October 28th, 2004 at Motoyawata Route 14
"Fairy Tale"

Bands in order: Raysphere, Tokyo Heroes, Kaede, Benom

We were severely late to this live because Ren was being held up by a bunch of crazy fashion students in Ebisu. We were expecting to be an hour late, but an hour after opening we were still on the train to Chiba. Benom gives cheap tickets if you reserve through them, and I was told to call when I got to the live house so they could hand over the tickets. While on the train, Yuu emailed me, "when are you coming??" as I had told him we would be a little late but this was LATE. I told him we'd be there in 15 minutes... When we got to Rt14 the staff girl was like "Who are your reservations for?" and we said Benom, but there weren't any names on the list and you could see her get worried and look about to start running around in circles. Instead she started yelling for someone. There was one of those split country doors behind her and she opened the top part and Benom's guitarist Haiji popped out hilariously on cue with no eyebrows. Then their tiny little roadie ran around and gave us the tickets. I guess I was supposed to call but me being phone-phobic assumed they'd be ready since I told him... Oops.

So we had missed two bands but it wasn't much of a loss considering it was amateur night. Although to my surprise, all the bands we saw were REALLY good! It was pretty crowded, as far as Rt14 goes... still probably about 50 people but it seemed like a lot considering the size of the place. Half of the audience was other bands and the band guy's friends, that was funny... They were all running around trying to get everyone to fill out their enquettes. One of the Tara-wannabe girls from last time was there, but she was being front row for ALL the bands (I doubt she was a fan of all 6 of them honestly) and sakuing obnoxiously and moshing people who didn't want to be moshed.

First band we saw was Raysphere, who were a 5-boy group with decent effort put into their look (a couple were attractive too), with punkish Putumayo-style outfits. The bassist was definitely the show stealer of the group, cute and charismatic. The vocalist was weird looking and had a small head, and his red contacts didn't help. They had the dorkiest MC ever because all the members except the vocalist were too shy to talk at all, and the vocalist couldn't remember their live schedule, so they were all whispering back and forth... soo silly. It was like the game Telephone on stage. The shimote guitarist just looked like he was gonna cry. He seemed to be trying to perfect the tough visual look, but failed because he just looked scared. I don't remember much about their music, but I can assure you it was stereotypical but not bad garage-band visual rock. They played 4 songs.

Tokyo Heroes were very proud of the fact that they have a gaijin guitarist... he looks foreign and they said he was from Hawaii but I don't think he spoke English. He was a really good guitarist though. They were an older, more metal band that didn't seem to fit the roster of tonight. But they were talented, and were selling a CD for 100yen!

KAEDE is also very good and ridiculously cute. They were probably the best costumed band of the night, and had people dancing. We were up near the front for them, and something about their costumes reminded me of Antic Cafe, but I honestly can't remember much besides they were cute and probably better than Antic Cafe.

Once it was Benom's turn (they were playing last) we went up to the front, and then all these other people started filling up the front row and nonchalantly pushing us out. Some big dorky guy who we decided is Chloe's gay lover was right in the middle and Chloe kept petting him. The girl next to him who shouldered me out of the front row didn't move AT ALL. Christ people, it's Rt14, there's room enough for everyone in the front row.

Anyway they were super fun. They were wearing suits instead of their mechanics jumpsuits. Chloe had on this really hot pinstripe asymmetrical suit. He looks SO GOOD in it. He's like a mini Yuuki... not mini as in height wise because he's pretty tall himself, so a younger Yuuki I guess. He had one set of fake eyelashes on and it was HOT! Yuu had a blue blouse on and two fake lip piercings, gawd he's just so adorable. One of their songs, Sei Strip, is like super happy bouncy mosh! Everyone jumps around in circles and runs into each other in a playful way. And it was so fun!! The only bad thing to happen was damn Tara girl in our bouncing mosh, slammed me in the ear, causing my top piercing to pull and explode apart in my ear, leaving a plastic shard. Oh god it hurt.

They played a new song which apparently the roadie had written (he was also standing next to me and was more into their set than anyone else, so cute!) and said they'd be recording for a new CD all next month. Although I wouldn't be able to see them in forever, the new CD announcement was good. Yay!! Apparently the CD we had been given at the last live was now considered "rare", and if you wanted a copy, you had to beat Iori in a game of jan-ken to be able to get one. So after their set, the members crowded around and various girls tried to beat Iori to get the CD. They're so damn cute!

Afterwards the live house started cleaning up and shoved everyone out as soon as possible. Yuu came up to us and thanked us and the rest of the bands were like FILL OUT ENQUETTE PLEEEASE T___T and then we got kicked out. We stood in the hallway deciding what to do, and this little crazy blonde girl started peering at us around the corner, and then told me she saw us at the CD store Like an Edison once. She was really weird and we were trying to make friends with her but she was just... weird. She said (to another girl) she was staying there to "nampa" (or pick someone up) and we thought that was pretty funny. We ended up staying outside to demachi (wait around outside to talk to them) and had a lot of fun. :D My love for Benom grows exponentially!