Love Can shusai at Meguro Live Station
February 5th, 2005

Bands in order: BEAT, StM, brave, Link, Uma, Ryougga with Wicked Children, Hagakure, Love Can

Love Can was having an event for 1000yen at Live Station, and 1000y lives are always appealing even if I hadn't heard of half the bands. I went with Emma and Callie. This was actually the first time I'd been back to Live Station since my very first live! I brought my camera since I'm rarely at lives anymore that allow photos, so I was taking them throughout the night.

The first band was BEAT. They're one of Emma's favorite band I saw at FAB in October. They sure got a lot more fans since October, and it seems they got a lot better musically too (not that they were bad before). They were a lot of fun, and Miyu even made up a stupid hand-heart dance to go along with one of their songs.

Next was a band called StM. They were weird and had like two or three members, one on a keyboard, and played pretentious lounge music that totally didn't fit anything. One guy wore a long beige trench coat that looked shady. Their music was good, although very slow, but I didn't pay attention to them and sat on the floor...

Next was brave. They were a ridiculously cute 4 member 1 support unit with songs where they'd sing "Love and peace" and similarly cutesy happy things. They were SO cute! The vocalist was short and looked about 12 years old and bounced around and screamed about how they were happy punk pop positive love rock (or you know, something like that) and the kamite guitar was a severe hottie. They were really good so I grabbed Emma and pulled her with me to the kamite guitar's side so I could get better pictures of him. The vocalist was so happy he nearly crapped himself and stared at us grinning happily the whole set. I found out now that tonight was their FIRST live! Okay! Well they're damn good for a brand new band.

Back in October, I saw a band called Link and thought they were really cool, but didn't know their webpage address so I never knew when they were playing. I was quite happy to run into them again! They were even better than I remembered them. Their unique point is that they have a keytarist and their music is like gothic videogame music... they're sooo cool. Omfg. How insanely cool is a keytar solo?! DAMN COOL!! They're having a free live in the first week of March and I am THERE!

Callie and I went to the conbini between sets (since amazingly Live Station allows re-entry) and came back as the next band had already started.

It was Uma (pronounced "Yuma")... I was like jeebus, what's going on here!? This was like, the band that wants to be every American nu-metal band but can't even pull it off as well as Cuartet can (and if you know Cuartet, they can't even pull it off). It was just "ROOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRR" thrashthrashthrash crap. It was sooo stereotypical, it made me laugh... I just really hate nu-metal though.

Then we went on an excursion to find brave members because they didn't have an enquette box. We ran out and up the stairs and found the vocalist, who lit up like a Christmas tree when we handed him the enquettes, squealing thank you and telling us he was looking at us the whole time. LOL!!!

I also saw the guitarist of Uma. I hadn't seen him before because I was sitting on the ground, but I almost screamed (no seriously, I had to stop myself). I've never seen so many piercings in one person's face before... NO JOKE. I was momentarily scared shitless by the chubby, angry face with drawn on red eyebrows lurking in the shadows with 500 pieces of metal jabbing out of it. He was pierced in places I didn't think it was possible to be pierced... like in the middle of his cheek. I really would have liked to get a picture because he was really SO HORRIFYING that I'd like photographic proof.

Ryougga with Wicked Children was next. Ahaha I love pretentious boys. Ryougga is the vocalist, and the rest of the band is the "wicked children", who are mostly support. So it is mostly him thinking he's the best ever. Granted, he is a VERY good vocalist, but he's also kind of insane. We sat on the floor for their set but I still saw a whole lot. At one point he jumped off the stage, grabbed an unsuspecting schoolgirl and pushed her to the front bars, and started headbanging next to her. She looked frightened over to her friend, and he grabbed her head and pushed it down so she would headbang too! When he jumped back on stage, she tried to flee and he pulled her arm so she stayed there. SO WEIRD!!

Oh but now... this is the kicker... he starts MCing and we weren't paying attention to what he was saying, but he suddenly starts BAWLING... just crying hysterically. At first we thought it was part of his act or he was faking it but nooo, he was genuinely hysterical. They started the next song and he appeared to have himself under control until he hit the chorus and started sobbing so hard he couldn't sing! Then the guitarist started crying! WHAT'S GOING ON??? We have no idea. We asked Miyu and some fangirls after but no one was paying attention until after he was crying either!

But regardless, he has a really nice voice. I'm coincidentally also seeing them tomorrow also in some 2-days thing.

Continuing in the lineup of pretentious boys, we have Hagakure: the biggest dork to ever step on stage, this guy (Kaya) is like Ryougga but can't sing. He just wears hooker clothes (ok, a kimono with the obi tied backwards, last time I saw him he was in a Chinese dress slit high up the sides) and doesn't even half-ass singing. He IS the band, the flyers are just pictures of him, and he had an ever-changing backup band, probably because no one can put up with his idiotic egoism. He's such a DORK! The music is good but he just doesn't seem to care about singing! It just doesn't make sense to me. (if you want a good laugh, look at his webpage)

So finally was Love Can. They were, as I said, the hosts of this event, which was themed with something along the lines of "If a cat eats curry, he turns into an Indian person"... If you don't have any idea of Love Can, they are INSANE! They are psycho kitty weirdness. They're completely on crack. You cannot think of such a theme without being on some kind of drugs. They gave out boxes of instant curry to everyone who yoyakued with them. Live Station was decorated with Indian posters and curry related weirdness. These guys are just off the wall. And they came out... in costumes from India. Because they're cats, and they apparently ate curry. The guitarist Haruru had bright pink and purple hair, and was wearing a sparkly dress with tassels and crap. The bassist Hiiro had a beard drawn on his face in marker, and was in a robe with a turban. I couldn't stop laughing their whole set... they're NUTS! I'm not really familiar with their music, but it's all silly and fun. Most of the songs have dances; unconventional ones too. There's one song where they make motorcycle noises and a revving motion with their hands. They also got everyone headbanging wildly at the end.

During the MC, Isato brought out these signboards. They were decorated with printed photos, like the guitarist's head on a stick figure body, or big bowls of curry and such. He narrated while going through the signs. I forget what the story was about, but obviously something about going to a curry shop. After the story, they said they had an important announcement. He continued with the sign boards, and was like "our important announcement is"... and he held up a sign with the big kanji for "disbanding" and happily said "we're disbanding! ....JUST KIDDING!" and flipped it to a board that said just kidding. Their actual announcement was for a CD release.

Afterwards, they dragged all the bands out on stage for a session. They called them out one by one to smush them all on stage at once. I like the way they didn't even call "Hagakure" out, but "Kaya" (while they did make us scream "Ryougga with Wicked Children!") and proceeded to play Love Can's most popular song. All the band guys were insane... Uma's scary guitarist had another member on his back, and it was almost really cute the way they were so lovey. The BEAT members were picking each other up and flipping one another mid-air in a painful looking way. Brave's vocalist was wearing a bear suit (as if he couldn't get any cuter).. And they all crazily did the NYAAAAAA NYAAAAA cat paws. Ohhh, what fun!