January 13th, 2005 at Meguro RockMayKan
XecsNoin 4 year anniversary live

Bands in order: Spell Eden, Ganeisha, VIVE, Smoky Flavor, Bang-Doll, XecsNoin

After school I went to MayKan for the second time this week. But mmm... an empty MayKan is a happy wonderful Maykan! I came in 20 minutes after opening time and got a seat in the middle section!!! For every other live I've ever been to there, I've never gotten a seat in the middle... ever. Even coming in at opening. I really missed Gio band lives... the atmosphere is SO different compared to what I've been used to lately! It's really noticeable. The fans like each other, everyone gets along, there are no bitchy girls in pink miniskirts doing stupid hand dances, or obnoxious schoolgirls moshing you purposefully to cause pain... like wow, people are actually here because they like the bands' music and not because they want to get in their pants? You can really just tell the difference. The best part: no groupies, no name squealing, and no sakuing!!!! My god, lives like they should be.

It was a genuine Gio blast from the past night! XecsNoin was hosting the event, for their 4th anniversary (their official anniversary was the day prior). All the bands playing in the event were former Gio bands, and bands they were good friends with and have known forever, with Hoshimaru of Planet Gold as an MC. All of which bands I've seen multiple times because of Gio (except Spell Eden), so it was nice in that aspect too. Between sets, Hoshimaru interviewed band guys in his PVC spiked thong and floor-length fur coat. It was SO funny. He mostly asked questions about what they did for New Year's Eve. Loki and various other Xecs members joined him for the first few set changes, until they had to start getting ready.

I had brought my camera because I was taking pictures of Xecs for Tracy... first time in YEARS I had brought my camera to a live and was rather self-conscious, but it seems everyone else was doing it tonight too! Regardless of the "no photography" and "no video recording" signs all over MayKan, there were a sea of cameras and one or two video cameras, and the bands were happily posing.

First was Spell Eden, who is rather horrifying. They were all in pretty white outfits, a mix of all styles and fabrics. But they have the ugliest man alive on vocals who unfortunately thinks he's really sexy and does all sorts of obscene gestures that I think made me instantly sterile. Bang-Doll's old support bassist Dai is in this band now (although he is "graduating" from the band soon, along with the drummer), and he is super bouncy and happy, awesome stage presence. He would run around and spend a lot of time by the drummer, the two of them with huge smiles on their faces the whole time. The right guitar stuck his tongue out a lot and was also smiley. There was also a big angry-looking white guy on left guitar. They were actually really good musically, but the vocalist was very VERY disturbing and made me not want to look at the stage.
After their set, they brought Dai out and he talked with Hoshimaru and Zakuro.

Ganeisha was SUPER AWESOME as usual!!! I am obsessed with them. I think they played the same set as when I saw them at Route 14. And I will once again whine about them not having any CDs. I'm going to have to buy the new Trendkill omnibus because they have TWO songs on it!! The usual Ganeisha live consists of the Hiro and Yuya standing stock-still, and Kaname running around the stage and flailing himself around enough to make up for the motionlessness of the other two. Tonight was no exception, as I learned it is impossible to take a picture of Kaname.

Loki and Jun from Xecs came out to interview Kaname, the "ichiban hentai" (most perverted, as nicknamed by Loki) after their set. Hoshimaru asked him various questions, from which we got the answer that he IS DEFINITELY STRAIGHT!! He likes girls and Daschunds. But only girl Daschunds. He was asked to describe a perfect date, to which he answered "We'd go to a, umm, interesting place, and do uhh, interesting things."

VIVE unfortunately went homey-kei (they were never visual, but goatees and sideways baseball caps were very strange to see). I had really liked the samples I heard from their first full-length CD ("It went too much and became human!") and had previously liked all of their music, but they recently took off in a direction of progressive rock... well, that's what they said it was... I couldn't tell you what progressive rock is, but they don't sound like they used to. I can't say I really liked it. The major downfall I think was that the lyrics are now mostly all in English. And he can't pronounce English very well. So it all sounds like the same four nonsense syllables over and over. I think vocals are really important to music, and overall they would probably sound better if he knew what he was singing.

One of them had a t-shirt on that said "smoking pot sucks". That's about all I have to say about them.

Afterwards, VIVE's vocalist and Xecs' lead guitarist came out to talk. They're apparently close buddies... so much that they had to keep putting their arms around each other on stage. They were very snuggly and dorky, and talked about the first time they met.

Smoky Flavor... hasn't changed a bit. They are still the loud, screamy, Halloween band that they always have been and probably always will be. They are fun and look good (not hot, but they've got nice hair, costumes, and charisma), but their music doesn't really do much for me. I got a lot of good photos of them, but became extremely tired mid-set and fell asleep in my seat. I'm not quite sure how, because they are possibly the loudest band I've ever seen besides Antifeminism and the Piass... but I did.

The whole band came on stage afterwards to be interviewed, and made the surprising announcement that Sugar was leaving the band. Smoky Flavor has been around since the Stone Age, and it doesn't seem like they'd be the same without him.

Then I went to the front for Bang-Doll and had a lovely headbanging time. Because of Ikumi's leaving, You has switched from rhythm guitar to lead guitar, and they had a support guitarist for the night. He was a little skanky visual man with a blue fur and fishnet outfit, complete with hairy armpits to match the rest of Bang-Doll. They played mostly old songs with one or two from Bang'em all. The Bang-Doll babies were there too... the toddler now apparently is old enough to stand front row with the rest of the fans, and was staring up at the band with a look of amazement. Ryousuke had us do the "Seig Gio" arm motion and yelling thing a few times.

Gou was interviewed alone on stage with Hoshimaru, while Sugar from Smoky Flavor and You from Bang-Doll stood in the back of MayKan and guffawed drunkenly and shouted things at him while he was on stage. Hoshimaru was asking all these questions about what he would do if he had a date with an idol singer he likes, and Gou was getting embarrassed. Apparently the other band guys had compiled a list of silly questions to ask Gou, some of which made him yell "WHO WROTE THAT!?" up to the VIP 2nd floor.

XecsNoin was last of course, and they had a long set. I just took lots and lots of pictures. Loki was VERY amused and kept grinning at me like an idiot because of all my photographing. Xecs has the Gio sound, a mix of metal and rock. I don't know their songs, but they played "God bless the Trendkill" which is entirely memorable due to its awful corny name and awful repetitive chorus. I had to leave at 10 or else I wouldn't be able to get home, so I didn't get to see their whole set. I felt like a real ass walking out because I had just been up front and had to push by all the band guys in the back to leave... oops.

Smoky Flavor's bassist was walking down the street in full costume and makeup (which is quite queeny) as I was walking out... that was funny to see. In conclusion, it was a super fun live and made me nostalgic about Gio!