the GazettE Tour ‘11 VENOMOUS CELL at Olympus Hall Hachiōji

IT WAS AMAZING.

 

Ready for unnecessary details?

 

 

 

I woke up at about 7 (lol no choice in that) and spent most of the morning taking my time and getting ready. I honestly didn’t feel like wearing anything I had but I ended up with this ensemble:

Hooray for losing weight.

 

My hair turned out really nicely too. I switched up the order I used hair products, which was a huge risk, but it worked out very well.

 

 

I headed out around 12:35. Hachiōji is pretty far – I had to take the metro into Tokyo, then two trains (including a rapid express) to get to Hachiōji around 2:30 xD There were some Italian fans on the train with me into Hachiōji though, so that was interesting to talk to them for a bit.

I was meeting someone so I waited in the plaza outside the station. There was a set of cosplayers milling around, so I got a picture:

 

They were really cute and very nice. Uruha gave us directions to the hall (which was awesomely right by the station in a shopping mall xD More below) and actually ended up leading us there haha.

 

We went in and got goods, then went back out and waited for the venue to open lol.

For goods, I got:

The PC case, which is unfortunately juuuuust barely too small for my laptop, but I can certainly use it for other things and I certainly will.

The tour pamphlet with beautiful photos.

The Reita bandana. For how simple the design is, it’s really quite elegant… in the GazettE sense of the word haha

 

And finally, the big t-shirt. “Big” is not the word I would use for this shirt. I would actually use “ginormous” and “small children may drown in this” as adjectives.

It’s like a small dress on me, and it was knee-length on a lot of Japanese girls I saw wearing it. It’s really a very comfy shirt though.

 

 

Back to the live xD

When I went out I looked back and saw this and went DURRRRRHEY because while I had been waiting for the girl that was with me to come I was trying to use my iPod to figure out how exactly to get to Olympus Hall. Had I looked up and was I able to read, it wouldn’t have been so difficult and I wouldn’t have had to ask Uruha for directions xDDD

 

This was another group of awesome cosplayers. When I approached and asked for a picture, Uruha said, “Oh, irasshaimase!” which is what store owners call when someone enters the store xDD

 

Another cosplay group that WAS doing Ureita posing until I asked for a picture haha

 

 

When I got my tickets, we were in the tenth row on the first floor! The PSC fanclub didn’t tell me where my seats were so I had been waiting anxiously the whole time lol but apparently, hearing from other foreign fans who use PSC, the seats are always really nice, so this made me happy.

 

 

 

WHEN WE GOT IN:

 

The picture doesn’t even faithfully show how close we were. I was maybe the length of my apartment away from the stage, and I was right smack in the middle. Ruki was directly in front of me almost the whole time.

 

The quick member rundown is:

1 – Ruki doesn’t look as small in real life as he does on video… but you can tell he’s tiny, tiny, tiny xD
2 – Uruha is actually really masculine haha
3 – Aoi does, in fact, have horrible fashion sense (see below)
4 – Yes, Reita IS that masculine in real life, but he is reaaaaaaalllllllly slender haha SO I DON’T KNOW HOW THAT WORKS
5 – I… couldn’t see Kai at all so I can’t tell you anything haha

 

The setlist was:

1. INFUSE INTO 
2. VENOMOUS SPIDER’S WEB 
3. SLUDGY CULT 
4. VORTEX 
5. THE SUICIDE CIRCUS 
6. BEFORE I DECAY 
7. HEADACHE MAN 
8. RUTHLESS DEED 
9. 痴情 [Chijou]
10. UNTITLED 
11. AGONY 
12. MY DEVIL ON THE BED 
13. VERMIN 
14. FILTH IN THE BEAUTY 
15. COCKROACH 
16. PSYCHOPATH 
17. TOMORROW NEVER DIES 
18. OMEGA

—encore—
19. Ride with the ROCKERS 
20. REMEMBER THE URGE 
21. A MOTH UNDER THE SKIN 
22. Maggots 
23. DISCHARGE 
24. LINDA～candydive Pinky heaven～
—double encore—
25. 関東土下座組合 [Kantou Dogeza Kumiai]

 

 

(Warning, kind of just non sequitur, I’m just writing things as they come to mind.)

 

We managed to get them out for two encores… it took them so long to come out for the first one I was afraid we weren’t getting one haha.

The main live was really exciting, though. it was super high-energy with a lot of really loud and heavy songs. Reita actually finger-picked a couple of songs… I think it was from about SLUDGY~, and I noticed him playing with a pick again at RUTHLESS~. It was really impressive. *___*

Ruki has a massive amount of stage presence. I went in determined to make sure to watch everyone equally, but it was extremely difficult to look away from him. He just drew you in. After Ruki, Reita has the most stage presence. Uruha has none at all lol. I hardly even noticed him most of the time, which was probably helped by the fact that he kind of just stood there and didn’t interact that much. Aoi was all over the place, skipping around and… uh… TRYING to interact. He tried to interact with Uruha a couple of times but was completely ignored, haha. He crossed over from Uruha to Reita once and kind of leaned down and looked up at Reita like he was trying to look up some girl’s skirt… xD;; Aoi, please.

It seemed like there were a lot of technical issues… there were three or four times in between songs we sat in black for four or five minutes as staff went running across the stage. Uruha left the stage at least once, I think… and once during black Reita was kind of stiffly huddled over by his amp fiddling with his bass and Aoi went over with him for a bit. Reita looked EXTREMELY unamused most of the time… it was quite scary, actually. Everything sounded fine, though. Ruki’s voice was spot-on the entire time. That man has a good set of lungs and quite a voicebox.

Actually, thinking of it now, Uruha was kind of looking at Reita a lot… I wonder if Reita was having a bad day. :/

Also Ruki was super-cute during the MCs. He was really funny too, cracking jokes left and right. Once he was doing his “All right Tokyo?!” and he held out “Tokyo” so he was still going after we all answered… and then we answered again when he finished haha. Then grinned and said, “That makes me feel happy.” He tried to do it again a few minutes later and completely failed because he started laughing as he tried to hold out the word. A couple of times he said, “Guys, there’s no energy here!” and we answered and he just sat there grinning like a moron, haha. Sooo cute~

I was so close to the stage and directly in front of Ruki, so I saw very little of Kai during the live. Poor Kai xD

A couple of the highlights were:
*Ruki’s pimp cane during MY DEVIL ON THE BED. It was all covered in glitter and everything.

*During HEADACHE MAN, my row was moving along the floor as we jumped and did furisuke during the chorus, and as we headed back into the line of gaijin on my right, we all crashed and then kind of stood there reeling and laughing while we tried to get going again. Reita was watching us crash and grinning to see our fail xD

*I’m pretty sure Ruki was locking eyes with me all of Chijou lol he (me and everyone else in the venue right? but he and I were on the same eyelevel SO IT MUST HAVE BEEN ME)

*When Reita and Kai came out to do Ride with~, they met in the middle of the stage, Kai held out his hand, and Reita slapped it and spun around. Kai just kind of stood there with his hand out for a minute, and when Reita stopped and was facing him again, Kai stuck out his foot. Reita looked at it for a second, then looked at the crowd and pointed to Kai as if to say, “This guy, huh? He’s a screwball.”

*After Kai gave his MC during the encore, he said, “Okay, I’m going to sit down now,” and plopped down onto his stool x3 Cute~

*Aoi came out for the encore in a coral pink and gold skirt that reached the ground, a pink and teal flower-print shirt, and a faux fur-trimmed duster xD;; It was lollably amazing. RUKI DRESS HIM PLEASE

*During LINDA, Reita did his spinny thing across the stage towards Uruha, who was standing there looking at him with this expression like “Get over here, you idiot”. When he got close to Uruha, Reita stopped, posed down on one knee, and held his fist out for a fistbump. Uruha just kind of stared at him like “Burhur?” so Reita gave up and as he put his arm down, Uruha reached out to fistbump him xD

*For the second encore, Aoi came out, looked at his watch, and said, “Dude, it’s late. Time to go home.” So we all yelled at him and he nodded and everyone else came out on stage haha.

*During Kantou~, Reita took off his bandana and stuffed it down the front of his pants… and then a few minutes later turned and threw it at Kai :| lol and it got caught on a drum and someone had to come and try to get it off while Kai sat there laughing.

*Also during Kantou~, Uruha crossed the stage, went over behind Reita, pressed up against his back, knocked his pick hand away from his bass, and played random strings himself. After a bit, he knocked Reita’s other hand away and played the bass himself while Reita stood there with his arms up x3 (I squeed.)

 

We all rocked out really hard… I think we were all dead by the time Kantou~ came, and that went on for maybe fifteen minutes. But we all did the jumping and furisuke anyway. Everyone was dripping with sweat and completely exhausted when it was over.

Me after the live as I was waiting for the train to pull in. My hairstyle was nonexistent before even the main part of the live was over.  And my makeup melted haha. I was so pumped though. I would have kept going for another hour or two if the live had gone that long.

 

It was a really amazing live. The crowd was really high-energy, the atmosphere was positive, the Gazemen looked and sounded amazing (despite all the problems). And I loved it. It was (most definitely) probably the most fun I’ve had in my entire life.

I think I really needed this, more than just to really rock out and headbang to heavy music and scream to get frustration out (that was really nice though). I needed to see them, and I needed to see Ruki, who is an amazingly inspiring person to me, in the flesh. I needed to see that they are real people who enjoy what they do and enjoy changing people’s lives, and with those people that I admire and respect and who inspire me, I needed to have a good time. (And everyone did have a good time, even Reita, who was grinning and looking much, much, much happier by the encores.)

It was easily done and I feel so good. I still feel really good, really positive, really refreshed, even more inspired.

 

To top it off, on my way home, everything was quiet (except for the train from Hachiōji to Shinjuku loaded with people who had just come out of the live). I don’t know if it was just because it was a quiet and late night or if it was because I was effectively deaf, but it was really nice to come out of the concert with the loud music and movement and singing and shouting with that band I admire so much and just have it be… really quiet and contemplative for the better part of the ride home. It helped me to compound everything I had seen and felt, and think on it, and really take everything in and hold it. It was really a perfect night.

And that’s all that can be said and needs to be said about it.

 

 

 

Do I recommend seeing them live? Absolutely. The price of the tickets, the long day, the waiting in line, the exhaustion and sore muscles and everything was more than worth it. You need to see these guys live. You might not take it to heart like I did, but you’ll still definitely enjoy yourself in the crowd with other enthusiastic but extremely kind fans as you jump and dance and interact with the band.

 

 

I’m going to figure out today if I can go to the Ōmiya Sonic City live. If I can, I will do it without hesitation.

 

And that’s that.