Bands in order: ?, Six-Nine, Byakuya, Secir, Sacrifice, Aile, Delphinium, Bang-Doll, Love Letter, Psycho-nizm

This live report is going to be near impossible for me to write, because not only were a good number of the bands not listed, but there was no order anywhere and if I didn't pay real close attention, I wouldn't hear the name. So the order up above can be debated. But I will do my best...

Saiya and I went to this live in yukata, as it was supposed to be a festival. We were the only ones dressed like that, which wasn't surprising, but we sure got a lot of attention from it. Foreigners in traditional Japanese clothing?! Gasp! Meeting up with us there was a strange but very nice character named Steven, who is very tall with teal hair and eyebrows, and a rather loud shirt. If we weren't the pack of people to stare at that night, no one was.

Fan report: An overall mix of all fashion styles leaning towards the visual genre. Few Lolitas. No obviously "I'm here to get laid" hootchie types. A LOT of guys, many of whom had guest passes and were probably just friends of the bands. Overall crowd population of not so many.

For some reason the start time of the show was about 10 minutes after opening, which is quite unusual, but I do believe it was because they kept adding bands to the night and couldn't start earlier than 3. By the time we were in, the first band was already playing and nearly done. I have not a clue who they were. They were all girls; a vocalist, guitarist, and bassist, dressed in colorful street clothes. They were pretty horrible too. Why can't female vocalists ever sing? Thankfully we didn't have to sit through them for too long, and they were off.

Six-Nine was up next, and they were amusing at the least. Trying to be screamy old-school visual, with headbanging and all that stuff. There were three young guys in semi-visual clothes. Their hair was dyed and poufed and their makeup was black and all that, but I remember saying about one guy "My grandma called and asked for her shawl back..." One dude looked on the chubby side, with whiteface and lipstick smeared all over his mouth. The vocalist had some h.NAOTO shirt on, and bloody gauze on his arms and around his face. I give them credit for trying. Near the end of their set, another guitarist ran out, who had a mask covering his mouth. The vocalist really wanted more people up front, so he jumped off stage, over the bars, and went around dragging people from the front tables to stand and pay attention to them. I found that quite endearing. They rocked out some more and left.

Meanwhile in the audience, these two adorable guys were wandering around. One was rather tall with silly pigtails, and carried around a stack of his band's flyers. He pointed at his picture and grinned, his name was Karin. Aww, how girly. His companion was dressed in white PVC, white fishnet, and white boa around his wrists and head. The two of them carried around one of those clear plastic boxes with a green ventilated top, and said they were going bug-catching. A little weird, but cute.

After we successfully amused ourselves with those boys, the Six-Nine members were in the audience. The support guy was screaming "FUCKIN COOL!" or fuckin something or other through his mask. Steven was all about them, and being up front and headbanging their whole set, he talked to them some, and was asked to fill out their enquette.

Following was the band Byakuya, who I really didn't pay much attention to. They were boring. Black clothes, and nothing else special. Except that the vocalist was really damn hot. He had long blonde hair and the kinda makeup that's like a black tear running down his face. According to their flyer, their music was gothic punk or something, but they didn't seem too out of the ordinary. Worth noting was the bassist had a bass without a head. It was really weird, I'd never seen one like that before.

When the next band set up, I noticed it was the band of the two cute guys who were wandering around the audience. I went up to the front for them. Their name was SECIR, pronounced like "Cecile", but he pronounced it so it sounded like "session", which was confusing for a moment because there were several session bands playing that night. They were absolutely adorable! The two we saw were joined by three others. Most notably, the bassist and drummer were girls. Not just any girls, though; really short and skinny visual girls in DOMINATRIX GEAR. Yet the bassist (with an eyepatch and spiked mullet-like hair) looked more like a man than the rest of the male members. The other guitarist had lots of black and purple stripey socks on, which was an attempt at being cute. But no one was as cute as Karin and Yukiya. They were SO goofy, taking the bug box out again and announcing they were going bug catching. Then Yukiya put the box on Karin's head, and the two of them proceeded to make silly squealing and squeaking noises the rest of the set. Oh man were they adorable.

Their music wasn't too out of the ordinary, but there was a lot of cute hand dancing, and headbanging. Yukiya would kneel on the stage and headbang too. He was SO feminine too... He even spoke like a girl. Aww I really liked them. I think from a costume point of view, they had a good foundation but could use a little improvement. If Karin and the other guitarist went for the black leather thing like the girls did, it would be a cool contrast having the entire band in black, with a fluffy white vocalist. With a little work, I could see them going places. Maybe.

I stayed up front for Sacrifice because they seemed really interesting judging from their photosets. They were. All the members were quite attractive; wearing doctor's coats splattered with blood, except the vocalist's, which was blood-free, and one of the guitarists was wearing the shortest nurse's dress I'd ever seen. He had teeny shorts underneath, his hair in pigtails, and a little cap on (and sandals, because we all know nurses wear open-toed shoes). They looked real cool and matching. I can't really say much about the music, as Saiya and I spent most of the time taking dirty about them and I don't remember too much besides that. I do recall that they used a lot of distortion, making funky noises to the loud, fast music. It was quite good, and a hell of a lot more original than the rest of the bands that night. And fun! Yay!

I really wanted to sit down for a few bands, but I had to go up front for Aile because I luurve them. I had previously posted on their message board saying I thought they were cool and the vocalist Akito replied all happy and said he'd look forward to seeing me at the live. So I trucked up there (although I think Akito totally forgot our BBS encounter and was just totally shitting himself at the sight of three scary foreigners in the front). But man, they are so freakin cute. Their bassist recently left, but their support member wasn't half bad. They were all pretty much head to toe brand names in the costumes they had on their site, with white shirts and black bottoms. The drummer, Takumi, was DAMN adorable, in a frilly Lolita outfit and a little tiara. He even had lacey knee socks! Oh my god I couldn't stop squealing over him. Akito had a frilly h.NAOTO top, sparkles on his face, and various bear keychains hanging off him. The support guy was all in black, with a cute Putumayo hat that had floppy little ears on it. And Hiro was sexy in his h.NAOTO prison shirt.

Their music really sounded like Michiru bands. Like Michiru Project, Aioria, etc. Sparkly and bouncy and cute. Not how I remembered it from listening to samples on their site, but I still really liked it. They were fun, not too interactive but still put on a good show. The drummer managed to play more gracefully than I'd ever seen anyone do so, smiling politely in his little tiara. Their last song was Egoism, which sounds like ElDorado (how coincidental both bands have songs titled such!), hard and fast rock. It was cool.

Heading to back to finally sit down, I watched the next band from the floor because there was not a square inch of sitting space otherwise. They were Delphinium, and as far as I know they were one of the session bands. Cute members; the guitarist's guitar kept fucking up, but he was the hottest. Blonde and yummy. I don't remember much about the other members. They played cover songs, some of which I could recognize. "Blurry Eyes" by L'Arc~en~ciel, and one of those Dir en grey songs EVERYONE covers. I went to the front for the end to take some pictures, and there was a lot of moshing for the Dir song. Probably the most for the night, with full smashing against the stage and thrashing around. I haven't seen that in a while, although there really weren't enough bodies to be considered a real pit.

Here's where it gets fuzzy. I stopped taking notes after this band and honestly have no idea who was next! So we're going to pretend it was Bang-Doll. Ryo-suke threw a cartwheel immediately upon entering stage. Someone was showing off! They played only five songs, and pretty much the same order as their previous. Their costumes were also the same save for You, who had on an alligator skin yukata on. Woo! He's had it for a while but I'd never had the pleasure of seeing it in person. It was really quite neat. It has detachable sleeves and looks goofy with the sleeves, but he wasn't wearing them so it was all gravy. He wasn't wearing the houseplant either, but had a teased ponytail. Ikumi had thankfully shaved the goatee. If he hadn't, we might have just jumped him on stage and gotten rid of it ourselves.

They were really full of energy, probably because they were already half-drunk. As usual, beer on stage. You had some Super Chu-Hi that he was holding in his teeth while he played guitar. *swoon* He is so kakkoii. I don't think there was anything too remarkably different about this performance, except.......

The front row was packed... but just the singular front row. I got in the middle where I usually stand, and Saiya and Steven stood behind me. So it was like HEY LOOKIT THE FUNNY-LOOKIN FOREIGNERS IN THE FRONT!!! We didn't go unnoticed. First, Steven was chucked a beer from stage. But he doesn't drink so he stood there like he didn't know what to do with himself and ended up giving it to me. Near the end of their set, Ryo-suke starts talking to us in English. Steven in particular. He asked him what his name was, and where he was from. Steven told him. Then Ryo-suke told him that I was Krys. -_-;;; Steven somehow knew I was from Connecticut (I guess I told him but I forget) and told him that, and Ryou had a wonderful time trying to pronounce the state's name. Steven then screams "Bang-Doll mania!!" and points to me, which is basically saying "She is so totally frickin obsessed with Bang-Doll!", as mania is synonymous with "otaku" in Japanese. The whole thing was hilarious actually, everyone was laughing (in a good way). I was doubled over the headbanging bar. Then after some more banter and announcement of an after-live uchiage [drinking party], Ryou screams "We are Japanese drinking band!!" and sets into the last song. Slightly unbelievable. I think Ryou's been practicing English.

-Set List-
1) Bang the HEAD
2) DELAZ (Them & US)
3) New Song 1 [Ginza Juwayo Kuchuuru Maki]
4) DUAL PERSONALITY
5) How to use LOVE

I returned to the land of the back of the club with my beer afterwards. And really have no idea who or what played after that. I do believe there was another, unlisted session band whose name could possibly be Love Letter (but don't quote me on that). I think they played another Dir en grey song and this one fruity song I know but can't remember and it's driving me crazy because I can't place it....... It's a Lareine song.

Anyway, after it all seemed like the night needed to be wrapped up, we still had not heard from Psycho-nizm. And suddenly there's a flood of guys on stage. Nearly every guy from every band that played, plus some random guys we had previously seen just hanging around the audience. Yoshitaka was wearing big baggy skater clothes and a massive frog head mask, complete with Mickey Mouse gloves. Most of the other guys were still in costume. The pretty Yukiya from SECIR had a horse head mask on. At first out of Bang-Doll we only saw Ryou up on stage (he was wearing my t-shirt ^o^), but Gou and Ikumi and You surfaced at one point. It was hard to see everyone with so many people on stage. The Psycho-nizm guys actually had instruments, and they passed out lyric sheets to the hoards on stage and started playing. I gather from the Bang-Doll BBS that one of the songs was a Sex Machineguns cover, but it was pretty much just chaos and everyone fighting to sing and headbang without crashing into someone else. A lot of guys were grabbing onto each other for support, which is rather amusing to see. There was a massive balloon or two that was being tossed around like a beach ball back and forth from the stage to the fans. Lots of stuff was being thrown around. Some guy had a toy seal. One present was a board signed by pretty much everyone on stage. I managed an autographed pink towel from the hot guy in Delphinium. We had noticed this massive session appearance a bit late, so we were a few people back. We decided to squeeze up more to the front, and as I moved I realized I had been standing right next to Hiroki, who was also wearing my t-shirt. Him and Ryou were yelling back and forth in a half-drunken manner. Really funny.

They continued these crazy antics for a while, which really was probably the most fun I've seen on stage ever, albeit completely chaotic. Once everyone in the crowd had successfully been hit with the balloon, and every guy had his turn making a goof out of himself, they cleared off stage.

Getting out of there was INSANE, as Gio puts their merch tables up the stairs, which is the only entrance for bands and fans, which leaves room for about, oh, HALF A PERSON to walk up the stairs. Live houses = death traps. I would hate to be in one during any emergency. It was chaos and people yelling and waving around shit in the air, band guys trying to move equipment and fans trying to buy things. And Karin and fluffy boy had to make it worse by standing at the foot of the stairs, holding the boa like an arch, and wiggling it and making funny noises at everyone who walked underneath. Sacrifice was handing out demos at the top of the stairs, but they were rather hesitant about offering them to the foreigners...

Afterwards eeeeveryone was hanging around outside. I've never really loitered around a live house after-hours before, but it was fairly entertaining. The band vans were out, everyone was schmoozing, there was much amusement in seeing band guys out of makeup, and taking bets on how many people were actually going to the uchiage (and hoping one girl in particular would not attend). And then... there was the uchiage... :X