February 6th, 2005 at Takadanobaba AREA
Hysteric Media Zone

Bands in order: hiViki, Forte, Benom, baude laire, Dazzle Vision, Ryougga with Wicked Children

Tonight was Benom's second live in Tokyo, which means we couldn't count on many people being there to support them, so we brought some friends along. We were there about 15 minutes before opening so we went down to the staff tables to get our tickets. Hiromi and Fucking had heart attacks that we brought friends; they were so excited it was adorable. Then we got some food at Seiyu and they played with a random dog until Area opened. I've never seen Area so empty before! There were sooo few people, and most of them were guys. Very strange indeed.

The first band was hiViki, 5 really energetic Sex Pot-wearing smiley boys. They were lots of fun and good bouncy music. It was apparently their first live ever, but they had a row of front line girlies, so they must have been in bands beforehand. Their vocalist is named Miyabi, and has the cutest fake mohawk hair style. He was wearing black bondage pants, skull tshirt, and a plaid Sex Pot jacket. The lead guitarist Shu-ta had a hot two-color hairstyle (brown and blonde) and a contrasting black and white top. The two of them were the most energetic, jumping all around and trying to get the audience pumped. Shu-ta got more people to stand in the front row by smiling and pointing, and us to do hand wavey things. Miyabi was so excited he kept squeaking and his voice was cracking. The bassist was also up there on the energy levels, he was a long blonde haired boy in various punky things. Barbara and Callie swore he was banging Shu-ta by the way they acted. Their other guitarist, Fujita, was just this weird little guy in a suit and glasses. He acted all serious like a businessman, and had a name card on the mic stand. I think that was part of his act. A little weird though. Annnd finally the drummer, Tomoya, is just this tiny little guy that smiled a lot.

So yeah. They had the energy, the good staging, ran around constantly and wanted everyone to be participating and having fun. They were fun, and shockingly professional sounding for a band's first live.

Next was Forte, written in hiragana with a musical note at the end. They had a female vocalist and bassist. The bassist was CRAZY good. Vocalist was energetic and insane and ran around. She was wearing a little schoolboy-esq suit with short pants, had long black hair with straight bangs and glasses. I don't remember much about their music, I think it was a little hard and gothy. But I remember the bass solo because it was really awesome. Their last song was a weird doll dance (it was called something about dolls, and the vocalist would move her arms in a puppet-like way), that song was really good. In general they were enjoyable, although nothing too special, but said they were breaking up soon.

We figured Benom was next so we ran to the front row. Kouya and her friend had appeared during Forte, so we were in a line like Callie > Barbara > Ren > Me > Kouya > friend, and we were cool. We were being silly and yelling and being, well, ourselves, and they started the opening music so we all started doing the stupid dance that we do when the opening music plays. And then the curtain pulled back to find them already on stage! That was a shock (especially being front line at Area, a strange experience in itself).

But they were REALLY good, not nervous at all and Area's above-par sound system made them sound even better than usual. They had a variation of the normal suits on, but Haiji was wearing bondagey capri shorts under a less granny-like skirt. Good job, Haiji!! Yuu had done something else to his hair (it's a different color every time, it was blonder and more of an even color this time) and had some white extensions braided in that were hot. They played a long set and it was good. We even sakued. That annoying little fangirl ran in mid-set though (why does she keep doing that??) and pushed in between me and Kouya. (Her mom was there again too, just as skanky as usual!)
Their setlist went something like:
1) Kinoko
2) Another hero
3) Sei strip
4) Happy song
5) Sake to onna to botanyuki
6) ...I forget
Except I know there was a sixth song in there, and it wasn't Maid, but I can't remember what.

Afterwards we ran to get drinks and when we came back, Yuu was handing out enquettes and markers because their enquette wasn't in the packet. We drew on them and danced around in the empty Area, Barbara making her enquette into a paper airplane... Then we went in the hallway to turn them in. Found hiViki boys to give them theirs, and then stood around while Barbara smoked until Benom came out. Chloe was so adorable, he shuffled out in his full makeup and contacts and was all shy like "hi..." and tentatively made his way into our circle and just stood there. Everyone was out eventually, except Yuu who kept running away. He'd walk up, holding his fraying hair extention, go "OH!" at it, and disappear. So weird. The funniest thing ever was Chloe making a happy surprised face, bugging out his eyes, only looking like an insane demon in the process because of the contacts.

We hung around for a while until I realized the band that was on was baude laire who is [Lauren's ex-boyfriend's friend that we met at a Panic live]'s band. We ran back in but only got to hear about a song and a half. They were VERY heavy. Good for angry angsting but maybe a bit too hard for everyday listening. Benom ended up coming in and standing in the back during the set change, and tried to look like they weren't looking at us whenever we looked back at them. Bwahaha.

Sat around some more, I was pissed that someone had spilled my full rum+coke on my flyer packet, so I had nothing to drink and my flyer packet (which was bigger and better than usual) was soaked dead. We sat down through the next band, Dazzle Vision. They had incense on stage though, which was pretty cool. It smelled good! The vocalist was female, a very pretty girl, with blonde hair and teal blue extensions. The whole band was swathed in earth-tone robes. The vocalist had a great voice and they played well together, professional sounding, I just didn't like the music style.

Ren wanted to leave but I wanted to see Ryougga with Wicked Children again. So glad I did... Ryougga is awesome! I really don't know what goes on with the band, because there are eight members listed, but only five are ever on stage. I wasn't paying enough attention the night before to be able to tell if they were the same five people (except Ryougga obviously), but the major difference was they weren't in street clothes, but were suddenly all visual in these crazy PVC outfits. Ryougga had a white sleeveless top and skirt that appeared pleated but was actually just lots of separate strips (so we could see his little shorts underneath when he jumped around). It was white PVC and pink kimono fabric, absolutely gorgeous. He still had his hair up in a sprout with a fuzzy pom-pom on it. The lead guitarist of the night also had little shorts on, but was wearing mostly black layers, a scarf, and had silly light extensions in his hair. The other guitarist was in a nice fitting suit and no shirt under the jacket. The bassist was super visual, with hair sticking up and precisely painted on gothy makeup. His costume was lots of vinyl and fishnets. I think the drummer was a girl, but I'm not sure.

We were standing on the second level, I took a bunch of pictures. They're really hard to photograph because they're so active and really get into the music. Especially Ryougga himself, he's always a big blur. He even fell to the stage and rolled around, singing from the ground, his hand draped over the edge of the stage. He's so overdramatic, it's great. The last song was the song that he cried hysterically during the previous night. It really is a beautiful song. He didn't quite get hysterical this time but he did almost start to cry. There's a powerful vocal solo, which he even doesn't use the mic for some of it. And the fangirls sing along. It's just an amazing song.

After it they went off stage and closed the curtain in a melancholy ending, but a minute later the curtain was ripped open and they came back out again to play a rocking song. The girls who were standing against the 2nd level bar all ran to the front when they did this, so we stood on the 2nd level bar and I got better pictures. I was taking shots of the guitarist in booty shorts and he started pointing at my camera and I was like yeah, it's a camera! I put it down (the lighting was dark during the song, so I didn't want to bother taking more that wouldn't come out). But he started posing, totally stopping playing and just posed, waiting for me to take his picture! I had taken his picture, several times, but I don't use the flash, so he put his life on hold (as Ren said) until I took another one and gave him thumbs up. What a cutie.

Left after that. Well, stood in the smoking area watching an Ayabie video and Yuu squatting on the ground filling out an enquette for Dazzle Vision (DORK) through the door, until he was done taking up the whole floor, then went out to the goods lobby to bother them. Barbara bought stuff and they scrambled around looking for change, and were cute, and after talking a while we left for food.

Yeah so, it was good. I've kinda reached my saturation point of seeing new little bands I've never heard of, so it wasn't too exciting, but Benom's awesome set made up for it (and the fact that the four of us are totally insane and just being together was hilarious).