I’m with you here–foreign VK fans simply don’t know whats popular, and fwiw the bands that do the biggest numbers don’t tend to be popular in the west. VK fans love the looks that come with darker, heavier, or more oshare bands. We love the dramatic, campy bands that serve looks and wild wacky music because its so novel to us as western listeners. With the exception of some bands from the 90s (e.g., malice mizer, deg), these bands almost never tend to sell well. The bands that tend to do the best in JP feel more j-rock crossover in quality. Case in point, zigzag–started off generic japonesque visual style, softened in sound with increased popularity and as they merged closer to mainstream rock. SiD, DEZERT, and arguably a few more have similar trajectories. Streams don’t mean much of anything since thats only how VK has gone in maybe the past 3-4 years (and barely).
Foreign VK fans love also bands that are deeply deeply irrelevant in JP, case in point Rentrer En Soi who never really sold well in JP but managed to tour Europe back in the day.
yes! thank you!! - I don’t have the breakdown visible in my region.
my takeaway is that Kaya appeals to both hot nordic papis and hot turkish trade in the South (I’m gonna pretend it’s not sad fujoshis in both places for a sec orz) and deviloof are probably missing out on 10k streamers from Zheleznovodsk ever since spotify left russia. I wish them luck with that tokuma deal…
vidoll were on par with early major era of the gazette popularity-wise while they lasted.
top UCP bands (which is just vidoll and mago) pulled in major numbers, but idk if they carried on with that after graduating.
Thinking about going to that Mucc concert tomorrow, still not sold out.
Do you think I have to stand in the back as far as possible from the band? 
I really have no idea how it works, but that site linked in the top makes it very easy to purchase tickets.
well, my guess is that all close~medium distance tickets were sold for FC members… but a houyoku/gokusai based setlist and at the Hibiya theater must be a very worthy experience…but im not impartial at all with them 
Just consider who knows when will they ever play most of those songs again live.
Thanks guys… I guess you arent a big fan of those albums. I like them for sure, Tsubasa for example is probably their best song all time.
Sorry if i derailed the thread a bit.
the opposite, like them quite a lot and bring me memories of the first times i saw them in Europe when they went from the very first times. if i was in tokyo id def go 
. Plus attend a live at that location is something in my bucket list.
PLUNKLOCK, A (ACE), Anli pollicino, I-ai-, LOKA, ADAMS, OROCHI, Kana, el-ethnic legist-, Black:list, Nega,…
There’s definitely a huge list of pretty much irrelevant bands that managed to tour Europe more or less extensively (at least from 2006-2012ish)
LMAO I sometimes get live report flashbacks of a russian normie hunny running into her french concert unprepared, sis did not expect what she had heard and had seen in there, her mind and her wig left the venue deeply traumatized she paid for that
queen kana crawled so billie eilish could run tbh…
I think Deviloof can be judged according to two scenes. VK scene or Deathcore scene.
For a Deathcore band, these guys did it, they should be THAT thing. But VK wise i suppose they are lacking a litte.
I am using “should” if its about the deathcore scene, mainly because i don’t really feel they really are integrated or belong into that scene.
What Jigsaw mentioned there is pretty on point and there was a interview with Bitoku from Sailing Before the Wind, where he was asked if metalcore artist have a venue they look up to or want to perform in, like normal metal bands have with the budokan, and bitoku answered that there is nothing similar in the metalcore scene (and with that extended to the deathcore area)
If i ever find that interview again, i will link it of here.
A part that i am missing from everyone here is that, no one mentioned the power of the simps. XD
Fangirls and Fanboys can be weird af (i know it, because i am a fangirl myself) but the thing is, its often especially those that will keep talking about a band.
And if you find people talking about a band and mentioning, how oh so great they are, you might get a wrong impression at how popular they are.
This reminds me of how FANATIC CRISIS was one of the most famous bands of the 90’s. And I have yet to find a wester fan of them. I haven’t even heard a song of them myself
Mask and Marble are really good! I would recommend giving them a little look if you’re ever interested
Kind of similar to the massive success of Penicillin and Glay in Japan. Just a minor blip in the foreign fandom, though. In the early/mid 2000s, you had a decent number of people who at least knew of those bands, but that kind of died out by late 2000s.
This is one of the reasons that so many ppl equate VK with Jrock as a whole. It’s simply easier to find more people discussing VK than other things. You don’t really see a lot of centralizd discussion of non-vk anymore…and when i say centralized, i mean like in a general gathering place for Jrock fans…these days you usually have go to a band’s youtube comment section or social media to see talk of non-vk…and those platforms usually aren’t the best for full-fledged discussion.
We’ve had this convo many times tho, so you get the point.
I think a huge blame here goes towards the simps XD
When i go to twitter i can find people talk about stuff that goes past the music, about the members being “oh so sexy” to the clothes to the makeup etc.
That kind of talk is in the end exposure towards a band.
And the same goes for all female rock and metal bands, because i noticed they are pretty popular and people talk about them and yes it not always music related.
Now, i cant tell this part for the whole Jrock scene, maybe Cat can add.
But you wont find me talking on twitter, instagram or anywhere about bands i like that is not music related and yes, that means i talk far less about certain bands because of it.
Also there a thing, certain bands attract different kind of costumers/ fans.
To stay with the same example bands.
Deviloof attracts a complete different kind of fans than ZigZag do.
Whenever I get logged out of youtube and see the youtube page uninfluenced by my interests I always get to see someone I’ve never heard of getting billions of views in days. So I watch it, and decide to log back into my bubble.
Dude i like both taka got skill and kyo is a metal god
Im not companing 
I attended as well and didn’t note that it was particular empty. I can’t tell if it was completely full but I think I would remember if it was very empty.
I wonder if this was the same post VKloner mentioned. I call bullshit.
Btw in 2015 Gaze played their 13th anniversary at Budokan. Over 14k capacity. It was packed!
it probably is the same post…
I also later remembered that gazette played saitama arena twice, during dim tour and later once they signed with sony, so I think it was a hater post going viral for a while kind of moment. I wish I could read it again though, but I don’t even go on tumblr anymore.
Coming back to this topic because I was looking into bands that will have lives when I am in Japan.
Raymei have like 1500 followers on insta and 3250 on Youtube but they seem still popular enough to have planed their 2nd anniversary tour with 3 lives and spring tour with 11 lives. And if I understsnd correctly the lives are even free (I suppose the club still requires you to buy drinks, tho). But how is that sustainable if they are not somehow popular. Or is this a way of trying to gain exposure more than creating revenue, since they are relatively new (2021).
Nevertheless, I assume instagram or youtube are not reflective of scene popularity.