Bands in order: Eight Man (session), scarlet, VIVE, Cerberos, LOST AGE, Bang-Doll, Cannabis, DJ

I planned to go to this live specifically to see Bang-Doll. I hadn't heard of any of the other bands, but they weren't gonna affect my going or not. I did some research beforehand to acquaint myself with all of the bands I could find info on, since going to a live and not knowing any of the bands is a little disconcerting for me. Basically, this live consisted of bands somehow related to Cannabis. Friend bands and the like, most (if not all) of them also being bands based out of Club Gio. The headliners were Cannabis and Bang-Doll, the others being lesser known.

Reiko and Mika joined me on this adventure to Ichikawa, them dressing severely inappropriately by wearing Foetus brand (techno cyber clothes at a hard rock/metal live? *gasp*). Had an interesting time finding Gio... it's inconspicuously nestled in the basement of some big building with offices above and a pachinko parlor for a neighbor... RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE STATION. Even after taking sufficient time to find the place, we got there much much earlier than the opening time, so early that some of the bands were still practicing, most of the staffers hadn't set their tables up yet, and the ones that had tables weren't there to man them. Bang-Doll had an impressive amount of photosets displayed, which I checked out until the staff girlie returned to her post so I could pay for my ticket. The three of us didn't know what to do with ourselves after we got our tickets, so we just stood there in the staircase staring at the posters. There was extreme traffic of staffers, roadies, and un-made-up band boys pretending not to be band boys going up and down the stairs, so we moved up to the main alcove, where there were two elevators going to the offices above. The boys from scarlet just got done with their practicing, and kept making trips up and down the stairs, yelling at each other from the top of the stairs to the bottom. Two of them stayed downstairs doing something, while the other two went in the elevator. For the next 20 minutes, we watched the scarlet boys play elevator tag. Whether they were really looking for each other or just bored, I don't know, but it was highly amusing to observe. This wild-looking guy joined in their fun... he had extremely long dark hair, white-blue contacts, crazy makeup. I assumed he was a member of Cannabis, since they change their look once a week, and just found a new, permanent guitarist the week earlier.

So a handful of girls show up, but the number doesn't quite reach twenty when it opened. We formed a short little line down the stairs, get our packets, and enter the room. While surveying the goods down the stairs, I noticed that the guitarist of the band Cerberos (written in katakana "keruberos", who I had not been able to find any information on), looked strikingly like the ex-guitarist of Gio band KA-O-SU, Zakuro. Zakuro, the dude who looks like something that appears in the headlights of your car at 2 in the morning in a horror flick, only much happier and with a thong on his face. Nah, couldn't be. I check the packet once I get in, and scream (yes, I really did). It IS Zakuro. I had no idea he was in a new band, let alone a band I was going to see!

Gio is on the large side when it comes to small live houses. The room is expansive and could hold a few hundred people without any problem. There's a bar across the back (where you buy drinks), and there was a kinda fenced-in area in the middle, with some turntables and other DJ stuff. There are a few big wooden boxes on the sides, for sitting, but no tables otherwise. The stage is quite low, maybe a foot and a half off the ground, and no curtain.

So, with the crowd still sparse, the first band starts. And I have NO idea who they are. The list outside said Cannabis was first, and I found that weird, since the headlining band should play last, but who am I to say. There are five of them, vocalist, bassist, drummer, and two guitarists. They had no costumes on, just street clothes, and no makeup besides that on one of the guitarists, who was the one I saw in the elevator. The vocalist comes out with a whistle, blowing it like crazy and then holds up a yellow card. Yes, the World Cup even affects indies bands. He babbles about soccer and then screams at the small group of girls at the stage when they don't answer his "Atsui desu ne?", continues the weather talk for too long, and then they start.

Ok, so "Cannabis" played a mixture of hard rock that sometimes crossed into the nu-metal or rap-rock genre. But to tell the truth, I really enjoyed it. They were hilarious to watch, all bouncy and interacting with each other. The non-weirdo guitarist was quite attractive, in the normal Japanese boy way, and frighteningly enough, did fanservice with the other guitarist. He slid across the stage on his shoes, like they were ice skates. And then, out of the blue, two guys sprint on stage and the seven of them go CRAZY! I mean, they were jumping around and acting like hyper elementary schoolboys who hadn't taken their Ritalin on the last day before summer vacation. I immediately recognized one of the guys as Yuu, who was once the guitarist of Bang-Doll, and had been Cannabis' support guitarist until the previous week. The other guy, well, I have no idea who he was. Yuu was adorable, hugging the bassist and leaping around. He's exceptionally tall (and the platform shoes didn't change that) and even out of makeup is very pretty. And hyper, dear loard. Anyway, they were awesome, and two hours later, I find out that they weren't Cannabis, but the session band, Eight Man, oops. They were made up of: a guy named Takayuki (ex- some band called "Ice Dy Motion") on vocals, KO-ICHI (ex-RAPT) on bass, Ryou from Cannabis on drums, Takeon from Cannabis on guitar (he was the attractive one), and finally.... Zakuro from Cerberus on the other guitar.

Next up was scarlet. Their costumes were awesome. The vocalist, Hiro, had a modified dress shirt with big black straps connected with a metal ring across the front, which had long pointy tails and cut out shoulders. Pleather bondage pants on the bottom. His hair was blonde and spiked up, with white foundation and black lipstick and eyeliner. The bassist, "Sid", who I remembered as the hideous one from visiting their site, wasn't really that hideous. He had short (maybe too short) brown hair, wore some enamel getup, and had rhinestones glued all over his face in patterns. He had a few piercings, including a huge thin acrylic spike coming from his left ear that I found exceptionally cool. The guitarist was downright sexy, with pink-blonde hair lightly tousled, in a black suit with flared legs, he looked like could be the twin of Hiro from Missalina Rei. He must have weighed about 80 lbs; I didn't see how his stick legs could support the weight of his guitar. He had like 40 earrings in his right ear, from silver rings to pink plastic safety pins, the bottom one being a feather on a long chain, which hung down and looked very nice. The drummer (Ruy, what the hell kinda name is that?) wasn't much to look at, and every time I did, he had a roaring look of exerting too much force at once.

Their music was solid, bouncy, heavy rock. Very clear and a strong bass line. I actually recognized a song from one of the demo mp3s they had on their site. Which says something, that they play as good as CD quality on stage. They moved around a fair amount, although mostly it was to grab the one water bottle that three of them stole from the vocalist and shared. At one point, Hiro had to reassure us that they weren't "be-boy", which I'm assuming is a reference to the famous boy-boy love manga publisher.

By this time, I had somewhat figured out the order of the bands, and the next one up was VIVE. From what I had seen beforehand, their set looked like a good time to go get a drink and chill out. And when they came out, they looked just as lame as they did on their site, although on their site they looked like a melodramatic new age girl band; live they just looked dumb. Their "costumes" were just a really weird combination of street clothes. Vocalist Shohei had a tight flower-print button-down shirt, REALLY tight jeans, and scary pointy red shoes. Aki on bass had a black long-sleeve Pacific Sunwear-esq shirt, with a mechanic's suit over it. And the others weren't memorable enough for me to rag on. The drummer has one of those faces that I just want to smack, like KeiT of Phobia (drummers aren't my thing, *laugh*). So they start... really mellow and soft and... yawn. I was sitting down at the very front drinking my Pepsi, which is rather rude... Kinda funny actually, from my position, the amp in front of me completely blocked out the bassist, and I didn't see him until I realized the guitarist's guitar neck couldn't possibly be an extra two feet long (let alone his ARM). Then they started their next song, which was completely different than the first, and it didn't suck at all. It was absolutely awesome CD-quality hard rock that reminded me of Dear Loving or ElDorado. I really enjoyed it, and stood up for the rest of their set so I could examine them better.

Shohei was a weird one, strange stage persona and strange way of humping the air as he sang. He had somewhat of a fluffy mohawk that was kinda cute, but his makeup was done to look like he had two black eyes. Seriously, red eyeliner and huge blue-black circles taking over his face. And after he got all sweaty, the eyeliner ran so he had two rivers of red running down his cheeks. Which is kinda neat actually. He spoke their MC really slowly, dragging out each word longer than it should have been, like he was reading deep poetry. The bassist, when he looked up from the floor and stopped squatting, under the hideous shag haircut, worse outfit, and bad makeup, had a lovely face. However, I think that the guitarist was by far the most interesting to watch. I'm not sure which guitarist he was (Youki I think), but wow was he insane. Not only did he look like a foreigner, but he looked like a foreign soccer fan who had just escaped from the loony bin. He had short blonde hair and wore dark eyeliner, grinning like a maniac serial killer the entire time. He would talk to himself (ok, he could have been mouthing lyrics, but it didn't look like it) and laugh to himself randomly, as if he were plotting to kill all his band mates. I was half expecting men in white coats to be waiting in the wings to escort him off stage when their set was over. Peculiar man. But even he didn't do much for VIVE's overall stage activity. They were quite boring to watch, since they didn't stray from their spots the whole time, and besides maniac-man and Shohei's air-humping, there was nothing special about their performance at all. In short, a band who I'd buy every CD of, but definitely not go out of my way to see live again, unless they pick up their presentation and change their image.

So they leave, and the stage front consisted of me and one other girl: a super cute nice Lolita who was obsessed with Zakuro. We watch the next band, Cerberos, set up (Gio has no curtain). It was painfully obvious by the crowd that they were a brand new band, I wouldn't be surprised if this was their first live. But it didn't stop them from having loads of fun. Zakuro comes on in his full Zakuroy glory, with fishnet on his face and scary makeup and WOW does that man have stage presence! If the other members weren't as interesting, I wouldn't have even seen them. He would loll his tongue out of his mouth, headbang and swirl his hair around, leering at the audience and smiling like he was insane (which in all honesty, he must be). The bassist (Junno is his name) was the cutest guy ever. His persona wasn't a persona at all, but he was just this adorable, innocent, clueless little (okay, really freakin tall) guy who acted like he was playing around with his friends in someone's basement. He kept glancing at Zakuro to check his timing, and he was smiling and having a grand old time. He would casually fix his hair or adjust his clothes (like you'd do on any normal day, yet I've never noticed any band boy do it before) and looked really surprised that anyone would want to take his picture or even listen to him. His hair was sticking straight up, had on a long furry leopard print trenchcoat with no shirt on underneath. He didn't look too natural in his outfit, but rather than seeming unprofessional, it was just really cute. And his thoughts were plainly visible on his face. "Oops... I think I just played too loud. But I don't think anyone noticed, did they, Zakuro? *glance, smile*."

As for the rest of the band... the vocalist was FEMALE! Her hair looked like an 80s rockstar wig, and she was, uh... curvy, unnaturally so. Wore a silly, overly fishnetted, feathery, and glittery costume, but she was so CUTE! The other guitarist was blonde and male and completely uninteresting besides his funny name. No drummer. They were, damn, REALLY good. Bursting with energy, and watching the two on my side had me grinning throughout the whole set. Eva, our energetic vocalist, coaxed most of the now-larger audience to come forward, and everyone joined in their hyper headbanging. They played loud, hard music that I really don't remember at all, but it wasn't bad. Mika and Reiko had been lavishing Jun with googly eyes and "kawaiiiiiii~!"s the entire set, and after Cerberos finished, he came over to them and gave them each a guitar pick. Awww. Of course, I was trying to fill out their enquette, bending over and using the amp to write on, and didn't see that he was practically bending over me to hand the picks to them until I heard their squealing. Ah well, better luck next time.

LOST AGE was next, and they get my award for the most explosive stage entrance I've ever seen. They burst on stage in a visual flurry so fast I didn't know what hit me. Whoever said there's no creativity in 'traditional' visual kei needs to see this band (actually, I think it was me that said that...). They have a very fresh look, without sacrificing a thing to being "true visual." Their bassist, Zin, (who played a five-string!) was drop-dead gorgeous sex on two legs. Move over, Sanaka, this boy has got it going on! (Did I just say a sentence as cheesy as that? *cringe*) Head to toe enamel and bondage, tiny shorts, fishnet everywhere, high boots... THIGH, a lots of it! His hair was bright pink, pulled back in a ponytail with some braids hanging off. And to complete the ensemble, a leather studded muzzle. And after their entrance, he promptly grabbed his water bottle and attempted to drink from it (yes, through the mask), which of course was unsuccessful, and amused me greatly. He posed a lot, lifting his leg up on my amp (giving me quite the view *__*;;; ) and made playing the bass seem a much sexier task than it is.

Joutaro had on a matching mask, and some snakeskin and leather getup that I swore was a hand-me-down from Ryo-suke of Bang-Doll (there is no mistaking that hideous shirt). He also wore a leather head-kerchief, which seems to be the going accessory for drummers nowadays. Come to think of it, once he took the facemask off, he looked very stereotypically drummer. The guitarist, Rei, was definitely an interesting one. Pictures on their site show him as a brown-haired, rather plain dude looking uncomfortable, but he was FAR from that. He wore a long flowing black dress covered in buckles and chains, blue dyed hair sticking up everywhere, and piercings all over. He had a chain hanging off his lip, which might have supposed to be attached to an ear piercing, but was just hanging free and he swung it around without abandon. He was pretty demented in general, actually. The makeup was a little on the creepy side.

Him and Zin would switch places, and play together. At one point, Rei put his arm around Zin and heaved his tongue out of his mouth, flashing the peace sign. Now Shou... WOW. Think Dir en grey's Kyo at the peak of his visual days. Bleach blonde hair spiked loosely all over, ice blue-white contacts, heavy makeup, piercings, black paint clawed all over his bare chest, legs, mouth, and chin. He wore a messed up fur coat and h.naoto long shorts, with no shoes and bare everything else. He was an excellent vocalist, really knew what he was doing and knew how to work the audience. During MCs, he was pretty funny too. He asked the audience "Do you think I'm scary?" and made a heinous face. He'd growl at everyone, trying to look fierce, and start laughing. As for the music, they were loud and hard as the rest of the bands have been, nothing memorable, but there was much headbanging and insanity, because they really kicked ass.

Their set was long, or maybe it just seemed long to me, because Bang-Doll was finally next and I was getting impatient. And you could tell they were next, by the sudden influx of fangirls, who came from the far reaches of the back of Gio to form several rows the second LOST AGE left the stage... and there were a lot of lolitas! I don't know how they all headbanged with their little headdresses on, but I guess they did, I didn't really notice or anything. Bang-Doll took their sweet time setting up, twice as long as all of the other bands. I think it was mostly because of Hiroki's drums, where they completely disassembled the existing set to customize to his needs (the previous guys just played them how they were). To-Ru and You stood facing the back, tuning their instruments and trying to look as badass as you can while tuning your instrument in front of 50 fans with no curtain. You had two guitars: his normal one, and a little white one with his name on it, cute! Ikumi hid backstage, and Ryo-suke walked around directing people. He came over to my side at one point to plug in some guitar cables. I watched him and he looked up for a second, then he actually recognized me, and smiled this amazingly huge smile. I smiled back and waved (although I was a foot from him, the bad music they play between sets was loud!). He scurried off, and they all left stage, and the Slipknot music turned off and the lights went down.

They came in one by one in typical band order (drummer first, vocalist last), each shouting something to get the energy up. To-Ru screamed something and raised his arms, showing the room his very unshaven pits *shudder*. He brought out this mini flag that the band uses religiously as their own (which in fact is a flag from Gundam, the Principality of Zeon, silly otaku boys) and stuck it in the amp. Ryo-suke came out last, with the same logo on a big flag wrapped around him. And he tears it off and chucks it at the stage entrance, and they start.

A bit on their look... They have changed greatly since last year, with their member lineup change brought a slight image change, but they seem to fit together more. They really seem to like leather. Leather vests and armbands, or leather shirts and gloves. Hiroki has the brightest pink hair I have seen on a human being, ever. It is purely radioactive. He looks a thousand times younger than he did when he was in old-Bang Doll, and wore his leather shirt and flames getup seen in recent photoshoots. You will never cease to amaze me with the heights he gets his hair to. It's like X, only not retro looking. His hair looks like a houseplant. It sticks up a good two feet above his head; it really is miraculous that someone could have the patience to style that so often. He was wearing black and white PVC/leather, in his typical You-style, with armbands and buckles and chains hanging off his shoulder, and so on. Ikumi is so cute. He really is. He is very obviously MUCH younger than the rest of the band. He had his recently dyed-blonde hair poufed up a bit, and thankfully was not wearing the scary white lipstick. A leather vest and armbands, like the rest of them, was his outfit, which was accessorized by collars and buckles and such. To-Ru was fairly uninteresting to look at, with a zipped-up version of Ikumi's costume on, and no unusual hairstyles or makeup. Ryou also had on a leather shirt and leather gloves... the shirt was one he's worn forever, with the blue buckles across the chest. He had a fairly bizarre hairstyle, the bangs and front part being straight, but the back sticking up in a sort of beehive. It didn't look that terrible, it was certainly an improvement on ones in the past.

They start off with Downing, and from then on it's all a blur. Everyone, inexclusively, headbanged themselves silly, including the band. I don't know how they play while thrashing around so much. They played "DELAZ (Them & US)" next, followed by "anison... tie-up kibou", which are two newer songs I hadn't heard. After the MC, they did "DUAL PERSONALITY" and "A". They were great, they were extreme, they were so much fun. Everyone worked themselves into a dizzy frenzy, only pausing during the MC to catch their breath. It was extremely cool to look up and see all four mobile members in a line, thrashing in a sort of unison. All the pictures I took came out terrible, mostly because no one was standing still and I had an angle that consisted of You's right side only. After those songs, Ryo-suke started talking and took out a harmonica. That was pretty random, but he played it and complained about how expensive the box was, then turned around and threw the box at some girl afterwards. Yeah, I have no idea why.

At one point, they also did the thing where they hold their arms out, in a sorta Hitler way, but I think more in a Gundam way, and don't stop until everyone else has done it too. I don't know when in the set they did that, but they did. DAMNED!!/G-D-D was their last song, which is my favorite. I didn't think it was possible, but everyone went twice as insane as before. I jumped up and down and headbanged at the same time. I nearly passed out from overexertion. It was great. It was their last song, so everyone just let loose.

Yuu ran out with their flag wrapped around him, then darted to the left side (stage left? stage right? I dunno, my side), fell to the ground (practically knocking Ikumi out of the way), and started doing pushups! Ryou and To-Ru ran over and sat on him. It was hilarious. And then he danced around with them, and ran off stage again. At one point, they knocked some wires out with their shenanigans, and Ryou once again had to re-plug in the ones on my side. And again he looks up, grins like mad, and this time, waves at me. And back to the insanity. He stole To-Ru's bass (not quite sure how), and ran around stage with it (playing it!) and stopped at the front of the stage to really rock out. And To-Ru came up from behind, wrapped his arms around him, and played for him. They continued the song until they sufficiently worked the crowd past exhaustion, then ended and exited.

Caring less about Cannabis (am I a bad person for going to their anniversary live to not see them?) and whatever DJ was playing afterward for whatever reason, I made my way to the stairs so I could blow all my money on Bang-Doll's goods. They had so many cool photosets, some were taken outside and silly, some inside and posed, all a hell of a lot cheaper than the rest of the bands. Seven photos for 1000yen, or five for 700yen, as opposed to Cerberos' four-for-1000 or one-for-500 deal. I ended up with one silly set and one serious set, and picked up Downing. Then I sat at the bottom of the stairs curled over myself in a collapsed little ball of no-more-energy while Mika and Reiko chatted up the Keru staff girl, filled out their enquette, and spent all their money on the overpriced photosets. The staff girl attempted to get me into the conversation, pointing out that I had filled out the enquette *nod nod* (which I guess is a stunning feat, considering I am gaijin and I don't think anyone else filled it out) but I was too out of it to do anything besides nod back. At one point, Hiroki and You both darted up the stairs with their heads down, throwing an "arigatou gozaimasu" at me, since I was clutching their stack of merchandise like a lifeline. The vocalist and guitarist of scarlet were standing nonchalantly in the corner to my left, loving the attention two girls were giving them (they were taking pictures and so on). We hung around a bit longer... I was hoping for the rest of the Bang boys to surface, but I think they were going to do something chaotic with Cannabis and never showed. Either that or they were all backstage drinking, which is more likely. Then we leave and pass Zakuro on the stairs (dirty biker! dirty biker!) and Mika realizes she left the ugly neon orange umbrella she bought for 100 yen before the concert to protect my h.naoto clothes from the drizzle (9_____9);; in the audience area, so we go back in. I saw a bit of Cannabis... they were looking hardcore and fairly uninteresting. The room wasn't as packed as it was for B-D; there was plenty of room between the statuesque loose rows of people to navigate through. So, I guess I wasn't the only one who went there and ignored the hosting band. Sorry, guys!

This live was definitely a pleasant surprise. I came expecting a long, boring wait until Bang-Doll, but it was quite the opposite! Every one of the bands was great in their own way. Altogether a highly enjoyable night.

My money went to: Bang-Doll
My money should have gone to: Bang-Doll
Goods: Bang-Doll single CD "Downing", two Bang-Doll photosets
Souvenirs: Smiles from Ryo-suke ^o^