January 18th, 2005 @ Ikebukuro Cyber
Bands in order: Guilty'a'heaD, Benom, Great Confusion, THE SKULL, -OZ-, Climb Scene
A very weird night. It was Benom's first live in Tokyo so we were super excited. The show was supposed to open at 5:00 and start at 5:30, so we went to Ikebukuro at 4:40 and go to the kitty park to see if we could play with any kitties beforehand. Upon entering, however, I spot a big blonde head glowing from afar. Who's there but Benom, having a snack. It was weirdness and we chased kitties around and Haiji and Iori squawked at crows. At 5 we walked to Cyber with Benom behind us, and there was a construction truck in the way so we all had to wait awkwardly on the corner until we could cross.
We went in and the ticket window was closed but we figured it was a few minutes before 5 so we'd wait outside... Then Chloe comes up and tells us to wait somewhere else. We were like WTF!?!? We went back across the street, where the other Benom fan Kouya, with friend in tow, comes up. They're like "Hmmm it seems like it's 5, we should go in!" and we weren't about to tell them Chloe just told us to go away... So we went in behind them to find that the opening time had changed to 5:30.
That made me SUPER pissed at everyone and no one in particular so we went and took purikura and that wasted a half hour until we could go back to Cyber. It was pretty empty in there and they were playing Telletubbies on the TVs. We went to say hi to Hiromi the staff girl, where we discovered Benom was selling punk pins. This immediately made me crack up because after I had made them pins as a gift at the last live, Yuu asked me how I made them, and had I told him. And now they have some of their own to sell.
Cyber had the special band drinks as usual. Benom's drink was called "Sei Strip" and was supposed to be some fruity thing. But the ones the bartender gave us tasted like stale soda water. Boo.
The first band Guilty'a'Head was weird as hell. They consisted of a drummer (shock! no one has drummers anymore) a guitarist, keyboardist, and two vocalists. Only difference was, they were all about high school aged and the two vocalists and keyboardist were female. Now I have nothing against girls in visual kei, all the more power to them, but seriously... a second vocalist is not worth the effort if it just ends up with TWO off-key girls yelping at once. Two of the girls were dressed super visual in brand name gothy clothes and one had fake blood smeared all over herself and, if I remember correctly, some kind of rope. They were really cute and looked good. The other girl was in a big jumpsuit with caution tape on it or something, she was kinda chubby. Their music was actually quite enjoyable... when the girls weren't singing.@Their main fault was the vocals, and they would be good with someone that could actually sing, I think.
After them, the four of us went to the front. Hey, four is better than no one! Benom were wearing suits and all looked really nice, except they were reeeeally nervous. During the MC, Chloe was like, "Please buy our CD because I actually sing well on it!" because his voice was all shaky! Aww. Haiji said, "This is our first time in Tokyo so we're really nervous, see us a second time when we won't be as much!" it was so cute. They played a fairly long set but didn't include Sei strip which was a disappointment. In the middle of the set some stupid little girl ran in late and stood next to me, so there were 5 of us. Chloe was being funny and went to each of us in the front row and held out his hand for us to do something to (I assume high-five, which is what I did, although Ren mauled his hand hilariously). Yuu nearly killed us throwing his sticks afterwards, but the obnoxious girl and Kouya ended up with them.
They were very nervous, so it wasn't their best performance, but we did lots of crazy dancing and it was a lot of fun.
So then afterwards they came out and we were like "hey!" and the obnoxious little girl that had run in the middle of the set was being super fangirly and molesting them. She was poking Yuu in the stomach repeatedly and he was yelling "stupid!" at her. Trying to get behind the table to get away from her, she knocked half the stuff on their goods table over! I HATE fangirls, oh my god.
Yuu was trying to get us to buy the new CD and goods (as if we weren't going to, but we had to pretend not to and he had to pretend to convince us). He showed me the buttons and said he designed them and he thinks he got the same machine I have, haha. Haiji was cute and was wearing my button on his jacket. They have sticker sheets too now.
Great Confusion was next, they were the secret band of the night. They are TOO cute. They're like a slightly older, slightly lower budget PANIC*ch, as Ren and I decided. SOOOO genki and awesome. They have two guitarists, a bassist, and support drummer, but both guitarists sing lead vocals switching on and off by song. One of them looks like an angry Shunsuke, and the other is super tall terminally happy boy with 500 names. His name in this band is Hasegawa. The fans were all lovey and doing the cutest dances. They MCed asking who had never seen them before, and then who of those people have an interest in them, and we raised our hands and they were like OOOH!!!! They said if you filled out the enquette you got a free CD. Afterward Hasegawa came out and was so excited talking to everyone. We filled out their enquette and he couldn't have appeared happier, and kept saying "good job" in English over and over while giving thumbs-up. He's tooo cute. Apparently Benom loves him too because Iori kept hugging the guy!
The next band was THE SKULL and they were super weird but also really good. The vocalist was downright bizarre, like I don't know how to describe the guy. He was hot and all, but super vain and also spoke in monotone like he was trying to be weird on purpose. And he started trying to MC only in English (which was a desperate cry for foreign fans) saying stuff like "I like you and you like me" and god knows what else. But all in a really deadpan, serious voice. It was hilarious. He has blonde-brown hair and was wearing a nice-fitting fur-trimmed coat. Also bright red lipstick which traveled up off his lips and he didn't seem to notice although he fixed his hair in the mirror between every song. They were normal gothy visual rock, but generally good and I enjoyed them.
The last two bands were crappy and crappiest... -OZ- was pretentious rock that would have probably been good on CD but was boring live. They were wearing dark gothy clothing and played dark gothy music. The vocalist was really queeny. We didn't really pay attention.
The last band Climb Scene was practically a GLAY cosplay band and we spent their entire set drawing all over their flyers in a rather obscene but seriously funny way. They were just dumb, they really looked like GLAY cosplayers and their music was all weinery GLAY sounding. Sorrrry.
We hung around a little afterwards to show Chloe the picture Ren drew of him on the back of Climb Scene's flyer, but because we had drawn various other obscene things on the front and the back, we didn't want him to see. He wanted to see, though, and we had to take it away from him. Fucking (the roadie) had their drink of the night and Yuu was sneaking sips of it like he was going to get in trouble for drinking alcohol, and they ended up pouring it in a Aquarius bottle... DORKS. As if: (1) anyone cares if you drink alcohol in Japan, (2) anyone knows you're under 20, and (3) there's any alcohol in Cyber's drinks to begin with! I was given alcoholic drinks at Cyber when I was 17!
They were being all lovey with Great Confusion boy and we were hungry so we said goodbyes and found an okonomiyaki place to eat at. Mmm, boys and substantial food.