Panic Channel oneman "Zenkoku maishin meguru waza" Tour Final
Takadanobaba Club Phase, November 9th

Bands in order: PANIC*ch, Panikku Channeru

ONEMAN!! Looking forward to this for weeks, Ren and I made sure to get to Phase the day the tickets went on sale, so we ended up with numbers 8 and 9, the lowest ticket numbers I've ever had for any show I've ever been to. I also got there a good hour early (I had nothing else better to do!) to make sure I wasn't late, as I always seem to be recently. So I stood around doing nothing while waiting for Ren. Panic had their van parked outside the livehouse, it was the first time I saw it. The windshield was filled up with Dragon Ball items and a multitude of other plush dolls. And their license place was... 829! I thought that was the best ever!!

Anyway, since we had the low ticket numbers, we were let in first, and were let by the front-row girls to be in the front row!! I was too happy. I stood right in the middle! Phase is a nice roomy livehouse with a big drink counter, slightly raised back level, perfect stage height. The only downside was the giant front line bar/wall. It came up to my chest, and was about 2 feet from stage. The front was covered in photocopied pictures of them and the CD covers, much like the oneman at Area but with a lot less effort put into it.

Through the waiting time they looped all their CDs, while we amused ourselves making shadow puppets on the curtain until PANIC*ch entered stage. The stage was covered in balloons, stuffed animals, and posters. Each member came out individually with a bunch of glow sticks. Takumi had on a long plaid shirt-dress with jeans underneath. It was a rather boyish look for him, but still quite cute. Tara had on the tightest jeans known to man. They were so tight he wore a plaid pleated miniskirt on top, because it would probably be a bit too much if we could see what was under there. He also had flame contacts (red with yellow center) and giant platform sneakers. Tsubacchi was wearing his regular acid-washed lace jeans and England tanktop (comon, change your clothes, man!). Kana was also habitual in his overalls and layered shirts. Meguru had on a blue tshirt, navy windbreaker, white Nike visor around his neck, and a little bag reading "Parental Advisory" hanging off his belt. He had redyed his blue hair. YAY!

Meguru, coming out on stage last, had a squeaky toy hammer in his hand, and upon entering didn't turn and face the audience and throw things like everyone else did. He turned to the drumset, yelled encouragingly into the microphone, then ran to the front of the stage... and hit me on the head with his toy hammer. I nearly died. XD

They started off with a new song! Followed by most of their discography, with of course 829 last. I was quite happy to hear 829 live after so long, it's one of the most fun live songs. During the usual patterned-mosh, he gave us instructions such as to jump, mosh backwards... stuff usually reserved for Kodoku mousou. When we jumped, everyone in the front line held hands, crouched down to the floor, and sprung up together. It was lots of fun. The front line girls were being really nice, trying to help us learn the complicated hand dances they made up and everything.

They were full of energy as usual... Speed-talking MCs at a barely-comprehendible level. There was another debate over height, and Takumi emerged from behind the drumset to stand back-to-back with Meguru. Meguru appeared a good 3 inches taller, to everyone's shock, Kana brought out the guitar as a level again. Meguru said it was probably his shoes though, so he took off his blue Nikes and stood back again... He was still taller! I knew that from the first time they did that. It was still pretty funny though. And then Meguru put his shoes back on and they resumed their antics. Tara was having adapter problems, and had their roadie following him around stage with duct tape the entire set.

We were being silly too, a lot of the hand dances require flying hand-hearts, and clapping, so on. Ren and I, a few times, made a big hand-heart together, and were clapping in each other's faces. Just being goofy and having fun. Tara usually plays with a default smirky-grin, but we managed to get him to stifle some laughter at our silliness. Ren said she also saw Meguru giggle.

1) New song
2) Sparking
3) Zassou
4) Date
5) Pink Cherry
6) Lovely
7) Kataomoi
8) Lovely
9) 829

At the end of the *ch set, they started tossing stuffed animals into the audience. They had bought them at various places throughout the tour, signed them, and were now distributing them. It was cute. Curtains up, I ran to the toilet, Ren got her drink, and we all sat on the floor waiting. They started playing their videos, although it was rather difficult to see the screen from the front row, as there was the big wall in front of us and we couldn't stand up since everyone else was sitting down. They played the Kesshousen Remix Nation video first, to which we squealed at. Only difference was, at the end when they usually show the crappy pixilated image of the band on a blue galaxy backdrop, they replace the image with the Kichi~su man (Tara in the black bodysuit) lying down on his side and making an obscene motion at his crotch! It was too funny!

Following that, they played the Iyagarase video, and then started with random live clips with Rouge playing over them. I came to realize they were all clips from each of the shows on the tour. You could guess where they were from the backdrops of some stages with the livehouse name on them, and they even had clips from the Halloween live! They went through a lot of clips, and then played the Zassou video. After that, the camera zoomed in on a band list, showing the order of bands playing... from Narciss the other day! This was a video, shot by Meguru with a handy-cam, in the dressing room of Narciss. With a soundtrack of 12012, as they were playing at the moment. They showed them and the roadie doing each other's hair and makeup, Meguru turning the camera around and sticking it in his eye, a funny back-and-forth silent part of half his face and Tara's face... general silliness. When that was over, they started the Introduction video. Almost at the end, they started blasting their instruments on stage, and everyone scrambled to stand up as the curtain raised and the video turned off.

Panikku Channeru was wearing their costumes I had only seen at their last oneman, the costumes we cosplayed at the Halloween event. It was pretty weird seeing them again, after examining them thoroughly for weeks in pictures. The staged had been gothed out with some ripped fabric and chains decorating the wall, drumset, and floor. (The fabric on the floor didn't last long, as Tara kept tripping on it). They started off with Nakigao Fetish, which I'm almost able to remember the melody of now. They followed with a few of their slower songs. Meguru had a hard time with Clear's lyrics, and seemed really angry at the end. He flew off stage as soon as he wasn't needed singing anymore. "Uhoh!" I said. Tsubasa looked warily over at Kana, and when they faded out their guitars uneasily, also took off after Meguru. I was really nervous at this point. Tara stood on stage in the dark, looking timid. After a few seconds of awkwardness, he creeped up closer to the front of the stage and smiled shyly. Everyone yelled "Taraa~~!!" and he smiled again, and started plucking a few notes on the bass. A spotlight shone on him, and he broke out into a rather impressive solo. Takumi suddenly joined in on this. The two of them played the most extraordinary duet I have ever heard! I wish my MD recorder had been working! It was just too cool! Throughout the song, one of them would pause while the other continued, and we'd yell the name of whoever stopped. They were adorable. And amazing!

When they were just about to finish, the other three members ran back on stage in their most recent velvet costumes, and turned the end of the duet into the beginning of Kako Wasure. So it was all planned, the other members weren't angry... It was just a well-staged costume change! (I hope). After much moshing in Kako, Meguru shooed Takumi and Tara off stage to get changed too, and he MCed until they came back.

But still, after that, the aura of the band was a little askew. I couldn't quite place it, but Meguru seemed to be having trouble with lyrics, Tsubasa was really withdrawn, and Kana didn't do much the whole live. They did of course put on an awesome show, but after seeing them this many times, I could tell something was not right. After playing Rouge, they went into Kodoku Mousou, which was crazy as always. It was especially an exciting (and painful) experience being in the front row. I had to either slightly crouch down, or completely jump up and support myself on the bar because of its height during stage rushing. Most of the other girls folded themselves over the bar, but I tended to hold myself up a little bit so I could still see the stage. Meguru took a lot of opportunities to show love to his fans... I think I got the closest I ever will to hugging Meguru! He kinda put two of us into a half-headlock, just put his arms around us. It's like hello Meguru armpit! He was being rather cute, messing up my hair a lot, and would just push himself into me (cuz I was #1 middle!). He's lucky I have self control cuz I could have poked his belly or smacked his velvet covered butt many times. Hahaha. >D

Sometime during this song, I was not paying much attention to anything else other than my blue velvet, Tsubasa's side of the stage had a little... problem. I don't know if it was him or Tara who cause it, but one of the large stage fixtures toppled over, hitting the amps, and it was big trouble. Roadies swarmed the stage, but whatever happened could not be fixed. After the song ended, Tara and Tsubasa stood looking sheepish while the other members ran off stage, until some roadies put the black curtain up (which doesn't cover much, you can still see feet) and we waited, confused. But everyone played it off like an encore, and when all the damage was repaired from what we could see, started up an encore chant, and they returned.

They played Iyagarase, which sent everyone back into insanity. During this mosh, I held myself upright with one arm and didn't lean over, so I was just like "rar!" *fist* at the stage. After a few loops of that, Meguru who had been simply standing and yelling, took it as a challenge of some sort, and leaned back into the audience between me and the girl to my right in some form of moshing of his own. He was basically sitting backwards on the bar that we were leaning forwards on. As the whole audience tried to rape him at once, I had his thigh in my face! Climbing back on stage, he then ripped his blouse open like some porn star (popping buttons!), spewed his blue yogurt and smeared it all over his chest. Wooboy! A couple seconds later I caught him fishing a blue-covered hair out of his mouth, and looking at it in confusion.

They ended the encore with a new song, which appeared to still be in its rehearsal stage. You could tell it was brand new, because they still hadn't gotten it together with everything worked out. Meguru did a complicated dance to it, which most of us didn't succeed in imitating. Bad call on their part, I think... It would have been fine in the middle of the set, or even just before Iyagarase, but ending with a new not-well-rehearsed song is just not a good idea.

Regardless, they all put their instruments down and roadies appeared bearing lots of toys, dumping them on stage and running away. We were instructed to all join hands and jump together... always cute. Then the members proceeded to throw more stuffed animals, some ping-pong Dragon Balls, toy rattles, etc. Meguru produced a blue bear last, kissed it, and tossed it out. I didn't catch anything because most of the stuff they threw pretty far back. Then they waved and left stage. I could sense a sort of sadness at the end, especially from Tsubasa. From reading his diary entry a few days later, he was apparently pretty upset over something, saying the live proved they were still an amateur band. I don't believe it though, because regardless of things going wrong, they still did their best, didn't give up, and it was tons of fun like always. (Oh god that sounds so Japanese). I think it was their most fun live to date.

1) Nakigao fetish
2) Love Letter
3) Kuuhaku
4) Clear
5) Tara and Takumi duet
6) Kako wasure
7) Rouge
8) Kodoku mousou

Encore
8) Iyagarase
9) New song

Check Cure magazine's report and pictures in Volume 17! [December 2004, Phantasmagoria cover]