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January 11th, 2005 at Meguro RockMayKan Bands in order: Cuartet, PANIC*ch, Marusa, Gift This event actually had 8 bands playing. However, I had an evening class that I couldn't skip, but because of the event's nature knew that Panic would be playing near the end. So even though it started at 4, I'd still be able to see them if I left directly after class. I was still really paranoid I would miss them, though, and took extreme measures such as doing a super flying businessman-like leap onto the train with closing doors, and accidentally cheated the train fare in Meguro because my Suica card didn't register correctly and I had no time to consult with the station officers. But anyway I got to Maykan at almost 7. Ren was sick and didn't come with me, so I had an extra reservation... which is usually bad, some live houses get mad about it, and I've heard rare cases where they make you pay for the extra tickets. When I got to the yoyaku table the manager of Mission Music Factory working the reservation table was like "What band do you have reservations with? Oh wait, Panic Channel right? Krys, right?" ....I officially go see Panic too much when Mission Man knows me by name! So I was like "Yeah but my friend is sick I'M SORRY!!" and he's like "Oh you're alone? No problem!! :D" That was so cool of him. MayKan was PACKED. Packed packed packed like rush hour train, what was going on!? I walked in as some band was walking off stage. There was no room to move, I just got knocked around until I found a spot in the back I could put my bags down in. Ridiculous! MayKan really needs to take the damn seats out!! It turns out I came in right in time for Cuartet! HOORAY!! (That is sarcasm by the way). This would make my third time seeing this awful band. Although I must say their awfulness is growing on me. The first time I saw them they were downright shit. The second time I saw them they were just bad. Today their tone-deaf backup singing and chubby vocalist's facial tics were almost endearing. Or maybe I'm just too mesmerized by looking up the bassist's shorts. Brainwashing, I tell you!! Their set was not much different than their previous ones I've seen. Same costumes, and I'm pretty sure the same songs too. I'm beginning to involuntarily learn one of the dumb dances the girls do to a song they play every time. Still enjoy looking up the bassist's shorts. But they are still a crappy band. Then I get confused because I see all these girls in handmade Marusa t-shirts run to the front, yet PANIC*ch's music is playing. I go to the front anyway... where I find the reason it's so packed... the damn catwalk box was there! So there was no room up front, just like at the oneman. And all the room was taken up by Marusa fangirls. Usually, (I'm talking 99% of lives here) fans will switch places with the next band's fans so everyone gets up front for who they want to see. Not these girls! They were all like, 12 years old, except one girl who was 6 ft tall and stood right in front of me. I honestly did not recognize any Panic fans, which made me even consider a possibility that they were playing Panic's music for no reason and Marusa was next. But they weren't! The Panic frontline girls negotiated with some Marusa fans to plant themselves in the middle of the seats (which is not in the front, but a good view of stage), but the rest of the Panic fans were missing in action. Which left about... hmm... three of us at the front, out of 20~30 girls, that actually liked Panic. Way to suck! Some girls saw me craning my neck around before the set and asked me if I wanted to move up, and I said yeah and thanked them. At least they knew better. I still wasn't very close though, still in the aisle. Impossible to be up close with the box there anyway! They all were wearing typical outfits, except one huge difference: Meguru was wearing RED! He had a big red hoodie that said "US Postal Service" on it. So cheesy! Still no hair dyeing, so the celery colored streak remained. I can't really remember what anyone else was wearing, because I'm writing this too long afterwards. It was a short set, but a fun one anyway. They played Kimi to and One's life, which are really great. He sings so emotionally. But frustrating not being able to do much dancing and such, especially for 829. No one stage-rushed even in the tamest way. I think the members noticed the lack of Panic fans up front too, and there was no Meguru head petting. They didn't interact too much, although Saburo did waltz out on the catwalk like he owned the place. During the 829 member introduction, Meguru said for everyone to call Saburo "Sabu-chan". At every show they play 829 at, they do this repeating thing: first they'll repeat this loop of sakuing/arm thrusting/stage rushing, and then Meguru will say something in place of the "panikku panikku" line on CD, and always add "tondekoi" (stagerush...literally "come here by jumping") to the end. Usually he'll say the place they're at (like "Shizuoka Shizuoka, tondekoi, OI!), or he'll just babble, and his most frequent utterance is "ushiro no Panikko mo tondekoi, OI!" ("Panic fans in the back, come here too"). Then he'll start the member introduction during the loops, and we'll saku while yelling the member's name, and for the rushing part he'll say like "Kana tte Kana tte, tondekoi, OI!" but he mixed it up and during Saburo's intro he was saying "ushiro no Sabu-chan tondekoi" (so all you Sabu-chan's in the back!) and giggling at himself for the silly mistake. Anyway, I was really happy to see them even though the atmosphere was off. Because no one in the front was a Panic fan, none of them knew what to do or what to expect! So at the very beginning of 829 when Meguru says "ue ni tonde kudasai!" (JUMP!)... I was like, the only one that did! And no one could do the Kataomoi dance!! It was pretty sad. But I did the dances to my best, and after the set the three girls that let me in front of them were staring at me in awe. I guess they didn't expect the crazy gaijin to actually know what's going on more than they did! 1) 829 Service After that all the girls stayed in the front just like I suspected, damn Marusa fans. Marusa was pretty good though. They were wearing the costumes seen on the website and everywhere, nice black suit-outfits trimmed in kimono fabric branded with their logo in white. The vocalist is really short and crazy. Ryuuji is extremely tall. They were good, well-rounded performers, but not knowing their songs and everything leaves me with not much to say. Then it was Gift, and holy jesus they are POPULAR!! They're such a new band and none of the members are from any popular bands before so it was really shocking! The whole population of MayKan stood up for them! But I can see why: they are GOOD!!! They have nice costumes, nice performance, but their music is REALLY GOOD!! Their costumes also go with the black and kimono fabric design, although much more traditional looking than Marusa's. Gift has five members, three of which were in the first Japanese band I ever saw live, Demaria! Vocalist Hadzuki, guitarist Shinno, and drummer Hiro. The bassist is Saburo, who has been playing support for Panic, and was in Tsubasa's old band (Cynical Biscuit). The other guitarist is Haru, I don't know where he came from. Hadzuki is ugly as sin, he's a total drag queen but in the cutest way possible. He had tons of glittery red eye makeup on. He is also soo dorky and loves touching the fans, he just was smiling nonstop the whole time. He'd just grab everyone's hands, smiling and waving and was so damn happy. Saburo is totally not shy anymore, when we walked out on stage he pulled his shirt open, baring his chest. And wow, he can really move on stage. Shinno had big blue and white yarn hair extentions which were quite pretty. Haru is another contestant for the most emaciated man alive... I thought he was gonna crack in two when he swung his guitar around. I swear his thighs are like the circumference of my wrists! He's really disturbingly skinny. It was Shinno's birthday so Saburo yelled to the 2nd floor to queue the music and they played a corny Happy Birthday tune over the sound system, bringing out a cake and being dorky, popping those streamer things. So they played a long set and it was lots of fun, their music is pretty and hard and just good and awesome. This live was a commemoration/pre-sale of their first CD, which I would have loved to buy if I had the money on me. The actual sale date was 2 weeks later, so I had to wait to buy it! |