2004.10.27 at Ootsuka Red Zone
Sephiroth Presents

Bands in order: Link, Allegory Pill, Detail, Kanzaki, L

I went to this live with Inertia, so I could see my dear beloved Yuuki. Apparently the live tonight was very heavy in connections to Lareine, Sephiroth being their ex-roadie's band. We were early and spent a lot of time standing in the stairwell. Red Zone is a pretty nice place, the oddest thing about it being a full sized motorcycle hanging from the ceiling in the lobby entrance. Kind of unsettling when you walk under it. They had a big bar and seats in the lobby, and inside it was like a mini-AREA. It had three levels, separated by bars, but the general size of the place was smaller and the stage was lower. We stood in the middle level for the first few bands.

Link (or Rinku in hiragana) was first, and they were just too cute for their own good! They all had checkerboard oufits, adorable music, and a keyboardist who actually played it! He had a key-tar, but mid-set switched to an actual keyboard. They had a bunch of schoolgirl fans that were just crazy over them, and they climbed over the bars to sit on the stage! They played bouncy music, the keyboard put to good use with happy piano melodies. Of course with a name like Link, it's nothing short of impossible to find any information on them. A shame! I'd love to see them again.

Next was Allegory Pill, and lived up to their super omfg visual reputation. They were all visual woosh, dyed hair and vinyl and hard visually music. Good music. Bad costumes. BADDD costumes. Wooboy.

NEXT! (Sorry Allegory fans, I don't remember anything else!) Third band was Detail, they were quite good and quite cute. Super dorky, which just makes them cuter... except the guitarist who was manly yet had his hair in pigtails, who was also quite chunky and flapped like an autistic kid (no, like... seriously.) They had crap drawn all over their faces in eyeliner which was silly but endearing. The vocalist started one song by crouching on the stage and screaming like someone was doing something unmentionable to him, screaming "II KIMOCHII" ("that feels so good!") and other obscene things. They also had schoolgirls jump the bar and sat on the stage... at one point, trapping the guitarist, who had gone to the front and stood on the monitors... they took up the whole stage! During the MC, the vocalist forgot the live schedule and the fans had to remind him!

Kanzaki, ex-Marry an Blood, was performing solo next. I went up to the front to watch him. WOW is he hot. He was in an all-white suit with long blonde hair, and had a backup band of guys all in black suits. They were very serious, Kanzaki sang emotionally and was... nice to look at. He's very tall and, like I said, attractive. He actually reminded me a lot of Yuuki from when ElDorado did the suits thing. His music was very pretty and entrancing. He still has the same vibrato as he did in Marry an Blood, and it made me all nostalgic.

Finally Yuuki's band L was next. They were just a session band at this point, but soon announced they were continuing as a real band called Glamourous Honey. I was expecting/hoping for him to come out looking like Kanzaki did, all super sexy in a suit. But I got quite a shock, as I stood starry-eyed at the front of the stage. Yuuki's trying to be badass! He had on one of those silk gangster-type jackets with intricate embroidery on the back, his hair styled into a faux mohawk, and sunglasses on. But still unbelievably hot in the way only Yuuki can be. The rest of the band was dressed street casual, two of them were from New Sodmy which was apparently a shock to New Sodmy fans but I'm clueless about such things. Aya (guy from New Sodmy) was wearing a Dir en grey hat. But I had my attention focused 500% on Yuuki so I really didn't see what the other guys looked like. I didn't take my eyes off him the whole time. The band was really good, actually... Very different than what I expected, it was almost punk, indie-rock type of music. Definitely not visual kei, but it was GOOD!

The only downside was that Yuuki was trying to play guitar. Now, I admire him and am sure he's a great guitarist but Yuuki's a vocalist. He doesn't need to be anything else. He just played rhythm, which wasn't totally vital, hell, you couldn't even hear it most of the time. But occasionally he would get distracted looking down at the guitar and move his mouth away from the mic. I know he's probably just doing it to try something new and different, so I'll forgive him for now... as long as he eventually realizes it's detracting from his beautiful voice and either learns how to do both at once, or put the guitar down.

Yuuki ;______________;

I left before Sephiroth came on, even though they were the ones my money went to.