Got back from 2 weeks in Tokyo last week. It was a great 2 weeks to go because a bunch of my favorite bands happened to be playing. Took in a total of 7 lives. ALL the bands I went to see were fantastic, and other bands on the bill at a couple of the shows ranged from cool, to interesting, to sucky.
Deathpair - Rock Maykan 11/12. I originally booked my trip for 2 days after this show but when I found out they were playing on 11/12 I changed my travel arrangements so I could see them. Extremely glad I did as they were killer! Great band. Was bummed though that their drummer wasnât with them this show. I think the drummer that played this show may have been Loa formerly of DazzingBAD. Had heard he was doing some gigs with Deathpair and it looked like it might have been him. There were 6 other bands on the bill and I wasnât familiar with any of them. There were a couple of surprisesâŚ2 were female VK idol groupsâŚKonton Shoujo and yamikumo. I was expecting to hate both but honestly they were a lot of fun. Itâs interesting because there was a small group of maybe 5-10 dudes that were there to see them. So when they each went on, the audience of 98% girls that were there to see the other bands cleared out and it was just these dudes going nuts in front of the stage. yamikumo had a couple songs I actually liked so I bought the âdemo CDâ that they were selling at their merch table. I was however disappointed to discover itâs just 1 track and without vocals. Yet it came with a little lyric sheet that lists credits for 2 tracks. Not sure what that was about but I totally wasted the 1000y on it. None of the other bands on the bill floated my boat. One I was really disappointed by because their picture on the chirashi was of a medical experiment looking guy wrapped in bloody gauze, which is totally my kind of thing. But they were just a pretty sucky punk band actually. Nothing special, and no bloody gauze 
. The crowd other than all the dudes there to see the girl groups was the typical 98% female fan girls situation that you see at these things. Other than me there was one other older guy (Japanese) there to see Deathpair and was rocking out to them, and a female American expat girl there to see them also. Besides the Demo CD I also bought a Deathpair T Shirt.
Schwarz Stein - Higashi-Koenji 20000V 11/14. Amazing! This was a very small club and the show took a bit to sell out, which I was really surprised by. Lots of foreigners in attendance at this one. I overheard some of them talking about how they travelled to Japan specifically to see this show. Kayaâs vocals were amazing. He was loud in the mix which I appreciated. I donât have much to say other than it was great and as I stood there watching them I kept reminding myself holy cow I canât believe Iâm standing here seeing this! After all these years of being a fan. And experiencing Kayaâs voice live in a tiny club was just something else! Really great night. Bought a T Shirt, a couple cheki, and an Acrylic Kaya.
Kaijin Nijuu Mensou - Hatsudai Doors 11/15. My favorite live of the bunch. Just a phenomenal band that put on a great show. Makoto was great, Ken was great, and the backup band was great. The fan participation was exceptionally good with these guys. They sell these clear acrylic knives that glow red and seemed like everyone in the audience had one. After the show I asked the merch table lady if they had any for sale and sadly they did not. But I bought a T Shirt and some Cheki, and merch lady enthusiastically told me she was glad I was there (I was the only foreigner at that show) and she seemed genuine. Really great night. This was a 2-Man with Heidi and KNM had played first which I was thankful for. I split before Heidiâs set.
Kokusyoku Sumire - Tokyo Tower 333 Club 11/16. This one happened on my birthday. Another instance of pinching myself during the show because this is one I REALLY never thought Iâd see live. Very special night. Bought a bunch of stuffâŚ2 CDâs that have been long out of print and impossible to find but there they were at their merch table. Also got an armband, a couple acrylics, and 2 photo sets. Audience was a lot of older people actually. A more mature refined crowd that seemed to be into classical music, although some of them were wearing goth-lolli type t-shirts of some type etc. and there were a couple ladies decked out in period costumes.
Femme Fatale - Shibuya Rex 11/21. Amazing show, Kaya was once again killer. However, his vocals were lower in the mix this time which made me extra glad I had seen the Schwarz Stein show. More mixed crowd at this one, girls and guys and skewed older. Kind of a general concert going crowd. No merch purchased, only a few CDâs for sale that I already had.
Asagi - Shibuya Rex 11/23. This was my 2nd time seeing Asagi live. The first and only other time was seeing D in 2004. He sang great and had a great bad which included Hiroki on drums. This was part of his Another Me tour, so he was wearing his Another Me rock outfit. This was a more rock-band centric show. I donât know what heâs been doing recently at his lives over the last year or two but Iâm assuming his shows have leaned more in the rock-meets-period-music direction with the period themed costumes and instrumentation etc? But this show was full on rock/metal. Bought a bunch of stuffâŚthe blu-ray version of the new single, t shirt, photo sets etc. I bought enough that I qualified for an after-show â2 Shotâ which is a brief meet n greet and 2 cheki photos. This was interesting. If you havenât done one of these what it is is Asagi was standing behind a partition and they bring people over to meet him 1 at a time and they take a cheki photo of him posing with you. I got 2 photos as I had a â2 Shotâ. I opted to have them take the pics of just him without me in the photo because honestly I would ruin the photos by being in them lol. In hindsight I wish I had done one of them with me in the shot, because Asagi posed the exact same way for both my photos, so it looks like 2 identical shots, but oh well. I also wish I had said something a little more meaningful to him, such as thanks for all the years of great music, but instead all I said was ânice to meet you, great showâ lol. Something else kind of cute was when I walked around the partition and he sees me, he kinda laughed and his reaction was like a wtf??, because the people that get these photo op things are all women, then suddenly around the corner walks a middle aged white American dude. So it was a cute and funny moment. Another observation was these guys are real sports for doing this. Iâm sure that after a show all they want to do is get out of their sweaty outfits and unwind, but they have to get all freshened up and go back out and do this. I know they make $$ from it, and itâs probably somewhat genuinely cool to meet fans sometimes, but itâs such an assembly line situation Iâm imagining that most of the time itâs a drag and theyâd just rather not. Crowd was similar to the Femme Fatale crowd, a general concert going crowd, both men and women and skewed a little older. I was the only foreigner, maybe because tickets were a little harder to get for non-japanese as you needed a japanese phone number. Had to go through a proxy guy to get mine.
DazzlingBAD, Ruiza Band, Lyrica - Zirco Shinjuku 11/25. Final live and last day in Tokyo. Was REALLY excited for this one. DazzlingBAD is one of my favorite current bands, and have also liked the 2 CDâs that Ruiza Band has released thus far. Plus, was looking forward to Lyrica. I hadnât seen or heard much of them, but have liked what Iâve heard. Lyrica was great, really dug them. Iâm hoping they release something other than digital only releases. I buy physical media, I donât do downloads. But yeah, great band. Ruiza band was also great. Seth is the vocalist, and Tsunehito from D was on bass. Not sure who the drummer is but he was good. Really kick ass set. Only negative was Ruizaâs wig. Was kind of the elephant in the room for me, like why is he wearing that?? Doesnât look as bad in photos, but trust me, live in person it donât look so great. But they sounded great, Seth has a great voice, and Tsunehito was especially cool and kick ass. OK now I need to talk about DazzlingBAD. So keep in mind that before, during, and after the show I was and am a fan, so if I sound like Iâm being less than glowing about them, itâs not because Iâm a hater. Out of all the bands I specifically went to see, DazzlingBAD was the one I was looking forward to the most, and ended up being the one I liked the least of the bunch. And mainly just because the other lives were all so phenomenally outstanding and great that it was a crazy high bar. They werenât bad by any means, far from it, but I wouldnât call the DazzlingBAD performance that night âgreatâ as in âgreatâ on the same level as the Kaijin Nijuu Mensou or Schwarz Stein shows Iâd just seen. Iâd rate it at just one small step below that and call it âexcellent+â. Itâs vocals were interesting. I was curious what his vocals would be like live. I was speculating most of it would be tracks and I was right. When they first came out the pre-recorded vocals kicked in late for some reason and it was just his live voice for the first few lines, and it was thin and shaky. Then when the vocal tracks kicked in everything sounded like the recordings. The gutteral screaming parts appears to not really be his voice maybe at all from what I could tell. The volume on those parts was double that of his regular lead vocals so you could really tell, as in yeah that doesnât sound like itâs actually him lol. And he also turned his head covered his face with his hair during those parts. But for the duration of the set 100% of the vocals sounded and seemed non-live. There could have been some of his real voice coming through the mic, which would account for the croaky voice at the beginning of the 1st song, but the whole thing came off as a fake lypsynch performance. Iâm not going to fault him/them for this. If youâve heard their recorded material you canât exactly go in expect a strong vocal performance when seeing them live. Their recordings donât sport strong vocals lol. But it was kind of a small surprise at least to see just how fake it was. IMO they should lower the vocals in the mix more, make it less obvious. Let the volume of the band drown the vocals out a bit. Like I said though not deducting points for that as their vocal situation is what it is. Performance-wise, iT was fine and looked amazing, but the band could have been more animated. The guys basically just stayed glued to their spots, and displayed minimal rocking out. This was just a short 30-ish minute set though. Iâm curious what theyâre onemans are like. Musically they were tight and played the songs well. Loa is no longer with them. The guy playing drums wore a black hood with a goatâs skull mask, which was cool. Merch purchasedâŚthey had 4 different T Shirt styles and I bought 1 of each + 2 cheki books (like I said I AM a fan). Also bought 2 Lyrica T Shirts. Ruiza only had 2 CDâs which I already had, so no Ruiza merch purchased. Oh yeah, there were 2 other bands on the bill that did not float my boat. Crowd was mostly just the usual crew of girls. Besides myself there were a few other foreigners there, a couple German peeps, and a mom and her son that Iâm guessing were British from their accents.
Really great trip, my first trip over there since 2006. I was lucky that all the tickets other than the Asagi ticket were easy and hassle-free to get. I used to go to Tokyo a lot back in the 90âs and early 2000âs and saw a bunch of great lives back in the day, so it was great to be back and do it again.