Pitiful Confusion: Kalen vs Panic*ch
September 23rd, 2004 at Omotesando FAB
Bands in order: Kalen, Panic*ch
Ooh what fun! Panic and Kalen were doing a special two-day two-man, one in Tokyo and one in Osaka. Panic*ch was playing in Tokyo, and Panikku in Osaka. I think Panic and Kalen go really well together! I was excited, I hadn't seen Kalen in forever. Ren and I went together... our first live together since Malice Mizer! Wow! I learned later that "Pitiful confusion" = ...karen + konran (in other words, Kalen and Panic). How cutely creative. Tara and Nao made it up.
We apparently had really good tickets, and went right in. In front of us in line were the cutest cosplayers ever! They were the first Panic cosplayers I'd seen, although they were doing the visual side cosplay tonight. I also saw a girl cosplaying Takumi in his frilly pink tanktop and capris, and another of Tara in regular clothes... they both looked just like the members!
So once we got in, there were few people and we basically had our choice of where to stand. According to the enquette packet, Kalen was first, but we weren't about to take our chances so we stood near the front anyway. I like Kalen a lot, so it's not like I was being big dumb foreigner taking up the front space of a band I don't know. It took an hour from opening to starting, so it was a lot of standing around as the rest of the people came in. It was pretty crowded! I'm glad we got in when we did.
A while after 6, a hand sneaks around the curtain to pull it down and everyone gets all excited. All the fans had been sitting down but it was a sudden giant rush to the front (lazy people). Then we see a tall ponytailed guy walk out in a white floral print yukata... It was Kalen! The entire band was wearing super cute altered kimonos. Erize's was of course the cutest, pink Hello Kitty material made into a yukata-style dress with leg and arm covers. His hair was also (naturally) in fluffy pigtails. Nao had a more traditional styled one, black with dark reds and khakis, floor length, but the obi was more of a ripped up wrap. He had a bit of the scar-tissue makeup around his mouth. Takaya's was purples and blues, very pretty fabric, trimmed with lace. It was sleeveless with lace on the shoulders, but it had arm covers with mini hanging sleeve parts to match. Takaya also got QUITE chubby... I was shocked! He looked nothing like he did when I saw them last year! He was still really cute and all, now he just has some meat on him... heh. Finally, Setsuki had on a blue one in the same style, minus the lace, but with black pleather booty shorts and leg covers on the bottom.
They started off with what the fans call "preparation exercises", or a song to get everyone worked up. They were very energetic and smiley as expected, lots of running around stage. Some of the members had Kalen fans (as in, things you wave to cool you down, with little cartoon versions of themselves printed on it) and were doing some dances with them, fanning the audience too. After a few songs, they started the member introduction segment. Playing a generic vk sounding repetitive song, they'd go one by one through the members and we'd all saku at them and scream their names. After that, Nao went through a "who's the most ___", where he'd say "cute" or "best looking", etc. He would push the member to the front who he thought fit the title best, but it was up to us to scream the name of who we thought was the most such-and-such. He was quite competitive over the "kakkoi" title though! I'm not quite sure during which song this happened, but it was during one of their more quiet songs... There's emotional vocal solo when the rest of the band went silent, and Nao actually stopped singing into the microphone and just sang out loud. His voice really carried well, it was amazing.
For their last song they of course did flow, where they all switched instruments. I had to laugh at this because earlier Cameron told me they did it EVERY time, and they sure enough did. It was still a lot of fun though. Except during this song, Erize threw his pick and landed in front of me, so when me and another girl were scrounging around the floor for it, a waterbottle fell from the sky and landed on my neck... actually in the crook of my neck by some weird coincidence, so I was actually holding it there... but it was OPEN! And it was TEA! I got it all over my hair, and 2 seconds after it fell from the sky, the girls behind me raped my neck and yanked the thing away from me! I think it belonged to Takaya, the bastard.
1) Tomadoi
2) Solve
3) Dusty Mirror
-Member introduction-
4) Actually
5) I
6) vector
7) flow~
So then we got closer to the stage and waited as they played the techno 829 in the background on repeat forever. Eventually PANIC*ch came out one by one, throwing glow bracelets into the audience. I caught two blue bracelets, one from Takumi and one from Meguru!
They were all wearing casual clothes, Meguru had on a blue Dickies tshirt, blue jeans, new blue Nikes, a blue NY Yankees visor around his neck, and a blue Cookie Monster wristband. Blue anyone?? He also had a zebra print bag hanging off his belt. Kana was also wearing a Dickies tshirt. Tsubasa had on the ugliest pants ever... they were acid washed jeans so they were green, and then ripped up the sides with black lace underneath, with a Sexy Dynamite tanktop. Tara had on the usual layers with Vivienne tie and many accessories. They started off with the usual two Engrishy songs, which are always fun. He taught the audience how to do the "ichi ni OI" thing for Lovely again. I don't think everyone was as coordinated as they were at the oneman for it, but it was still a great laugh... He also kept switching up whether we were supposed to jump, heart, or saku too, so I had to pay close attention.
During the member introduction part of 829, each member would come up to the front of the stage and we'd all saku them. But for Takumi, Tara and Meguru kneeled down in front of the drumset and saku'd him. It was too cute. Once they'd been through their catalogue, they decided that since they had a bit of time left, that they'd play one of Panikku's songs too. So they exploded into Kodoku mousou and everyone went nuts. Yay!
1) Sparking
2) Pink Cherry
3) Lovely
4) Be awake
5) Date
6) Kataomoi
7) 829
8) Kodoku mousou
Then they ran off, and the roadies ran on and started taping stuff to the floor, and brought out a big metal box thing. No one knew what was going on but expected some kind of session. Were we ever SHOCKED when Meguru came out in full Panikku makeup and costume! It was one giant collective "EHHH!?!?!" They all came out in their Yankee jumpsuits, Meguru had blue clawed all over his face and white contacts in. They started playing Iyagarase, and mid-headbanging I look up to see Kalen has joined them on the stage and they were all going crazy. This of course got the Kalen fans in the back of the audience to flip out and RUN to the front and mash themselves in... So it ended up being a really big scary crushing mess (in a good way!) and no one could really move... cuz twice the fans in half the room makes for sardines!
So it was like double chaos on stage and double chaos in the audience!! It was quite fun. I ended up mashed towards the shimote guitar side, which was quite convenient as Setsuki had obviously, for many many years, yearned to stage dive, but had never been able to because he had a guitar on. So he took this opportunity to repeatedly fling his bony body into the audience. Convenient for him, mostly, because I was one of the few to actually pay attention and try to support him. First it took us by surprise, and we hoisted him back up quickly. Second time, I started counting. He'd jump in, we'd do our best to push his butt back up on stage (and no roadies came to his rescue, the stage was too chaotic at this point), and he'd jump right back in. The SIXTH time he did it, he happened to catch a couple girls off guard, just my attention alone was not enough to hold him up, and he was not caught. He actually just fell like a sack of potatoes into us, and took us all down to the floor with him. About five of us. It was truly hysterical. The fans were nice and tried to pull us up as fast as possible, but I felt real bad for the girl on the very bottom. After that, the rest of the members made him stay on stage, but he stood there looking quite content with himself.
Once they had milked Iyagarase for all it was worth, Tara picked Nao up and put him on his shoulders, and walked around stage with him. Takumi threw his stick... And I caught it! But so did another girl. She was ready to bite my hand off for it, she was soooo protective, so we did janken and I lost. But it's probably better that way. Then they all ran off stage... And several minutes later Kalen came back out with their instruments. They started a hard song and got everyone moshing, and then Panic ran out again.
It was pretty funny, Meguru was trying to get in on the vocal action and was yelling "atama" over and over, but by that point we could barely breathe let alone move our bodies enough to headbang. Tara and Takumi sat at the front of the stage with their backs to us pretending they were moshing too. At one point Tara got a bit too close and girls started pulling him into the audience by his clothes! He clung to the speaker until someone came to his rescue.
And Meguru spewed the blue yogurt, and it was awesome. I love chaotic events like that.