolutely as pretty as he looks on video, that sweet, quasi-effeminate face framed by light, sandy hair, the back down to his shoulders, the front sometimes falling over his eyes, but occasionally blowing, whether from a fan set up somewhere nearby or from his constant motion, I don’t know. When he drums, you can see the muscles in his arms, which I imagine must be burning by night’s end. He stood up once to fix or tighten one of his cymbals. He wore a no-sleeve shirt, leopard-print, I think.
Die, like Kaoru, seemed very serious, though this was more a case of him being, musically, very much ‘in the moment’ (one can see this in live clips, also), as he’s said to generally be a rather playful, cheery person. He moved back by the drums several times while playing, which helped me see him during those occasions when the Tall People invaded the spaces to my right, where he regularly stands. He wore what looked to be a light denim jacket, but later took it off to reveal a black t-shirt with white lettering. It might’ve been in English, but it was fancy typeface, & I couldn’t see what it said. I didn’t notice any red in his hair, not bright red anyway; it looked more of a medium-to-dark brown, perhaps a dark auburn. He’s letting it get long again in the back, down to his shoulders or perhaps a little longer, & like Shinya’s, it blows, though again, whether there’s a fan somewhere nearby, I couldn’t say. I just remember him standing there, head lifted slightly, the hair just a little wind-blown.
When Kyo first came out, I heard someone say, “He’s so little!” That may be true, but as has often been said, size doesn’t matter. It’s what you do with it that counts. And he does a whole lot with what he’s got. An altogether enthralling creature. He wore his hair down. It’s short but a little shaggy, golden rather than light blonde, & in spite of the wispy hairs under his chin, there is something rather boyish about his face. But he’s also incredibly expressive - he uses his face, as well as his hands, a great deal. His expressions range from a vulnerability verging on tears to sadistic to just plain psycho, his hand gestures usually involving numbers, fists, reaches, or the occasional point. Once or twice, he’d raise his hands as if to hush the crowd, & a hush did fall over us. He had that kind of command. That much presence - when he comes into the room, it’s almost palpable - that much power.
This is not limited to his physical self - his voice, too, ranges from angelic (there was an a-capella solo thing, I think a preface to “Audience Killer Loop”, that was utterly transfixing, & he extended some notes from certain numbers, like singing out the last words of “The Final”, which are whispered on the album version) to weepy (I forget if it was in the verse part of “Dead Tree” or “The Final” where his vocals took on that wounded, weepy quality that can break one’s heart) to ferocious (so much raw intensity!). And when he said, “Jump!” at the beginning of “Obscure”, you’d better believe the audience jumped!
During “Kodoku Ni Shisu, Yueni Kodoku”, he does this thing (& you can see it on Family Values) where he opts out of singing the second verse, content to let the rest of the band take over (& giving Toshiya a chance for a bass solo), & rips at the inside of his mouth. Then he spits up the blood & smears it on his face. But he didn’t really get too much blood this time, just a little trickle that he - & we - watched dribble onto his chest. Later, during another number, he slashed at his chest again, though I don’t think he drew too much, if any, blood. Once, he stabbed at himself with the microphone (I’ve seen him do that in live clips - he also sometimes punches himself in the face; thankfully, he didn’t do that with us); another time, he had the mic pressed up to his head, & started beating his head slightly with it. You could hear the hits. It becomes grippingly emotional, these things.
When he took off his shirt, you could see he was ripped. The boy’s got a nice set of muscles on him! But they don’t interfere with the slightness of his body. The tattoos may not have been absolutely clear, but I was able to see them pretty decently. His eyes - dark & unobscured by the contacts he so often wears, Marilyn Manson-style - are piercing. There were times when he looked over, looked into, the audience. And when his gaze was on you, you felt it go through you. I could see the chain that dangled from his jeans, even the glittery spot on one pant leg. I saw the glint of the studs on his belt, & of the rings he wore. I could see the small stone on his necklace, & his teeth when he sang. At one point, near the end, he had one foot up on the box, & I looked at his shoe. Black sneaker. I think it was a high-top.
I apologise if any of that smacked of rabid fangirl-ism. I just calls ‘em like I sees ‘em. ^_^
I have an M.O. that I usually follow, through no fault of my own, at live shows: thanks to a less-than-strong respiratory system, the crowd crush that has become standard at any concert (no matter who it is) will cut off all my air, I’ll start to panic, & allow myself to be hurtled backwards, riding the crowd in reverse until I’m behind all the chaos & fury.
Not this time.
I’m not sure whether it simply wasn’t nearly as bad as I had anticipated, or because I had made up my mind to fight for it, but it seemed somehow easier than I thought it would be. I’m not saying it wasn’t a struggle at times, because it was. Before the band even came on, people were leaving the front rows, or being taken out - one girl I spoke with later in the merchandising line told me the crush had been so bad she actually passed out. A great many people had my fists & elbows in their backs & sides for a good portion of the evening. I sort of locked myself in a position with my fists up in front of me, my elbows out a bit when necessary, just so I could maintain a perimeter around myself. I didn’t want to push anybody (though you can’t help it when you’re propelled in any given direction), I just wanted to be able to breathe, & to hold myself in whatever position in the crowd I filled at any particular moment. Sometimes, I turned sideways, eventually ingratiating myself into an area further up. I even tried to let a Short Person in, when I could, & tried to help somebody else who very nearly fell over next to me. Tripping over people isn’t fun, but neither is being trampled.
The core of the beast, the heart of the crowd, is not an easy place to be. You are rocked & swayed, pushed & pulled, & when people drop their sweaters (which they dang well should’ve stored in coat check when they got in), they get tangled up in your feet. And it’s at that precise moment when the band launches into something like “Obscure”, & Kyo exercises his authority over the audience & tells us to jump. But when you’re pressed against people, bound on all sides by flesh (apart from whatever breathing space you can maintain), you’ve got nowhere to go but up & down, whether you want to or not. (Of course, I wanted to anyway - who among us would dare to disobey the Lord & Master of the Short People?)
There were a couple of guys - at least 3, I think - who decided to form their own impromptu mosh pit. A couple of them, one in particular, decided to stake their claim to spots right near me. I say ‘spots’ because they would be dancing (if you could call it such) from side to side, their thick, stocky bodies swaying in very wide motions. It’s, like, “Dude, pick a friggin’ spot, will ya?!” When they actually started to mosh, early on in Diru’s set, some people got - or very nearly got - knocked over. And these fellows insist on keeping their hands raised - mostly in front of your face - & singing bad Japanese into your ear very loudly, & off-key. Oddly enough, it does not occur to these people to be as respectful as one should or would be within the culture of those whose songs they are attempting to sing. (The Japanese don’t mosh or crush, according to all the live stuff I’ve seen. They might jump up & down, & keep their hands in the air, but they’re respectful enough not to try & kill each other.) And these jerks are always taller than you. Well, if you’re a Short Person.
Still, I did pretty well for myself. I mentioned before being about 12-deep. After a while, it was 10. By the end of the show, I couldn’t have been more than the 6th back, almost dead center.
But there’s still more to the tale. When the band finished the main set & we were all wondering if we could get them back for an encore, I got into conversation with a very nice girl with fuschia hair & a ring in her lip. She mentioned wanting them to sing “Cage” - which all of you know is my favourite! - & we actually started chanting, “Cage! Cage!” at one point. She was gushing sweetly about how “hot” the boys were, how Shinya looked “like a god”, a pseudo-Jesus figure, a beautiful “male-female-whatever-creature”. She also didn’t think Kyo was wearing any underwear. Along with another girl who was standing behind us, she’d hoped they’d pull out some older, more classic songs - both of them suggested “Domestic F**ker Family”. I mentioned wanting more slow numbers, such as “Embryo” (which Girl With Fuschia Hair also loved; I’d been saying for days beforehand that if they did that song, I’d likely burst into tears), “Amber”, or “Ain’t Afraid To Die” (I was really hoping they’d end with that one). We thought they might even do other Withering tracks, such as “Jesus Christ R n’R”, or “Kodou”.
People started chanting, “One More Song” & “One More Hit”, & we wondered if the boys would even understand what was being said. (No one knows the exact extent of their English comprehension.) But then one of the roadies or whatever appeared onstage & gave us a thumbs-down. Of course, I think there probably would have been some major hell to pay if they hadn’t been bluffing, & showed up within a minute after. (Either that, or everybody knew they were bluffing. I suspected as much.) They launched into a couple of numbers, & suddenly, out of the blue, there was a wonderful little moment, the second prophetic fulfillment of my parody, in which Kyo did, indeed, put a bucket on his head! It was black, with the words RAPE ME in big, white letters across it. I swear, I just about up & died!
After “Clever Sleazoid”, Kyo went into his trademark rip-the-box-out-of-its-floor-fasteners-&-pitch-it-toward-the-drums (though he didn’t come close to hitting Shinya, so don’t worry). I think he was the first to disappear. Shinya chucked his drumsticks into the audience, & then he was gone. (There’s fodder for fanfics!) Die, Toshiya, & Kaoru did a bit of waving & gesturing to elicit more screams & whatnot (their way of signing off, I suppose), each chucked a few guitar picks into the crowd, then took their water bottles & started dowsing us. I got splashed by Toshiya & Die! Then they tossed their bottles into the crowd. Die’s went somewhere next to me, & half a dozen people wrestled for it. They’re either gonna cherish these things forever, or you’ll have seen them on eBay all this week.
As they were preparing to leave the stage, another Japanese cameraman appeared next to where Die was standing. They left, & he panned his camera over the crowd. I’m sure I’m on video somewhere, sweaty & poofy-haired (it does that when it’s wet, which is why I bought a straightening iron), clapping, devil-horning, & howling away. Maybe they’ll put it on their next tour DVD. I’ll keep you posted.
We hoped to get the boys out for one more stint, but it was about quarter to 11, & I suppose with their meet-&-greet duties, just generally being tired, & having to adhere to such a tight schedule (they had an off day on Sunday, then another 3 shows in a row to do), they couldn’t handle any more. I figured they could’ve done 2 hours (they certainly have enough material - it’s a 10 year old band), but we got a damn fine hour & a half from them. I guess it’s just that when you have a real good thing like that, you always want a little more. But once you see the techs dismantling the drum kit & the mic stand, it’s over. Oyasumi, boys. Arigato.
In Japanese, 乱 - Ran (rhymes with John) - translates to ‘chaos’, or ‘to fall into disorder’. That’s what getting out of there was like. There’s a bar & snack counter, so some people want to get drinks or food, & a coat check, so some people need to go to that. There’s the merchandising table, where I was headed, & the rest of the people are just plain trying to leave. Honestly, these converging lines, interweaving without any separate flow or direction, proved worse than the mosh pit!
A couple of guys from Bleed the Dream were standing on the side of the foyer, by the first table (where I pre-ordered the new Diru record), literally chucking 2-song sampler CDs at people. Eventually, I managed to get one of those. The first song, “Closer”, was definitely one that they sang during the show - I remembered the line, “And if you’re scared, you probably should be”. One guy was even signing the copies, but I wasn’t close enough to him to get mine done. I was focused on getting to that booth in the back, ‘cuz I at least wanted a shirt, but since I had my Xmas bonus money with me (which I blew in the space of about 2 minutes), I figured what-the-hell, I’d splurge on those DVD’s.
Got into minute conversations with Girl Who Passed Out, & another girl whose arm was in a sling. The latter was beginning to wish she’d trailed the boys to their tour bus instead of trying to brave this insane line. She said a friend of hers went to the Atlanta show, found their bus, & got “the shirt off Die’s back”. Then she said her b-day was coming up but her friend wouldn’t give her the shirt - but he was coming to visit her, & she planned to steal it.
Behind me, there were some more girls, & we began to chat - info was being passed through the line about a signed Diru poster, & that if you bought one (though I don’t even think it had their photo on it), you had a 1 in 4 chance of getting the signed one. Nice though it would have been to possess, I know what their signatures look like. I wanted a shirt & some scrummy screencaps! One of the girls was talking about other bands she’d seen - several J-rock ones included - & what that was like. She mentioned something about a MUCC show, which was a good deal calmer (I believe she, too, had been up front here at Diru, & got out before the going got really rough). She & at least one other girl had seen Diru at Family Values, but they said they only played half an hour or so, & in very bad weather - apparently, this was at Jones Beach (NY), which is on the water, & shows there are often marred by storms.
So they got their stuff & soon it was my turn. They were selling out of things, but there was plenty of what I wanted. Got a shirt. There were 2 different ones - a tour one with the dates on the back, & an “Agitated Screams of Maggots”-based one with the band’s name on the back. I got the tour one. They only had Large sizes left, which is fine - it’s a wee tiny bit on the long-ish side, but it’s nice & soft! (I hate hard shirts.) Also picked up the Average Fury DVD, an hour-long pv collection with making-of footage. Some of the clips I have, ‘cuz they came on the Withering DVD, but some I didn’t (though I had seen them before), including “Child Prey”, “Drain Away”, & “Kasumi”. (We watched it on Sunday - twice.) I also got the live DVD, Tour ‘05 - It Withers & Withers, a hundred-minute assemblage of clips from the Japanese tour supporting the release of Withering To Death. It’s really fab stuff! (It’s also where I learned about “G.D.S.” - watched it Monday night.) Although I kinda wish they’d have also brought along the 5 Ugly Kingdom concert DVD, to sell at our show. I’ve seen most of the clips from that (at work), & I’d love to have it - lots of older numbers on there, & yet another fab performance (they seem to have a lot of fun - during one number, I’m pretty sure it’s “24-ko Cylinders”, Kyo licks his mic stand)! But hey, anything they wanted to bring was just fine by me, ‘cuz everybody else had to buy these things as imports!
Came close to tripping over a few people getting out of that mess, & very nearly got in the wrong coat check line (there are a lot of closets in this place), but eventually I found my way to the right one. Mine was one of the only coats left. Ducked down near a side wall to put my coat on, & decided I didn’t want to carry my Diru shirt as well as the 2 DVDs & the BtD CD, so I put the shirt on over my dress. There were some people talking to a camera, I don’t know if it was an interview, something for whatever had been filming all evening, or what. By that point, I just wanted to make sure I got where I needed to go.
It seemed a touch warmer when I left than it had been standing in line. It may have been because the winds had died down, or because I had extra clothing on. Perhaps it was because I was still very warm from having been in the pit. Or maybe it was as I had begun to feel after being in that perilous queue earlier - perhaps I truly was invincible, impervious to all weather! Though it was probably because the winds had died down. In any case, I clutched my DVDs & CD (everything else had been crammed into my purse) & followed some goths across the street (I cross with others ’cuz I’m afraid I’ll screw it up if I do it alone & get run over), into the nearest subway station. Got my ticket & went to wait for the train, though my jellified brain cells nearly got me in trouble, ‘cuz I ended up on the Uptown subway platform instead of the Downtown! Fortunately, I remembered what the hell I was supposed to actually be doing, & went to the right spot. A few minutes later, I was back at Penn, where I made my way quite easily (again, thanks to the dry-run) to the waiting area. Called my grandpa, & while I was on the phone with him, the 11:56 started boarding on Track 4. Whoops, gotta go!
Sat across from a very nice woman on the train who’d had a rather scary experience coming into the City, when her train suddenly stopped - in the tunnel! No lights, no nothing. Just sitting there in the dark, not knowing why or what was going on. Luckily, it only lasted 5 minutes, but that can seem like hours when you’re freaked out of your mind. We spoke a little every now & then, mostly about which of the announcements coming over the speakers to designate the stops was clear, which was unintelligible, which stops we might actually be at, that sort of thing. She said good-night to me when we arrived at her stop. Then we arrived at mine.
The wind must’ve picked up again, because I wasn’t far from the doors on the train, & I could feel how cold it was each time we stopped. When we pulled into my station, my grandpa was waiting for me just outside the doors to the waiting area. Made my way with him to the car, with a bit of a shiver & a slightly frozen tongue (guess I wasn’t invincible after all), & began telling him pretty much what I’ve just told all of you. Tired & sore but tremendously excited, as soon as we got home I plunked myself down in front of the space heater in the living room & spent the next hour gushing about the evening; by then, it was pushing 3:00. Time for bed. Next day, called my mom & went over the entire story. Came up with a shorter version for Inez at work on Monday - bet you wish you had that version right about now, eh?
Anywho, now that I’ve been done with it for a few days, it’s like something I dreamt. If I didn’t have my cool crap, I’d question whether it really happened at all. Others have already had their own shows, their own experiences. Were they even half as wonderful as mine? I wish the boys endless amounts of luck & success with the tour & with the new album. I hope they do well enough to make coming here worth their while. And I hope they come back so I can see them again.
Only in warmer weather.
In my life, doing anything turns into a big production, with all the forethought & on-site preparation of mounting a military maneuver. Since my grandpa had a bout with insomnia Friday evening, we’d been up half the night, drinking tea & watching cheezy horror flicks on tv (they only show the stuff you actually want to see between 2-5 am, it seems). So there wasn’t an excessive amount of sleep involved, but who could sleep all that much when energised by such high levels of excitement & anticipation?
For a while, it was a disaster, ’cuz getting ready, for me, is difficult enough (I’m tremendously self-conscious, you all know that, but moreso on special occasions!), without going through bad-hair-day-meets-oh-god-I-can’t-find-those-fishnets-I-actually-got-rid-of-years-ago-but-don’t-remember-doing-it moments. Wore the Halloween outfit (sans wings) with my black Capri pants, red tights & black fishnets (I’d been planning to wear black tights & red fishnets). The hair - braided, straightened, teased, sprayed, & inlaid with scent (I had Kitsune-Tsuki on my neck & wrists, but I practically poured Neo-Tokyo in my hair, plus a touch of Escada, to drown out the smell of hairspray) - actually came out looking decent. Make-up wasn’t too bad, either. Although I started to worry that if things had begun in disarray, what insanely bad luck did that portend for the rest of the evening? Would the band be snow-bound in Toronto, where they’d played the night before? Would Kyo’s voice be off? (Hey, even the best singers can have a bad voice day.) Would the trains not run on time? Would I completely forget everything I was supposed to remember from the dry-run & find myself hopelessly lost in the big city? Would I be struck suddenly & violently ill due to all this nervous tension?
Got done a little early (we planned to leave at 1:45), so I psyched myself up (as if I needed to be any more psyched?) by watching the Withering To Death & Family Values 2006 DVD footage, which filled just enough time. Then it was off to the train station.
This was the first but by no means the last time I was grateful to have done the dry-run in January. Knew how to work the ticket machine, & brought the exact amount of cash for the round-trip fare, so that I wouldn’t have to shuffle around the Sacajaweas they give you instead of more commonly-used change.
After getting my tickets, my grandpa & I sat in the waiting area, since there was a bit of time before the train was due to come. Took to people-watching, as one does, & spotted a gentleman on the far side of the waiting room who looked suspiciously & uncannily like Dr. Fred, my chiropractor. I asked my grandpa if that could be him, ‘cuz I was sure it was, & if it wasn’t, then it was his long-lost twin. As he came toward us, I must’ve started staring - I was trying to gague the features of his face, to see whether or not I was right. He caught sight of us sitting there, & sure enough, it was him! He was on his way to Long Island to visit family. So my grandpa went home & Dr. Fred & I rode the train together to Penn Station.
I took this as a very good sign. Perhaps catastrophe did not loom in my immediate future after all. It was fun. We chatted & he asked lots of questions about Diru, ‘cuz a girl he knows who sometimes comes into his office (with her mom, I think he said) liked them & was supposed to be going to the Nokia, too. (I’ll have to ask him about her next time I see him. It would be hilarious if she were one of the people I ended up getting into conversation with at the show!) A little way into the trip, he wanted to take a power-nap, so he gave me one of his Dave Barry books to peruse for a while. Gave me a giggle. After that, we chatted some more, & once the train got in, we walked through Penn Station for a bit, then went our separate ways.
The subway was a lot easier to find this time around, & during the ride to 42nd St., there was a doo-wop trio singing for donations. I’m still kind of mildly astounded by things like street performers - & there are some set up in Penn Station, too - & the like, & these guys were good. Kinda made me wish I’d have brought some change with me. But all I had was 2 quarters in case my cell phone clapped out & I needed to use a pay phone.
Came off the subway & made my way to the street. Remembered from the dry-run that I had to turn left to head for the Nokia. But I’d done some research on-line to find a few inexpensive restaurants in the vicinity (preferably Asian cuisine, as it not only suited the occasion but I just plain dig it to pieces), & my top choice was supposed to be on 38th St., which would mean turning right. So right I went. Passed the Hello Kitty store, & B.B. King’s (which Inez from work likes to go to sometimes), & suddenly found myself on 8th Ave. - seems I’d come out a different subway exit than last time. :P Turned around & headed back toward 7th; was on-track soon enough. Traipsed down to 38th & was halfway down it before I figured there wasn’t any way I was gonna find the place I was looking for, & I wasn’t about to cross 7th Ave. & try down the other side. Instead, I headed back onto Broadway to look for my 2nd choice eatery, which was supposed to be in the 1400’s (the Nokia’s 1515), but couldn’t find that, either. So I thought I’d head for the theatre & try to find something close by.
Approaching the Nokia, saw the marquee spouting off its roster of future acts. Wasn’t long, though, before the screen was emblazoned with my beloved Diru, who had a sold-out show to play to! (I’d checked their official MySpace page the night before - primarily ’cuz I can’t access their official Japanese homepage, which uses an updated something-or-other that I won’t have until I get a ’real’ job so I can get my Broadband upgrade. Last updated on 2/2, it said there were still tickets available for some shows, the Nokia included.)
Right across the street, I found Ollie’s Noodle House, a very nice Chinese place with smatterings of Japanese cuisine, as well. It being cold & windy outside, I reveled in the hot tea & the chance to have some miso soup (with tofu & kelp - just the way I like it!). Also ordered the steamed vegetable dumplings & a plate of vegetable fried rice. Unfortunately, it was a case of my eyes being a good deal bigger than my digestive system. I hate leaving food, but I didn’t want that earlier worry about being struck suddenly & violently ill to become a self-fulfilling prophecy in the middle of a mosh pit. I only left some of the rice & half a fortune cookie, but I did eat all the vegetables, dumplings, & soup. Plus, a glass of ice water (those dumplings were hot!). I thought it rather amusing that, if you’ve seen my Diru credit card parody, I was not far off in my dinner price prediction - & that’s including tip - which ran just a few cents over $17. Of course, there’s one other thing that my happy little satire foretold, but I’ll save that for later. ^_^
Anywho...
I’d noticed, on my way to Ollie’s, that people had already begun lining up outside the Nokia. But I figured these were just early-birds, because I didn’t see too many of them, only enough to stretch across the outside wall to the corner. So I thought I’d have enough time to eat & then just hop in line. Naturally, since I’d just finished dinner, the next logical step should have been to adhere myself to said wall & wait for the doors to open, right?
WRONG.
I spoke to someone at what I thought was the end of the line, who informed me that the line actually went ‘round the corner; security or whomever had broken it up into sections. So ‘round the corner I did go...& go...& go...& go...down Broadway, around the corner, down the block, around another corner, all the way back to the side of Junior’s Restaurant, & down Schubert Alley (that’s what the nice, older, security gentleman I spoke to called it - we would see him again throughout our line time - but I’m ahead of myself.) In short, it was a lot like that line from A CHRISTMAS STORY, where Ralphie goes with his brother to visit Santa Claus, & describes the queue in the department store as reaching “all the way to Terra Haute. And I was at the end of it.”
It was from there that I called my grandpa, & when he asked how I was, I said, “COLD!” Told him I was in line, where I would likely remain for quite some time, probably dying of hypothermia before ever reaching the front doors, but if I survived, I’d call him whilst awaiting the train back to New Jersey. Not long after, people were starting to get in line behind me, & I struck up a conversation with some groovy folks - a fellow named John & a young lady, I believe, of Indian descent, whose name I don’t recall (I only mention her ethnicity ‘cuz Dr. Fred’s girl-who-likes-Diru was, he mentioned, an Indian girl, which is why I wonder if it happened to be the same person - like I said, I’ll ask him next time I see him). We talked about this, that, & the other, mostly Diru-related. For example, I learned from them of a Kyo anecdote I’d never heard before, that he once got so angry at his parents he ‘gave back’ his clothes & stood outside, naked, in the cold. (I can’t remember if it was supposed to be snow or not, or for how long he was allegedly there. Though it is a highly interesting tale, I’ve also read that Kyo is semi-famous for, shall we say, embellishing during interviews.)
We were soon joined by
_schneewittchen, John’s sister (at least I’m fairly certain she’s his sister, & she can correct me if I’m wrong on that), & more chatting, complete with a goodly amount of joking, ensued. Not to mention lots & lots of freezing. The wind picked up, & there we were with scarves around our ears & mouths, our fingers going numb even with gloves on, our toes solidly locked in scrunched position after attempts to curl them up in search of warmth. Concert Calisthenics were born in such moments - marching in place, half-squats, anything to keep the blood flowing & ease the ache slowly creeping into every joint & muscle. Ideas for patents that could net us millions, such as glasses with tubing in them, into which some warming substance could be piped to heat the rims &, consequently, one’s face, were also developed. And just when the circulation seemed to have halted completely, when we were sure our digits were destined to drop off within seconds......the line would move forward an inch.
Of course, on occasion, this inch would position us squarely in front of the walkway to a restaurant, & we’d be asked by Nice, Older Security Guy to move back again.
Humour seemed to be one way to stave off at least the mental effects of what was surely the most anyone has endured on behalf of any band (apart from maybe the ultra-insane individuals who had been camping out in front of the place since the previous evening). In fact, I think we started to go a little stir-crazy. We kept checking our watches, counting down the minutes to doors-open (slated for 6 pm), regarding the advertisement for Mexico vacations that loomed overhead as abject torture, designing t-shirts with such slogans as “will suffer for J-rock” & “I froze for Dir en grey”, formulating plans to bombard Diru’s website with e-mails regarding our ordeal (which would probably have to be run through Babelfish in order for them to read it), divvying up which of their bodily fluids we hoped to be slathered in (y’know, blood, sweat, tears, snot, spit, vomit, that sort of thing -
_schneewittchen actually did get something [I said it to her & I’ll say it again - Dang!!], but you’ll have to read her post to find out about it), & speculating that perhaps the limousine that passed by contained members of the band, nice & snug & warm with the car’s heater blasting away, laughing their tails off at us, Nelson Muntz-style, even lamenting that they didn’t take the opportunity for extra merchandising, in the form of Dir en grey logo-adorned face-warmers. (There actually was a guy selling hats, gloves, scarves, face masks, & hand/foot-warming whatnot, who walked up & down the line several times to announce his wares.)Round about the time we were trying to figure out how to beg admission to the building in the band’s native tongue (John is actually studying Japanese, & came up with something akin to ‘please allow me to enter’, though we never did get it fully conjugated), we spotted a Japanese film crew. They passed by a couple of times, actually. So we cheered & waved & flashed V for Victory signs with our stiff, frozen fingers. At first, we thought maybe it was the J-news, but I didn’t see any reporters doing narration or interviews. Takeshi usually does these things, & he’s always there on the scene - they wouldn’t tape it & just have him talk about it from the studio. Given what occurred inside, which you’ll read about later, the more plausible conclusion is that the cameras were with & for the band, though whether for some forthcoming tour DVD or simply for their own amusement is yet to be known.
There were all manner of people joining the line - folks in short skirts, or Dir en grey shirts, others with crutches, even a few anime characters come to life. Often, people would ask us what we were standing in line for. Ahh, a chance to spread the good word & the message of Diru! Though mostly, we just said, “Japanese rock”, or some such thing. Someone came by passing out flyers for an anime-related website, which John put in his shoe to try & warm his feet. (I think he said it actually worked, a little bit.) They said we could burn them for heat, though they’d rather not see us do it. (Where’s a lighter when you need one?) Someone else came by with little sample packs of chocolate mints. But not a hot cocoa vendor in sight.
Finally, 6:00 came...& went. And still, we were stuck in the line. Although at that point, at least, when it moved, it moved about 6 inches at a time. Which, of course, once again positioned us squarely in front of the walkway to yet another restaurant or the entrance to a parking garage, & we’d be asked by Nice, Older Security Guy to move back again.
When we finally rounded the corner onto Broadway, I think we started cheering.
It had to be 6:30, possibly closer to 7:00, by the time our section of the line was actually herded into the Nokia. At this point, we lost Young Lady of Indian Descent, ‘cuz she had a camera with her, & they put her & all the other evil-doers (i.e., people with cameras, or even, I believe, camera-phones) in a cordoned-off corner to the side, while the rest of us got metal-detected & had our tickets scanned. Then it was down a neon-bordered escalator & into the wide foyer of the theatre. It’s very nice in there - the Nokia’s not that old - with lots of coloured lights & flat-screen TVs on the walls - advertising upcoming shows & occasionally projecting “Do you know your album covers?” games & a weird image of pixilated people with highly unstable pixels hugging, then literally breaking apart - along with a wall-size screen (much like the marquee, only smaller) on one side that said NOKIA THEATRE in huge letters. There was music playing - I only recognised a White Zombie song - & a display case for Nokia (the phone people, whose name adorns the place), & a light that projected the shape of a spinning musical note on the floor (John bemoaned the fact that it was not a bass clef). There was a bar on one end & a snack counter on the other, though we decided that we weren’t gonna wear our winter gear into the show, & eventually - after receiving about 6 different sets of directions - got in the line for coat check.
Whilst waiting in yet another line, we engaged in more chatting, a bit of primping, a few more calisthenics to bring back full circulation into our half-dead outer shells, & some people-watching/outfit-gazing. Lots of Asian folks there. Lots of gothy types, of all races. A nifty-looking person with blue, spiked hair dressed in kimono-esque attire. Many Diru shirts.
And thus, we waited.
After I don’t know how long, we finally ditched our coats, scarves, & whatever else had barely protected us against the elements while still allowing us to appear somewhat remotely fashionable, paid the 3 bucks so we could get it back afterwards, & off I went to the loo. All that tea & soup, not to mention what felt like sub-zero wind chills, do tend to go through a person! Nice lavatory, though. Reddish décor, with a neat central station, a sort of circular stand with individual sink/mirror combos. A quick check of hair & makeup, & out once again, this time to the merchandising tables.
I’d read on the band’s MySpace page that there was a thing going, whereby if you pre-ordered The Marrow of a Bone (the new album, which was released overseas on the 7th but isn’t due out in this dumb-ass country until the 20th) at the show, you’d be given a chance to engage in a meet-&-greet with the boys after their performance. I’d already decided that I was gonna do it, so I did it. You pay for the album up-front, & they give you a big ticket, so when the CD comes out, you just present the ticket at the store & pick up your copy. They had 3 big stacks of tickets, & if the one you took had “VIP” on the back, you’d get to do the meet-&-greet. Mine didn’t say anything on the back, which is, yes, a slight disappointment, but I’m not miffed in the least. I got what I came for, & more than I could have asked for, at that show, so I’m not gonna be greedy.
Decided at that point to check out the booth at the far end of the room, & see what other cool crap the boys were hocking, which included shirts, dog tags, wristbands, posters, DVDs, & CDs. The latter primarily consisted of Withering To Death, & the 2 newer singles, “Agitated Screams of Maggots” (which I have), & “Ryoujoku No Ame” (the title means 'Rain of Insult' - it’ll be on the new lp, but I already have a great live version from the Family Values CD, & the additional tracks on the single are just live stuff, not unreleased b-sides or anything). Asked the vendor if they were still gonna be selling stuff after the boys were done playing, ‘cuz I’d have hated to buy something that might get crushed during the show. The guy said he understood, & though it’d be crowded, they’d be there afterwards. Picked up a free postcard (I hate to say it, but that photo SO does not do them justice) & a couple of free tour/album promo cards (note: the dates on those cards only go up to the 19th, but the tour itself ends on the 25th).
By this time, it was a little past 7:30, & the first of the 2 opening bands had begun to play.
Enter stage left*. On the floor. Toward the back. It’s a very nice inner sanctum, the stage area, with a stage not tremendously high off the floor, these big chandeliers overhead, & a groovy lighting setup above the stage. The floor goes back a ways, then there’s a raised tier with a rail in front of it (in front of this were two good-sized cameras set up on tall tripods), & I think another tier behind that with seats, I’m not entirely sure. I didn’t get that good a look. On the sides, there are stairs leading up to a sort of balcony/catwalk-ish area with rails in front, where more people were standing (& possibly sitting, I’m not certain if there were chairs there).
I think it was somewhere in here that we (or, at least, I) lost track of John, but where I learned one of the concert-goer’s most important life lessons from the very wise
_schneewittchen: if a space opens up between people, fill it. Those words got me where I am today - namely, really, really thankful I got where I did by the end of that night.*Please note that my use of 'left' & 'right' in relation to the stage is from my perspective; i.e., facing the stage, not standing on it. My terminology, therefore, may be wrong, as true "stage left" & "stage right" is from the perspective of actually being on the stage. In which case, 'left' & 'right' as I've written them should be reversed. Sorry.
Bleed the Dream was onstage when we walked in. There was a large screen on the wall behind & slightly above them, sporting what I assume is the cover of their album. Behind the drummer, you could see the riser & drum kit that Diru’s Shinya would be using later (he’s always raised up a bit when they play live), covered by a greyish tarpy thing. The band’s tunes were quite good; the vocalist sang really well & had some nice energy to him - he got us cheering with a give-it-up-for-Diru sort of thing, a la, “You’re all here to see Dir en grey?” & then introduced themselves as Bleed the Dream, & sang 1 or 2 more songs. I can’t remember if it was this band or the next that threw their drumsticks into the audience. It was one of them. Anyway, after BtD went off, the techs & roadies came out to set up for the second act, Fair to Midland, & we milled about filling spaces here & there, & complimenting the previous performance.
_schneewittchen even saw some people she knew. I found myself looking around at the balcony & even toward the side wing of the stage, thinking maybe a Diru boy or 2 might be watching the other bands. I’m still convinced that was Boris I saw watching Shelleyan Orphan at the Cure show (& I have the photo to prove it), but I didn’t see anyone except the sound board person in this instance.I have a confession to make at this point: have you ever heard the saying, If it’s too loud, you’re too old? Well, it was too loud. That place had the amps turned up so much that it was sometimes difficult to get a completely clear idea of the song or what key it might’ve been in. During Diru’s set, Toshiya plucked a single bass string & the entire floor shook! I pressed my fingers to my ears a little bit here & there during the first two bands, ‘cuz I figured if I was gonna lose my hearing for anybody (mind you, I already have tinnitus), it was gonna be Diru. Of course, when you can hear a band quite clearly even WITH your fingers in your ears, you KNOW that’s some loud stuff.
Fair to Midland was the second opener. As with the first, FtM’s album cover appeared on the screen, & the drummer was set up in front of Shinya’s kit. Their guitarist came out with no shirt on, & they had a keyboard player, who added what struck me as a sort of pseudo-Irish, vaguely Jethro Tull-like vibe to the songs. They weren’t bad, they weren’t great. I think most of us got distracted & tuned them out to an extent, ‘cuz we were all staring at this one bald patch on the lead singer’s head. Seriously. I’m not kidding. You couldn’t help but find your eyes glued to that danged spot. There was something a little off about the guy, too. He sang okay, but there was at least one point in the set where he seemed to disappear completely - the guitarist & bassist started talking to each other while the instrumental part of the song kept going; I had a feeling they were trying to figure out where their vocalist went. But he popped up again, & they finished their singing & jumping around (they did have a good deal of energy, I’ll give ‘em that).
Then we played the waiting game.
I’m not exactly certain how long it was between FtM’s exit & Diru’s entrance. It took a while, though. By this point, I’d moved from the left side back to more in the middle, slightly further up. It was beginning to get a little tight. We were getting shuffled. A couple of us noticed that there were these guys doing something in front of the stage - somebody said they were trying to get back the drumstick one of the earlier bands had tossed into the audience. We later saw a drumstick being waved about by a crowd member, with what looked like a sanitary napkin impaled on it! Well, that’s one way to ensure the band won’t want it back.
After a while, you could tell what was coming ‘cuz the Asian roadies were coming out & setting things up. Slowly but surely, you’d figure it was getting closer - Die’s mic stand with the red picks, stage right; Kaoru’s mic stand with the white picks, stage left; & Toshiya’s black & white bass guitar all began to make their appearances. I think the screaming started when the screen began sporting moving images of the words DIR EN GREY, TOUR ‘07, INWARD SCREAM. This was when I lost sight of
_schneewittchen (whom I would find again a little while later, & lose again before the end of the show) & convened with a tribe of Short People.At 5’3”, I, myself, belong to this tribe. So does Diru’s vocalist, Kyo. There was a girl to my left that said she was 5’2”, another on my right was of the same height. The latter came with her tall friend, who sported an amusing shirt that said something about losing faith in humanity, one person (or idiot) at a time, & something around her waist with the little dog from Invader Zim on it. Her short friend got her to practise holding her up on her back, though I can’t imagine they spent the entire performance like that. We started saying that they should let the Short People move up to the front, that Kyo would understand - “He’s one of us.” We also began pondering why people were already screaming (outwardly). Must have been that stir-crazy thing starting up again, ‘cuz we began to throw out ideas like, “Maybe somebody saw a little, tiny part of one of the guys, like a leg...even a finger or a toe.” Then, we cringed at the thought of people possibly screaming, “Kawaii!” when the boys came on, because it’s probably the only Japanese word these people know, & which would totally suck because Kyo ABSOLUTELY HATES IT. Short People don’t often like being referred to as “cute”, especially Short People who are meant to be taken as serious, powerful, fierce, even unpredictable or slightly disturbing. There were some funny ideas as to what Kyo might say when he came onstage, such as breathy exhalations of “Konnichi-wa” or screams of “Konban-wa, New York!”, as well as some horror stories - because at this point, we knew it wouldn’t be very long before the band walked out & the mad crush began - from friends who had attended other shows (such as Toronto the night before) & had to endure highly violent mosh pits - we’re talking torn clothing, fistfuls of hair being ripped out, & full-on battle scars here. (For all our love of Diru’s newer material, it’s times like this that admirers familiar with their older music & image begin to wish the band were still Visual Kei - goths don’t mosh!) A male Short Person in front of me chimed in here, talking about other artists’ concerts he’d been to with such pits, & how he got hit in the face with a crowd-surfer at one of them, & almost had his nose broken. (Yikes!) Some more time passed, & we began to wonder if the other guys were waiting for Kyo to get out of the loo (too much sake, perhaps?), or if Kaoru & Die were betting on how long they could make the fans wait to see them. “Kaoru says an hour, but Die wants to outdo him, so he says 2: ‘If they love us, they’ll stay.’”
There were intermittent chants of “Dir en grey! Dir en grey!” & even “Di-ru! Di-ru!”, though it didn’t entice the boys out any sooner. One of the Asian roadies came out after a bit & put his hand up with his fingers spread. As I think of it now, maybe he meant 5 minutes ‘til showtime? Maybe it was something for those cameras in the back? Was he waving to the audience? (I think people started waving at/to him, believing this was the case.) Was it some obscure Japanese thing?
It was after 9:00 when something finally happened. The lights began to pulse, matching a lively techno beat (which seemed odd for a hard rock band, to say the least), accompanied by a sound resembling a vocal chant we were apparently meant to shout along with. Initially, this was met with more stir-crazy amusement. Was Diru saying, “Let’s torture them into epileptic fits”? Or, more likely, “Let’s play with them & make them dance”? Okay, boys, you want us to dance, we’ll dance. Of course, it would’ve been nice if we knew what to say for this chant thing. I think it started out as “HEY!” & morphed into something else - I think some people were saying, “Kill”, whilst others were saying, “Kyo”.
I have since discovered that this is an opening move the band uses for live shows, titled “G.D.S.”, though I have no idea what those letters stand for. Regardless, it was then that the real test of endurance began, because the band appeared & the house went crazy - most of all, when Kyo came out.
As they took up their places, Die gave us the finger (his standard hello for live shows), & Kyo said something like “Oi!” - actually, I believe it’s more a combination of “Hey!” & “Hora!” (Look! See! Listen!); you can hear him say it in live clips a lot. I did what I could to look at them, to really see them, get an initial impression (obviously, this looking would continue throughout the show, rendering the impression more lasting). I was maybe 12-deep or so by that point (I’d say ‘12 rows back’, but they weren’t really rows). Despite the need to stand on tiptoe, craning to look around a few heads (something I spent the better part of the evening doing, even early on, during the openers, which is why my neck, shoulders, back, legs, & ankles were sore on Sunday - curse you, Tall People!), I had a pretty good vantage point. I could see their faces. And I have to say, they are just beautiful. I mean, supremely lovely human beings to behold. I will touch on each of them presently (get your minds out of the gutter!), suffice to say that I would think this particular thought more than once throughout the evening.
Then, it happened. And I will always remember this as one of the most astoundingly breathtaking sights I have ever had the honour of being present at. Kyo - being a Short Person - has a box, something like a large, metal variation on those old milk crate things, fastened to the floor for him to stand on throughout the show, when the mood takes him. Short People like to be high up (I do this with my office chairs - they’ve always got to be set in the highest position). So Kyo gets up on his box, positions his hands at his chest (exposed through his open black shirt) in a prayer position, & closes his eyes. It was a Namaste, a greeting to all of us.
There was something so spiritual, almost Buddhist, about it.
In the brief interview clip provided for their segment of the Family Values DVD, Kyo says language is not a problem for them, in terms of communication with non-Japanese fans, because there are other ways they have of communicating with them. In actuality, the band said virtually nothing to the audience the entire night. But there were no barriers of communication whatsoever. Kyo stood in Namaste for roughly a minute, maybe more, & we screamed & yelled & howled (I actually do howl on these sorts of occasions - must be the wolf in me), giving our own salutation, filling the room with positive energy, all of it flowing in his - in their - direction.
They launched into a song or 2 that I didn’t know, & peppered the set with another couple of unfamiliar tracks, likely songs off the forthcoming record, which I won’t have for a couple weeks (as opposed to older stuff I’m not entirely familiar with, since - as of this writing - I don’t have any of the old albums, just my samplers & Withering, as well as having found & heard at least 75-80% of their older material on YouTube during stolen moments at work). By the 3rd song, “Agitated Screams of Maggots” (11 seconds of footage of which can currently be seen on YouTube), Kyo was shirtless (I’m not sure if he threw the garment into the audience or not - there were times when I lost track of what was going on onstage whilst attempting to preserve my status as an upright & breathing individual), & we were singing along with him: when he sang, “I’ll rape your daughter,” we shouted back, “On your grave!”
We did a lot of that, & singing along, sometimes clapping to the rhythm. The choruses of “Merciless Cult” & “C”, the back vocal shouts of “The IIID Empire”, the melodic parts of “Obscure”, “Saku”, “Dead Tree”, & “The Final”, & most if not all of the last number, “Clever Sleazoid” (everybody singing in Kyoglish*, no less!). He didn’t seem to mind one bit.
*This is the term for the language Kyo sometimes sings in. It’s not quite English, it’s not quite Japanese. On occasion, it could be either. It’s been known to be perfect Japanese. Or just heavily-accented English. But it’s often a mixture of both.
On the screen during “Maggots”, there were excerpts from the video playing. There was a bit of that went on, for songs such as “Saku”, “Obscure” (my lovely wandering Geisha!), & the like. I saw other things on the screen during certain tunes, as well, such as the teeth & the spiral of picture frames that I would come to know from the menu on the Average Fury DVD (more on that later). The lights also went into various configurations & colour schemes, depending on the songs.
Just as a reference, apart from the ones I didn’t know, here’s what they played, in no particular order:
1. Agitated Screams of Maggots
2. Ryoujoku No Ame
3. Audience Killer Loop
4. The IIID Empire
5. Obscure
6. Merciless Cult
7. C
8. Saku
9. Kodoku Ni Shisu, Yueni Kodoku
10. Something that sounded remarkably similar in melody to Itoshisa Wa Fuhai Nitsuki, but was either a totally different song, or Kyo changed all the words
11. Dead Tree
12. The Final
13. Beautiful Dirt
14. Clever Sleazoid - this was the very last number; ending the set with a room full of people screaming, “One day, I will f**k your parents” is a beautiful thing!
Musically, I have to say the boys were 100% spot-on. I could not have asked for a more perfect performance - every note, both instrumental & vocal, was in tune, every scream took its rightful place. Lines were not left out to any great extent, nor did the songs degenerate into mere screaming sessions. I was worried about that, ’cuz I’d seen footage & heard live tracks from the last year’s worth of performances, some of which were not all that I believe they could have or should have been. It was as if they saved the best of themselves to give to us, this particular crowd, in appreciation for all we had endured on their behalf. Not that they don’t always give 110%, because they do. It just seemed to all come together that night. (Although I suppose everybody must think that of 'their' show, ne?) And while I sometimes feel sad for the boys, thinking of all the schlepping around a life often spent on the road must entail, you could tell just by looking into their faces that they do what they do for the sheer love of it - there is a genuineness about them that speaks volumes.
Kaoru was ever the stoic. He seems a little stern - I’ve read that he can come off as intimidating - but is really very focused, concentrated. And I honestly believe he gets better looking. He was wearing either a black sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up or a black t-shirt (I could only see him from about the chest up), & has somewhat feathery, dark chestnut hair that falls past his shoulders, with a slight undergrowth of hair on his chin. He helped encourage the audience, something Toshiya seemed to do a great deal of, coming to the very edge of the stage to raise a fist or make the heavy metal devil horns, eliciting cheers & howls & screams & raised hands & fists & horns from all of us. (I swear, I have never, & I mean NEVER, made so many of those horn gestures in my entire life thus far as I did on that night!)
Totchi himself is exquisite - & thankfully, no longer blonde - with soft, deepening brown locks, shoulder-length, perhaps a little layered. He had on a dark sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, or maybe it was a t-shirt, with a picture on it. Something in a circle, I couldn’t tell what. I watched for his “Bass Face”, particularly during “Beautiful Dirt” (I’ve come to think of him when I hear that song, thanks to the Romaji lyric sheet I did for it), & perhaps it was there for a moment (I did get to see him, during at least one song, do that upright bass thing that so intrigues me - a few Japanese bassists seem to like playing their guitars that way, straight up & down), but what struck me most was how serene he looked. That was the word I kept thinking of, serene. He has a very youthful, placid face.
And speaking of faces, I was so very glad I could see Shinya’s! Usually, drummers are just a few tufts of hair amidst a wall of drums, but not our Shinya. He is absolutely as pretty as he looks on video, that sweet, quasi-effeminate face framed by light, sandy hair, the back down to his shoulders, the front sometimes falling over his eyes, but occasionally blowing, whether from a fan set up somewhere nearby or from his constant motion, I don’t know. When he drums, you can see the muscles in his arms, which I imagine must be burning by night’s end. He stood up once to fix or tighten one of his cymbals. He wore a no-sleeve shirt, leopard-print, I think.
Die, like Kaoru, seemed very serious, though this was more a case of him being, musically, very much ‘in the moment’ (one can see this in live clips, also), as he’s said to generally be a rather playful, cheery person. He moved back by the drums several times while playing, which helped me see him during those occasions when the Tall People invaded the spaces to my right, where he regularly stands. He wore what looked to be a light denim jacket, but later took it off to reveal a black t-shirt with white lettering. It might’ve been in English, but it was fancy typeface, & I couldn’t see what it said. I didn’t notice any red in his hair, not bright red anyway; it looked more of a medium-to-dark brown, perhaps a dark auburn. He’s letting it get long again in the back, down to his shoulders or perhaps a little longer, & like Shinya’s, it blows, though again, whether there’s a fan somewhere nearby, I couldn’t say. I just remember him standing there, head lifted slightly, the hair just a little wind-blown.
When Kyo first came out, I heard someone say, “He’s so little!” That may be true, but as has often been said, size doesn’t matter. It’s what you do with it that counts. And he does a whole lot with what he’s got. An altogether enthralling creature. He wore his hair down. It’s short but a little shaggy, golden rather than light blonde, & in spite of the wispy hairs under his chin, there is something rather boyish about his face. But he’s also incredibly expressive - he uses his face, as well as his hands, a great deal. His expressions range from a vulnerability verging on tears to sadistic to just plain psycho, his hand gestures usually involving numbers, fists, reaches, or the occasional point. Once or twice, he’d raise his hands as if to hush the crowd, & a hush did fall over us. He had that kind of command. That much presence - when he comes into the room, it’s almost palpable - that much power.
This is not limited to his physical self - his voice, too, ranges from angelic (there was an a-capella solo thing, I think a preface to “Audience Killer Loop”, that was utterly transfixing, & he extended some notes from certain numbers, like singing out the last words of “The Final”, which are whispered on the album version) to weepy (I forget if it was in the verse part of “Dead Tree” or “The Final” where his vocals took on that wounded, weepy quality that can break one’s heart) to ferocious (so much raw intensity!). And when he said, “Jump!” at the beginning of “Obscure”, you’d better believe the audience jumped!
During “Kodoku Ni Shisu, Yueni Kodoku”, he does this thing (& you can see it on Family Values) where he opts out of singing the second verse, content to let the rest of the band take over (& giving Toshiya a chance for a bass solo), & rips at the inside of his mouth. Then he spits up the blood & smears it on his face. But he didn’t really get too much blood this time, just a little trickle that he - & we - watched dribble onto his chest. Later, during another number, he slashed at his chest again, though I don’t think he drew too much, if any, blood. Once, he stabbed at himself with the microphone (I’ve seen him do that in live clips - he also sometimes punches himself in the face; thankfully, he didn’t do that with us); another time, he had the mic pressed up to his head, & started beating his head slightly with it. You could hear the hits. It becomes grippingly emotional, these things.
When he took off his shirt, you could see he was ripped. The boy’s got a nice set of muscles on him! But they don’t interfere with the slightness of his body. The tattoos may not have been absolutely clear, but I was able to see them pretty decently. His eyes - dark & unobscured by the contacts he so often wears, Marilyn Manson-style - are piercing. There were times when he looked over, looked into, the audience. And when his gaze was on you, you felt it go through you. I could see the chain that dangled from his jeans, even the glittery spot on one pant leg. I saw the glint of the studs on his belt, & of the rings he wore. I could see the small stone on his necklace, & his teeth when he sang. At one point, near the end, he had one foot up on the box, & I looked at his shoe. Black sneaker. I think it was a high-top.
I apologise if any of that smacked of rabid fangirl-ism. I just calls ‘em like I sees ‘em. ^_^
I have an M.O. that I usually follow, through no fault of my own, at live shows: thanks to a less-than-strong respiratory system, the crowd crush that has become standard at any concert (no matter who it is) will cut off all my air, I’ll start to panic, & allow myself to be hurtled backwards, riding the crowd in reverse until I’m behind all the chaos & fury.
Not this time.
I’m not sure whether it simply wasn’t nearly as bad as I had anticipated, or because I had made up my mind to fight for it, but it seemed somehow easier than I thought it would be. I’m not saying it wasn’t a struggle at times, because it was. Before the band even came on, people were leaving the front rows, or being taken out - one girl I spoke with later in the merchandising line told me the crush had been so bad she actually passed out. A great many people had my fists & elbows in their backs & sides for a good portion of the evening. I sort of locked myself in a position with my fists up in front of me, my elbows out a bit when necessary, just so I could maintain a perimeter around myself. I didn’t want to push anybody (though you can’t help it when you’re propelled in any given direction), I just wanted to be able to breathe, & to hold myself in whatever position in the crowd I filled at any particular moment. Sometimes, I turned sideways, eventually ingratiating myself into an area further up. I even tried to let a Short Person in, when I could, & tried to help somebody else who very nearly fell over next to me. Tripping over people isn’t fun, but neither is being trampled.
The core of the beast, the heart of the crowd, is not an easy place to be. You are rocked & swayed, pushed & pulled, & when people drop their sweaters (which they dang well should’ve stored in coat check when they got in), they get tangled up in your feet. And it’s at that precise moment when the band launches into something like “Obscure”, & Kyo exercises his authority over the audience & tells us to jump. But when you’re pressed against people, bound on all sides by flesh (apart from whatever breathing space you can maintain), you’ve got nowhere to go but up & down, whether you want to or not. (Of course, I wanted to anyway - who among us would dare to disobey the Lord & Master of the Short People?)
There were a couple of guys - at least 3, I think - who decided to form their own impromptu mosh pit. A couple of them, one in particular, decided to stake their claim to spots right near me. I say ‘spots’ because they would be dancing (if you could call it such) from side to side, their thick, stocky bodies swaying in very wide motions. It’s, like, “Dude, pick a friggin’ spot, will ya?!” When they actually started to mosh, early on in Diru’s set, some people got - or very nearly got - knocked over. And these fellows insist on keeping their hands raised - mostly in front of your face - & singing bad Japanese into your ear very loudly, & off-key. Oddly enough, it does not occur to these people to be as respectful as one should or would be within the culture of those whose songs they are attempting to sing. (The Japanese don’t mosh or crush, according to all the live stuff I’ve seen. They might jump up & down, & keep their hands in the air, but they’re respectful enough not to try & kill each other.) And these jerks are always taller than you. Well, if you’re a Short Person.
Still, I did pretty well for myself. I mentioned before being about 12-deep. After a while, it was 10. By the end of the show, I couldn’t have been more than the 6th back, almost dead center.
But there’s still more to the tale. When the band finished the main set & we were all wondering if we could get them back for an encore, I got into conversation with a very nice girl with fuschia hair & a ring in her lip. She mentioned wanting them to sing “Cage” - which all of you know is my favourite! - & we actually started chanting, “Cage! Cage!” at one point. She was gushing sweetly about how “hot” the boys were, how Shinya looked “like a god”, a pseudo-Jesus figure, a beautiful “male-female-whatever-creature”. She also didn’t think Kyo was wearing any underwear. Along with another girl who was standing behind us, she’d hoped they’d pull out some older, more classic songs - both of them suggested “Domestic F**ker Family”. I mentioned wanting more slow numbers, such as “Embryo” (which Girl With Fuschia Hair also loved; I’d been saying for days beforehand that if they did that song, I’d likely burst into tears), “Amber”, or “Ain’t Afraid To Die” (I was really hoping they’d end with that one). We thought they might even do other Withering tracks, such as “Jesus Christ R n’R”, or “Kodou”.
People started chanting, “One More Song” & “One More Hit”, & we wondered if the boys would even understand what was being said. (No one knows the exact extent of their English comprehension.) But then one of the roadies or whatever appeared onstage & gave us a thumbs-down. Of course, I think there probably would have been some major hell to pay if they hadn’t been bluffing, & showed up within a minute after. (Either that, or everybody knew they were bluffing. I suspected as much.) They launched into a couple of numbers, & suddenly, out of the blue, there was a wonderful little moment, the second prophetic fulfillment of my parody, in which Kyo did, indeed, put a bucket on his head! It was black, with the words RAPE ME in big, white letters across it. I swear, I just about up & died!
After “Clever Sleazoid”, Kyo went into his trademark rip-the-box-out-of-its-floor-fasteners-&-pitch-it-toward-the-drums (though he didn’t come close to hitting Shinya, so don’t worry). I think he was the first to disappear. Shinya chucked his drumsticks into the audience, & then he was gone. (There’s fodder for fanfics!) Die, Toshiya, & Kaoru did a bit of waving & gesturing to elicit more screams & whatnot (their way of signing off, I suppose), each chucked a few guitar picks into the crowd, then took their water bottles & started dowsing us. I got splashed by Toshiya & Die! Then they tossed their bottles into the crowd. Die’s went somewhere next to me, & half a dozen people wrestled for it. They’re either gonna cherish these things forever, or you’ll have seen them on eBay all this week.
As they were preparing to leave the stage, another Japanese cameraman appeared next to where Die was standing. They left, & he panned his camera over the crowd. I’m sure I’m on video somewhere, sweaty & poofy-haired (it does that when it’s wet, which is why I bought a straightening iron), clapping, devil-horning, & howling away. Maybe they’ll put it on their next tour DVD. I’ll keep you posted.
We hoped to get the boys out for one more stint, but it was about quarter to 11, & I suppose with their meet-&-greet duties, just generally being tired, & having to adhere to such a tight schedule (they had an off day on Sunday, then another 3 shows in a row to do), they couldn’t handle any more. I figured they could’ve done 2 hours (they certainly have enough material - it’s a 10 year old band), but we got a damn fine hour & a half from them. I guess it’s just that when you have a real good thing like that, you always want a little more. But once you see the techs dismantling the drum kit & the mic stand, it’s over. Oyasumi, boys. Arigato.
In Japanese, 乱 - Ran (rhymes with John) - translates to ‘chaos’, or ‘to fall into disorder’. That’s what getting out of there was like. There’s a bar & snack counter, so some people want to get drinks or food, & a coat check, so some people need to go to that. There’s the merchandising table, where I was headed, & the rest of the people are just plain trying to leave. Honestly, these converging lines, interweaving without any separate flow or direction, proved worse than the mosh pit!
A couple of guys from Bleed the Dream were standing on the side of the foyer, by the first table (where I pre-ordered the new Diru record), literally chucking 2-song sampler CDs at people. Eventually, I managed to get one of those. The first song, “Closer”, was definitely one that they sang during the show - I remembered the line, “And if you’re scared, you probably should be”. One guy was even signing the copies, but I wasn’t close enough to him to get mine done. I was focused on getting to that booth in the back, ‘cuz I at least wanted a shirt, but since I had my Xmas bonus money with me (which I blew in the space of about 2 minutes), I figured what-the-hell, I’d splurge on those DVD’s.
Got into minute conversations with Girl Who Passed Out, & another girl whose arm was in a sling. The latter was beginning to wish she’d trailed the boys to their tour bus instead of trying to brave this insane line. She said a friend of hers went to the Atlanta show, found their bus, & got “the shirt off Die’s back”. Then she said her b-day was coming up but her friend wouldn’t give her the shirt - but he was coming to visit her, & she planned to steal it.
Behind me, there were some more girls, & we began to chat - info was being passed through the line about a signed Diru poster, & that if you bought one (though I don’t even think it had their photo on it), you had a 1 in 4 chance of getting the signed one. Nice though it would have been to possess, I know what their signatures look like. I wanted a shirt & some scrummy screencaps! One of the girls was talking about other bands she’d seen - several J-rock ones included - & what that was like. She mentioned something about a MUCC show, which was a good deal calmer (I believe she, too, had been up front here at Diru, & got out before the going got really rough). She & at least one other girl had seen Diru at Family Values, but they said they only played half an hour or so, & in very bad weather - apparently, this was at Jones Beach (NY), which is on the water, & shows there are often marred by storms.
So they got their stuff & soon it was my turn. They were selling out of things, but there was plenty of what I wanted. Got a shirt. There were 2 different ones - a tour one with the dates on the back, & an “Agitated Screams of Maggots”-based one with the band’s name on the back. I got the tour one. They only had Large sizes left, which is fine - it’s a wee tiny bit on the long-ish side, but it’s nice & soft! (I hate hard shirts.) Also picked up the Average Fury DVD, an hour-long pv collection with making-of footage. Some of the clips I have, ‘cuz they came on the Withering DVD, but some I didn’t (though I had seen them before), including “Child Prey”, “Drain Away”, & “Kasumi”. (We watched it on Sunday - twice.) I also got the live DVD, Tour ‘05 - It Withers & Withers, a hundred-minute assemblage of clips from the Japanese tour supporting the release of Withering To Death. It’s really fab stuff! (It’s also where I learned about “G.D.S.” - watched it Monday night.) Although I kinda wish they’d have also brought along the 5 Ugly Kingdom concert DVD, to sell at our show. I’ve seen most of the clips from that (at work), & I’d love to have it - lots of older numbers on there, & yet another fab performance (they seem to have a lot of fun - during one number, I’m pretty sure it’s “24-ko Cylinders”, Kyo licks his mic stand)! But hey, anything they wanted to bring was just fine by me, ‘cuz everybody else had to buy these things as imports!
Came close to tripping over a few people getting out of that mess, & very nearly got in the wrong coat check line (there are a lot of closets in this place), but eventually I found my way to the right one. Mine was one of the only coats left. Ducked down near a side wall to put my coat on, & decided I didn’t want to carry my Diru shirt as well as the 2 DVDs & the BtD CD, so I put the shirt on over my dress. There were some people talking to a camera, I don’t know if it was an interview, something for whatever had been filming all evening, or what. By that point, I just wanted to make sure I got where I needed to go.
It seemed a touch warmer when I left than it had been standing in line. It may have been because the winds had died down, or because I had extra clothing on. Perhaps it was because I was still very warm from having been in the pit. Or maybe it was as I had begun to feel after being in that perilous queue earlier - perhaps I truly was invincible, impervious to all weather! Though it was probably because the winds had died down. In any case, I clutched my DVDs & CD (everything else had been crammed into my purse) & followed some goths across the street (I cross with others ’cuz I’m afraid I’ll screw it up if I do it alone & get run over), into the nearest subway station. Got my ticket & went to wait for the train, though my jellified brain cells nearly got me in trouble, ‘cuz I ended up on the Uptown subway platform instead of the Downtown! Fortunately, I remembered what the hell I was supposed to actually be doing, & went to the right spot. A few minutes later, I was back at Penn, where I made my way quite easily (again, thanks to the dry-run) to the waiting area. Called my grandpa, & while I was on the phone with him, the 11:56 started boarding on Track 4. Whoops, gotta go!
Sat across from a very nice woman on the train who’d had a rather scary experience coming into the City, when her train suddenly stopped - in the tunnel! No lights, no nothing. Just sitting there in the dark, not knowing why or what was going on. Luckily, it only lasted 5 minutes, but that can seem like hours when you’re freaked out of your mind. We spoke a little every now & then, mostly about which of the announcements coming over the speakers to designate the stops was clear, which was unintelligible, which stops we might actually be at, that sort of thing. She said good-night to me when we arrived at her stop. Then we arrived at mine.
The wind must’ve picked up again, because I wasn’t far from the doors on the train, & I could feel how cold it was each time we stopped. When we pulled into my station, my grandpa was waiting for me just outside the doors to the waiting area. Made my way with him to the car, with a bit of a shiver & a slightly frozen tongue (guess I wasn’t invincible after all), & began telling him pretty much what I’ve just told all of you. Tired & sore but tremendously excited, as soon as we got home I plunked myself down in front of the space heater in the living room & spent the next hour gushing about the evening; by then, it was pushing 3:00. Time for bed. Next day, called my mom & went over the entire story. Came up with a shorter version for Inez at work on Monday - bet you wish you had that version right about now, eh?
Anywho, now that I’ve been done with it for a few days, it’s like something I dreamt. If I didn’t have my cool crap, I’d question whether it really happened at all. Others have already had their own shows, their own experiences. Were they even half as wonderful as mine? I wish the boys endless amounts of luck & success with the tour & with the new album. I hope they do well enough to make coming here worth their while. And I hope they come back so I can see them again.
Only in warmer weather.
