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"Doubt Vol. 51" Bands in order: Cerberos, ARESZ, Amaterase, Smoky Flavor, Bang-Doll Ah, good ol' Gio! The easiest to get to live house ever, if you know where you're going. I arrived with Chiharu and Dan a little early, so Chiharu and I wandered around until finding a print club booth. At 5, I met Mika, Rieko, and their friend whose name I never remember (Sayaka..?)! We all hung around the entrance while a bunch of random girls started talking to Dan, everyone thinking that he was a girl. Pretty funny. :X At opening time, Mika tells the staff girl she had reservations for 6 people in my name. The staff girl says "Oh! Krys was in Osaka the other day!" and everyone makes loud surprised noises. I dunno how they let 6 people in under my reservation which was supposed to be 2, but they seem to bend the rules for me. Gio actually did change a lot. Most of the area was filled with tables and it seemed a bit smaller. They also replaced the nice headbanging bars with metal monstrosities ala Brand New, which seemed to exist sorely to keep the fans away from the stage. It was exactly one year to the day since I was there. Spooky. Fan report: Girls in weird, weird costumes (see below). A lot of high school aged and younger girls... also a few OLD ladies. Like 70s old. Fair amount of guys in the audience too. For once, the enquette were in order and we could tell who was up when! First was Cerberos, and there was the weirdest collection of girls up at stage. One seemed to be wearing a wedding dress; one had a sparkly yukata that was cut to mini-skirt length and was open at the front, revealing her frilly undies on purpose; one in a cosplay fetish schoolgirl outfit... I still have no idea why. There were very few people there otherwise, so I went to the front. Zakuro looked the same as always: manic. His long hair is now bleached blonde, he had one contact in, claws of red "blood" across his face, with dirty biker clothes and the remains of a few dead birds on his ass. Akira had a red jumpsuit of TERROR on. It was way too tight and spandexy, and... yeah that's all I have to say about that. He also had some red rope bound all fetish-like on his chest. Eva was as adorable as ever, with a tube-top and biker vest and tight pants, grinning underneath her blonde mini-houseplant hair. She is so CUTE!! I had never seen the new bassist Rin before, but WOW he was a genuine hot visual boy! Short skirt, sexy tights, woo! One thing that struck me as odd was these massive cuts he had going parallel down his legs. I could see them through his two layers tights, but then again he was right in front of me most of the time and I notice random unnecessary things. They were lots of fun! Headbanging and jumping around. Eva was being adorable and kept pointing and smiling at me. They played 6 songs, all of which were excellent. They are SUCH good musicians and play really clearly and not deafeningly loud, and the songs are catchy and they NEED to release a CD or something! I like them a lot. Even if Zakuro's insane. I don't think he kept his tongue in his mouth or his eyes in their sockets the entire time. According to my packet, Amaterase was up next, but that was only because ARESZ's flyer was missing from everyone's. It will never work!! Curse you enquette packets!! Either way, I was sitting down and drinking my Kahlua milk for this band. I needed to conserve my energy for Bang-Doll. Gawd, I'm so glad I did sit down. They dressed like a bunch of losers, and a fat chick that looked like Rosie O'Donnel was their vocalist. Ughhh they were terrible! For some reason they had a lot of fans up front, and they would do these crazy dances where they'd jump in circles and stick finger-guns in the air. Their music was way too loud to make up for the fact it was pretty bad and the girl was the worst singer alive. Moving on! After watching Amaterase (pronounced "Amaterass!") set up, they seemed cool enough to go to the front for. There were two members, a vocalist and guitarist, both in these crazy elaborate kimonos. They had three support members who were all barefoot and dressed like sushi chefs in plain karate-type uniforms. Both guys were very attractive and VERY theatrical. They had an amazing set. Their music was a mix between rock and traditional stuff; like what you would think Kagrra should sound like. There was a lot of that wood clunking noise, and the "ooooooooouuu!" howling that's impossible to describe, but if you've ever seen any traditional Japanese plays, or I think even some anime, you've heard the sounds. Their music is just so unique and indescribable, I love it. They did a lot of moving around, posing, fun stuff. For one song, the vocalist sang in a demon voice, and rolled his eyes back into his head while he did it. Soooo badass. Their fans were really into them, dancing and headbanging. There was even this little four-foot tall ancient old lady in the crowd! Their set was pretty long, but definitely worth it. The vocalist announced that they would give a free MD to anyone who filled out their enquette, so I did, to their surprise. Both of them were hanging around by the merch tables at the end, very friendly guys. They were also real happy looking on stage, and gave a lot of attention to the support members, which is rare. At the end they lined up in front, and soft music played in the background, and they said goodbye and all bowed... It was really neat! I guessed that there was gonna be a mad rush for Bang-Doll like last year, so I decided to stick near the front for Smoky Flavor. Of course, there were barely ANY fans for them (surprisingly, I would think since they've been around since the stone age that SOME people would like them), so I was RIGHT in the front against the bars. I didn't regret it, though. They were by far the most interestingly costumed band of the night. There were five of them, and a superfluous 6th member who didn't really do anything. He was wrapped completely in toilet paper like a mummy, and stood by the drumset. Yeah, that's it. The vocalist, Yoshitaka had about 5 layers of brand-name goth and punk clothing on, with smeared black makeup and poufy blonde hair. The guitarist, Sugar's costume was amazing. He, first of all, was about 6 feet tall. So he wore the tiniest little PVC shorts ever to accentuate his long lanky legs, and a few pairs of tights. Then he had a white fishnet tanktop printed with a skeleton design, slit across the back with red, like a cut. On his head he wore a skull-kitty hat, and fake vampire fangs. Then, to top it off, a gigantic pair of skeletal bat-wings he had harnessed on under his shirt, which protruded from the cut in the back. They were really really huge, probably a 5 foot wingspan, and looked heavy. And so totally awesome. He also had this industrial nightmare guitar, which was gnarled with tentacle-like extentions, metal jutting out everywhere, and an alien fetus in the middle. Their music was extremely loud, and it was pretty much just noise. But they did it well. They'd just mash their guitars and headbang and run around all crazy, and they were just as good as any other band. Yoshitaka had a scooter that he rode around on stage. They had SO many technical difficulties, wow. First, something happened to Sugar's wings and he would have collapsed if it weren't for two roadies who caught him and pulled the wings off. The other guitarist tripped and unplugged a ton of wires, causing a bit of commotion there. Yoshitaka wanted to take his top shirt off, but he had some gauze wrapped tightly around one arm and got the shirt stuck on his arm. So he wandered off stage and let the winged boy talk. He didn't know what to say, and sat on the amp in front of us with his legs spread (ahahaha) and stuttered until Yoshitaka came back and told him he was disturbing people who could see his crotch. They were definitely a fun band. I don't think one I'd buy the CDs of, but a good live performance. There actually wasn't a mad rush for Bang-Doll, so I had my choice of where to stand. I'm quite fond of the center (it's the 0WNZ J00 space), but sometimes place myself slightly towards the one side. :F Their costumes didn't change much since the other day, but Ikumi had words scrawled across his arm (the only thing I could make out was "IKASETE!!" or "Let me go!!") and had a random piece of his costume wrapped around his head so it covered his mouth. After removing the piece of PVC, we see that he has dyed his ridiculous little goatee NEON PINK. Shudder. They played a nice, solid set. Not much change in the setlist except that they replaced Downing with Dual Personality. And we all headbanged for all of it. Except for their new song, which like I said before, is softer, and it's suuuuch a good song ah I am obsessed! You was all smiley as usual. Gou was goofy and smiled even goofier whenever he saw a foreigner. Ryo-suke did a lot of fighting with the air, and ninja kicking and craziness. They cracked open beers again mid-set. I was standing towards the right side, so I was between Ryou and Ikumi. They moved around a lot though. At one point, Ikumi went to the far left side, and went to stand on the amp to lean out in the crowd. However, he slipped, and fell flat backwards onto the stage. Somehow NO ONE noticed. I saw the whole thing with a clear view, it was like all slow motion and scary. He hit really hard, completely flat on his back, and lied on the ground, mouth gaping open and closed like a fish. While NO ONE did anything. Then I guess Ryou noticed and thought it was funny, and pretended to jump on him. Ryou had a long MC, talking about various live- and CD-related things. Then he made fun of Ikumi's goatee, and pinched his chin, then made a disgusted face and went around wiping his hand on things. Ikumi didn't look too happy. He also announced that it was Cerberos' one year anniversary. Does that mean their first live was the one I saw?? His word of the night was "baby", yelling it enthusiastically at the end of random things like "ICHIKAWA BAYYYBAAA" over and over... I stole the setlist off the stage in the second after they leave and before they return to pack up, so here it is: 1) Bang the HEAD We left almost immediately after we were done buying stuff and handing in enquette, as there were trains to catch and suitcases left unguarded in the station. A little birdie told me, however, that Bang-Doll were wearing my shirts again afterwards. *___* My money went to: Bang-Doll |