Oh, and I saw Sid last night.
We arrived in Japan yesterday afternoon. After we checked in and got ourselves comfortable, we headed out to see if we could swing tickets to Sid's tour finale at Yoyogi National Stadium. They were playing all really large venues for this tour that ended a month prior to its big finale.
I wanted to go to the concert for a few reasons.
1) I was interested in Sid's music and hoped this would help me decide if I like them or not.
2) I just flew in and needed something to do to help me get adjusted to the time difference.
3) I heard their fans were fun to laugh at. (they were.)
The band:
As a whole, they are a lot more charismatic than the average visual band. The members are fairly funny, and even I got about half of the jokes. Mao is a better than average visual singer, meaning that he can stay in tune live, but nothing about his voice really sticks out. Not that I expect much from Japanese vocalists. The drummer, Yuuya could be a professional comedian if this whole band thing falls through. The bassist, Aki (I think) was the most energetic member, looking for any excuse to spin around, throw his bass, jump around, etc. He is a follower of the Kiyoshi "play my instrument with one hand in the air" method. Shinji was fairly impressive as a guitarist. He'd switch back and forth between acoustic and electric guitars, often times mid song. Also, at least once he even whipped out a guitar solo on a nylon string classical guitar; pretty damn cool. It was followed by the song chorus and then an electric guitar solo.
The music:
Having only heard one album and a couple singles, I know way to little about Sid to give you a set list. The music varies between True/Heart era L'arc~en~ciel, pseudo pop-punk, straight up pop, and Baroque-esque jazzy rock. They had one song that was ska. I would have skanked but that would have confused the poor little fan girls. Then right when I'd start to loose interest, they'd whip out a fast and hard rocking song and I'd start paying attention again.
The fans:
err, the only other concert I've been to in Japan was a Madbeavers/Dust n Bones show in Fukuoka. I was one of the youngest people in the audience and I'm 26. Neither band is full of youngsters popular mostly for their looks, so I was unprepared for an audience of Japanese high school girls. The whole dance with the hands thing is creepy. They were way to coordinated in their moves for my liking. There is one thing almost every girl in the audience started doing about half way through the set that according to Miki's friend means "fuck me." I hope that is either not true or they don't know it means that. A whole auditorium full of underage girls inviting the band to fuck them is way too disturbing to think about. I feel dirty just having been there. The lyrics to one song feature a variation of the verb mawaru sung over and over during the chorus or pre-chorus and the whole audience started spinning around and around. The only thing I could relate to was during one of the heavier songs most of the crowd was headbanging.
Etc:
Mao announced they were going major later on this year. (the fact they could play before a 20,000 person audience as an indie band is incredible) Prior to going major they will release a tour dvd in June, have a final indies tour in June and July playing small to medium sized clubs throughout the country, and release another new album in August titled Side B complete collection ~e.B~. In case the title didn't give it away, its a collection on B Sides from their singles. It will include a new track as well. Their major debut performance will be at the Budokan in November. Also their fan club just started publishing a magazine and gave out a free copy of volume 0 to all who attended the show. Oh, we think we saw Hizumi and Karyu from D'espairsray when we left. They were walking out of the venue as fast as they could and wearing face masks but it sure looked like them.
I guess I like Sid after all. Will I ever see them play live again? I kind of doubt it. Will I buy any of their CDs? I'll probably get 1 or 2. Will I follow their career as they go major? Yeah.
We arrived in Japan yesterday afternoon. After we checked in and got ourselves comfortable, we headed out to see if we could swing tickets to Sid's tour finale at Yoyogi National Stadium. They were playing all really large venues for this tour that ended a month prior to its big finale.
I wanted to go to the concert for a few reasons.
1) I was interested in Sid's music and hoped this would help me decide if I like them or not.
2) I just flew in and needed something to do to help me get adjusted to the time difference.
3) I heard their fans were fun to laugh at. (they were.)
The band:
As a whole, they are a lot more charismatic than the average visual band. The members are fairly funny, and even I got about half of the jokes. Mao is a better than average visual singer, meaning that he can stay in tune live, but nothing about his voice really sticks out. Not that I expect much from Japanese vocalists. The drummer, Yuuya could be a professional comedian if this whole band thing falls through. The bassist, Aki (I think) was the most energetic member, looking for any excuse to spin around, throw his bass, jump around, etc. He is a follower of the Kiyoshi "play my instrument with one hand in the air" method. Shinji was fairly impressive as a guitarist. He'd switch back and forth between acoustic and electric guitars, often times mid song. Also, at least once he even whipped out a guitar solo on a nylon string classical guitar; pretty damn cool. It was followed by the song chorus and then an electric guitar solo.
The music:
Having only heard one album and a couple singles, I know way to little about Sid to give you a set list. The music varies between True/Heart era L'arc~en~ciel, pseudo pop-punk, straight up pop, and Baroque-esque jazzy rock. They had one song that was ska. I would have skanked but that would have confused the poor little fan girls. Then right when I'd start to loose interest, they'd whip out a fast and hard rocking song and I'd start paying attention again.
The fans:
err, the only other concert I've been to in Japan was a Madbeavers/Dust n Bones show in Fukuoka. I was one of the youngest people in the audience and I'm 26. Neither band is full of youngsters popular mostly for their looks, so I was unprepared for an audience of Japanese high school girls. The whole dance with the hands thing is creepy. They were way to coordinated in their moves for my liking. There is one thing almost every girl in the audience started doing about half way through the set that according to Miki's friend means "fuck me." I hope that is either not true or they don't know it means that. A whole auditorium full of underage girls inviting the band to fuck them is way too disturbing to think about. I feel dirty just having been there. The lyrics to one song feature a variation of the verb mawaru sung over and over during the chorus or pre-chorus and the whole audience started spinning around and around. The only thing I could relate to was during one of the heavier songs most of the crowd was headbanging.
Etc:
Mao announced they were going major later on this year. (the fact they could play before a 20,000 person audience as an indie band is incredible) Prior to going major they will release a tour dvd in June, have a final indies tour in June and July playing small to medium sized clubs throughout the country, and release another new album in August titled Side B complete collection ~e.B~. In case the title didn't give it away, its a collection on B Sides from their singles. It will include a new track as well. Their major debut performance will be at the Budokan in November. Also their fan club just started publishing a magazine and gave out a free copy of volume 0 to all who attended the show. Oh, we think we saw Hizumi and Karyu from D'espairsray when we left. They were walking out of the venue as fast as they could and wearing face masks but it sure looked like them.
I guess I like Sid after all. Will I ever see them play live again? I kind of doubt it. Will I buy any of their CDs? I'll probably get 1 or 2. Will I follow their career as they go major? Yeah.