New Year's Eve 2004~2005
Takadanobaba AREA

Bands in order: Babylon, SIN, Zero, SugarTrip, Cuartet, The Piass, Duel Jewel, Panikku Channeru, Ayabie

Ooh yeah, countdown lives! Countdown lives are unique in the sense that many bands play at multiple lives the same night, and livehouses actually tell you the order of the bands in advance, since many fans follow their bands to all the night's shows. This had been badly planned from the beginning on my part... I wanted to go to Club Holiday's, but the Pia guys are dumb and it ended up selling out before I could get a ticket (long story). So then I wanted to go to MayKan instead, but forgot to buy a ticket when I was there, and realized Area wasn't sold out like I thought it was, so I bought my ticket and that was that (so I thought).

Some New Year's lives are all night, and some end after the countdown. Area's ended after the countdown. It started around noon but I couldn't handle a 12 hour live, so I planned on getting there before Babylon started. They were doing things differently in Area tonight... since so many bands were playing, they only allowed one band to have their goods table at a time (which was right after their set). The ticket counter was in the stairwell, and the goods table was where the ticket counter normally was. The lobby, which is usually reserved for band tables, had a table serving soba noodles. It was also open to go out in; usually once you go into the lobby you are out for good, but they needed the extra space of the lobby for all the people.

I got into Area just as Joker was finishing their set. From the back of the room, I could see only that they were one giant blinding mass of sparkles. Their costumes were checkerboard and tons and tons of silver sequins. That's all I can say about them as I barely saw half a song. They were sparkly.

Then it was a break time of about 45 minutes. I had anticipated coming in during this break time but I was a little early. I met some friends who had been there since it opened, and staked out a spot in the 2nd level next to them. And waited for a while. I got some soba and accidentally spilled it on my pants.

Babylon came out and my god, I love this band! They are too good! I don't know what it is about them that makes me love their performance so much, but they are just awesome! Their visuals are not much to write about, everyone pretty much has a suit on except for the cutie bassist who layers a few more items onto it. But the vocalist does really awesome motions to songs, he has an entrancing way of moving. They played two of the songs they played the last time I saw them (they really stuck in my mind), Hana no miyako and In a coop, where the vocalist does particularly catchy dances to. Even though Hana no miyako kinda sounds like Linkin Park, with this "sou sou sou" rapping bit, I still really like it.

Misa seemed very silly tonight. I don't know what it was, but his expressions (smiley), and the way he was moving indicated he was either a little drunk or just having a LOT of fun. He kneeled on the floor to play the guitar old-school metal style a few times. Kazuki kept spinning his sticks impressively while playing. They had a support guitarist, a very thin young looking boy, who they said this was his last live with the band because he got into college.

Next was SIN. They amused me because the vocalist works at the Death Trap ID store in Harajuku and always try to sell me stuff. He is always there and tries to get me to buy Vidoll hoodies and other stuff I'd never buy, and I've seen the whole band hanging around in there. He (Koumei) had so much crap on his face it took me a while to recognize him. They were wearing costumes which I noticed had a theme after staring at them for a while... Each had a black base, and accents of another color. They were all rippy, gauzey costumes. Koumei had a short black dress that was a mass of ripped black and red things. He had his blonde hair braided on the sides into a faux mohawk, with some red extensions hanging off. The dress was VERY short and showed off a lot of his tiny stick legs. The front of the dress was covered in pins you can buy from Death Trap, and on his face were glued newspaper clippings and eyeliner scribbles. He had apparently just got several new lip piercings, bringing him from just a couple to a mouth full of them now.

Bassist boy Kai was wearing an outfit with the black and purple color scheme. It was one-armed, with lots of grommets and lace-up things, shreds of purple gauze as trimming. His hair was up in two pigtails which were permed fluffy. The shimote guitar had a black suit with white gauze trimmings, and the kamite guitar (Yuh. Oh what a name) was black and pink, showing his stomach and most of his twiggy body. He also had pink and black hair with long pink extensions, but was also incredibly ugly. I feel bad for the guy, he's the one everyone always makes fun of on LJ communities.

So musically, they were pretty typically visual rock, a little dorky. They had the typical repetitive song where they yell and everyone rushes forward, but they were "raaar"-ing in a rather goofy way where it sounded like a dog belching. They had a support drummer who was wearing the SIN hoodie being sold at Death Trap, who they told to stand up and show the design on the back. I thought they were pretty fun. I caught the bassist's pick, which is designed to look like a Japanese stop sign (which are triangular).

Zero (they write their name with a kanji in the middle) was next. And the first and most prominent thing I remember about them was that their drummer is the skinniest man ever. Like, I wonder how he's still ALIVE. He was wearing a one-shoulder tanktop that showed off his stomach and most of his torso to accentuate his emaciated-ness. The rest of his outfit was long pants with a skirt over it. The guitarist also showed off his stomach and had a meshy-outfit on. The bassist looked a lot like Aya from Missalina Rei (face and hair-wise) but was very tall. He was wearing an ugly long jacket made of sparkly black fabric and brown plaid trim. But the vocalist wins the tacky award with a jacket made of leather and cow-print fur, studded, white pants and four different belts on at once.

They were pretty good performers (well, haven't they been around forever?), and had songs ranging from your average hand-dance-y song to wild headbanging. One song even had synth violin. Pretty wide range for such a short set. The last song was another repetitive "yow! yow!" moshing song. They were so energetic, constantly switching sides and moving around, which is always a nice thing to see on stage. However, they announced they were disbanding soon.

Between sets, Area staff kept repeating over the speakers that people should get their drinks if they haven't done so already because they'd close the drink bar early, and I wasn't about to let my 500yen go to waste so I got a rum and coke. Area has the worst bartenders and put ten times the amount of alcohol in their drinks than they should. Now usually I wouldn't complain about something like this (I feel cheated if I don't get my money's worth) but this was so strong I could barely drink it. I made an awful face involuntarily every time I took a sip because it was SO STRONG. But it was well timed as it made me feel very silly and I needed it for such a band to follow.

SugarTrip defies words. I think the internet term of "OMGLOLWTFBBQ!!!!!1" aptly describes such a band. They are the strangest, funniest band EVER! The vocalist had a frilly ridiculously decorated white blouse with gold sequins, unbuttoned mostly. On the bottom he only wore a leather bikini with garter belt. The top had a long tie which hung down pretty low to cover some bits, but for the most part all you saw was LEATHER CODPIECE!! Oh dear. If that alone wasn't enough, the rest of the band was dressed like a bunch of okama too. The bassist had a multicolored leather patchwork tight tight tanktop, and leather pants that criss-crossed up the sides to show a lot of his leg. However, he was extremely manly, with a thick neck like a football player, close cropped bleach-blonde hair, and a ponytail of extensions that reached his knees. Super mullet! The guitarist had a shiny gold tanktop with itty-bitty jacket over it.

Okay, so they looked like flamers, but some visual bands just have no sense of style, right? Right, but... this band was different. The vocalist talked in a lusty feminine voice, moaning about the lesson that sensei was going to teach. My god.

They were really GOOD though. They were funny to watch and musically awesome, I just couldn't stop laughing the entire set. Their last song had a repetitive "hai hai hai hai!" which everyone would do various motions/dances to as instructed by the vocalist, including but not limited to such non-conventional hand dances as sticking your middle finger in the air.

They definitely get a thumbs up from me, if only for making me laugh so much.

I knew I hated Cuartet, but I thought I'd give them a chance. Well that chance lasted for about 45 seconds until one of their fans decided she needed to be where I was standing and violently pushed me out of the way. No, I wasn't hogging any good position; I was where I'd been standing all along... There was plenty of room in the front by the stage, plenty of room around and behind of me... Nope, she wanted the single square foot I was occupying. So I went out in the lobby with Arashi and we obsessed over SugarTrip's vocalist's "pants" and made fun of Cuartet's vocalist who only seemed to be able to bark from what we heard through the wall.

Then it was time for The Piass. They are just LOUD. I think everyone knows the Piass... They have red hair and wear red costumes and are all pretty old and are lacking a real vocalist so they just scream and play the same 2 chords over and over. No, they don't play ballads. No, they're not good. Maybe they were a couple of years ago but The Piass does not try to be a good band!! It really hurt my ears. They had a bunch of crazy middle-aged ladies in red jumpsuits up front. They were headbanging like there was no tomorrow, fists in the air and striking fighting poses. Rock on, crazy ladies!

I'd heard a lot of people obsessing over KurT. Apparently their former bands were popular (although no one I cared about), and they had just formed a few weeks (or months) prior. Either way, it showed. They reeeeally need to work on their timing. But I'll get to that in a second. They came out to the song "Man with the hex" by the Atomic Fireballs, which sounds like a slave pride song and was just really weird. They had a big barrel on stage which Tenten (vocalist) would stand on. I don't know how they get a million fans, because they weren't really good, and they aren't even attractive. Tenten is sooo ugly! They had well designed costumes though. Nice fitting black suit-style jackets with white trim, or metal studs, all with some funny little character face on them.

So anyway, they MCed and all the rabid fans were like "yaaaaay omg you're so hot" and I was bored, and while Tenten is in mid-sentence, the drummer starts playing. They all freak out and are like "NOT YET!!" and he's like "Oh sorry!" and Tenten tries to explain some dance we're supposed to do. Half the audience was supposed to do one thing while the others did another. But no one knew what he was talking about. So they started the song. And it failed. And they tried again, and they screwed up again. Boy oh boy. Once they finally got their act together, the whole dancing thing didn't work out anyway. So they threw some blow up dolls in the audience and everyone crowd surfed them.

I was sooo bored of bad bands, and of course my long-time grudge, Duel Jewel, was before Panic. They had new costumes, white outfits that were cut geometrically. I don't despise them like I did before though, they are okay now. They played one song at the end, which I found really cute. They kicked in synch with each other to the beat. Bassist Natsuki and shimote guitar Yuya were being touchy-feely the whole time. The other guitarist, during one song, kneeled on the floor and was doing weird modern dance-like motions. I guess it was a lighter set, there was no screaming to hurt my ears, it was just bouncy.

Then it was finally time for Panic! I went to the front happily. Everything said that *ch was playing tonight, but when the intro music started, they played Panikku's music instead! Panikku came out instead of *ch! It was weird without Tara, but the support bassist Saburo is really a doll, and they did their best to make it as un-awkward as possible. They were wearing their new costumes, and Saburo was wearing his costume for Gift, which is black and wa-fu trimmed, kind of similar to Tara's.

I felt really bad for him when Takumi walks out on stage and everyone's like "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh TAKUMIIII aaAHHHH!", then he walks out and smiles shyly and everyone's like "........????" and he runs to the amp... poor boy! I sakued for him. He was really shy, and Meguru kept pushing him towards the front and messing up his hair, it was so cute. They only played four songs (all the bands had super short sets) but they were good. There were a lot of people up front, and the downside to that was that a lot of them weren't fans. There was moshing, and some stupid whore was throwing herself elbow-first into the front rows. I got hit in the nose really hard and I was PISSED.

1) Kodoku mousou
2) Kako wasure
3) Esa
4) Iyagarase

Afterwards we ran out into the lobby to buy goods. They had gotten a fresh stock of the new photosets which had sold out at the oneman. We spent a long time handing over letters and presents to Tara, and buying photosets. While we were out there, Ayabie started. I wasn't really familiar with Ayabie but went in, and was unable to get further than the back of the livehouse. It was at this time when Emma emailed me. My plan was to go out with her after the live and hang out all night. But, she was jetlagged and said she was going home to bed. I freaked out, because I had nowhere to go! So I didn't pay much attention to Ayabie's set, as I was frantically emailing. They were bouncy but headbangy at the same time.

Then, it neared midnight. They brought a digital clock out on stage, which had big red numbers counting down to the new year. I pushed my way back to where my friends were standing, as Ayabie told us all to hold hands and jump when it struck midnight. It was cute and fun. Then they announced they were going to have a session, so everyone got all excited and the members of Ayabie started dragging the other bands on stage. First was KurT, who all started hugging each other enthusiastically like big dorks. Then Duel Jewel still in costume, who continued with the hugging, and then another band without makeup that I couldn't recognize. Then Panic came out, who had changed into street clothes. They quickly and awkwardly ran to the far right of stage, hiding in the back as the rest of the bands made fools of themselves up front. Tsubasa was covering his face because he had taken off his makeup but didn't shave, so he had quite a shadow. Area staff ran out and taped a big lyrics sheet on the side speakers, as Ayabie started playing a j-pop song called Happy Days, which we were all asked to sing along with. It was bizarre, and all the band guys had a ball singing and being silly. Except Panic, who still stood there awkwardly. Meguru eventually stood behind Takumi, grabbing his wrists and making him dance. Then it was done, and Panic ran off stage first.

I was still freaking out for having nowhere to go, but my friends said they were going to MayKan. I never thought of that! Unfortunately though, I'd spent a good 2000yen on photosets, and while I would have enough money for the MayKan ticket, I wouldn't have enough money for the trains. But Arashi is the best ever, and lent me money so I could come with them! So continue reading my report for this night here.