WhirlingBlack

I think we have several professional quitters at this point. (You know who you are.)

Don't know anyone that actually made a major impact that left for good but I know several that have put and kept their activity levels very low compared to earlier.

To be honest and fair though, while I agree that Yohio is morally despicable in a lot of ways and the fact that I have personal relations with people affected by this (as do most in the fragment of what's left of a Swedish VK scene), I have to say that a major reason for the dislike is that western peoples shit generally get out a lot easier. There are plenty of Japanese bandmen who do equally awful things to fans and other women who happen to get in their way. We just don't really hear about it because we either chalk it up to Tanuki rumours or, most likely, no one cares to read up about it at all. Because looking up every entry level bandman who fucks up (without breaking any major laws) would just not be feasible.

Ironically though, I think he's representing the current (unfortunate) trends in the Japanese scene pretty well, tapping into both the pop and the more heavy sides of "neo-vk" with his various projects. The problem is that it's highly unoriginal and sounds like derivatives of a bunch of popular bands tossed together in a blender based on what he was able to dig up on his latest youtube escapades, bands that themselves aren't very exciting to begin with (this is personal opinion though, of course). I also always found him and his group of friends to have pretty shallow knowledge of VK during encounters so the fact that he apparently knew several 90s bands back in the day sometime surprises me, because I've always felt during conversations like they're the kind of guys who think Dir en grey's OBSCURE PV is the most cool and obscure shit around. (remember when Yohio was watching it in that documentary from SVT? lol.) 

So while I agree that there are plenty of good reasons to not like Yohio, my point is that if this was another good for nothing Japanese indie VK guy, chances are we wouldn't be interested, but precisely because he's a foreigner and we have access to a larger amount of information we are able to more easily pass judgement on his behaviour. And perhaps that's for the better, really.

Pretty sure this must be a troll band, the title of their song is spoofing Kuroyume,  the name of the band looks like a mashup of La:Sadie's, Dir en grey and Gille de Rais, and then as above pointed out their vocalist named themselves Madeth. Plus that email address? lol.

I like this though because the way its super overt and referenced makes me feel better about the upcoming copy-paste 90s vk than I do about bands who thrive on the fact that many Japanese fans don't know about older music and thus can't see through attempts at renaming old Dir en grey songs (and re-recording their PVs) and passing them off as your own. (although I'm guilty of thinking that's amusing as well and decently entertaining at lives but at least I feel bad about it.)

I think they did some decent remixes of ain't afraid to die back in the day too.

I like that the person who, without anything even resembling a coherent analysis, arrived at the exact statement of Kyo being unable to hit notes "99%" of the time, is using "proof" as their main source of argument.

Tip for next time, try to not use ridiculous exaggerations yourself if you want people to take your complaints seriously, especially if you want to back them up by facts at a later point. It just makes the original point you're trying to make distasteful even to people who might've been inclined to agree with you to a certain extent.

I have some more shocking revelations to deliver to you in case you want to dig some more dirt about the band: Sometimes Kyo uses overdubbed vocals (up to four tracks at once in some parts), sometimes they have more than two guitar parts playing at once in studio tracks which might result in some stuff sounding "trimmed" in a live setting or missing certain things (just in case you want to tell us that Kaoru and Die can't play their parts properly either at a later point, I mean, a real musician would obviously play two guitars at once.). Even more shockingly, sometimes they do things in several takes in a studio (contrary to  "popular belief" it's not done in one take!) so due to human nature a note or two might actually be off sometimes during live performances. This is not exclusive to Dir en grey though, in fact it's common practice in almost every single band, and from this we should arrive at the conclusion that "99%" of the time most musicians can't perform their instruments and should probably just stay in the studio and not perform concerts.

Or we just stop making stupid sensationalist posts intended to rile up fights and try to discuss things without hyperboles instead. But for some reason Dir en grey always seems to attract people who enjoy that kind of things.

Will also buy the new CD at the live tomorrow. Always nice to see Hotaru too at these events, it's becoming a bit of a yearly tradition by now.

I really think I don't need to add anything more on most of this because hiroki explained the whole situation perfectly. 

About the intent of my comment on choice of words though, I have this to say:

If you were to believe that the white policeman regardless of action taken by the other man was intent on shooting him to death before stepping up to him, then yes, murder would be accurate. If his purpose going up to him was to kill him then yes, that is murder. I don't like the idea of people facilitating such thoughts though because it might lead to more revenge murders of policemen (yes when you plan out and shoot people to death with full intent in advance, it's murder) and cause the situation to spiral. It's a tragedy yes and I don't doubt for a second that it's symptomatic for your country, but we are all responsible to not use words that can rile up more racial hate in a situation like this. I realise that is difficult for people affected though, and that's why third parties should be allowed input (if we even entertain the strange idea that only people directly affected by things are allowed to comment on them).

That was the reason behind my comment about word choice. 

I know it's nitpicking but can people please use the correct terms? No matter what you feel about blacks being shot (not getting into the debate because I frankly don't care for either side of the argument much) please stop calling it murder. Murder is premeditated by definition. The last thing any debate needs is strong words like that used incorrectly.

Aishuu wasn't re-recorded though just remastered for the collection with antique...

Anyway, interesting to read someone with a completely opposite take on the band, in my opinion they started out strongest even though their kept the spirit alive for almost seven years afterwards.

Also, on topic:

1. Aishuu

2. Antique

3. Homura Uta

4. Kuchiki no Tou

5. Zekuu

6. Tsuuzetsu

The rest.

42 Songs... definitely the longest oneman live I've ever attended, and probably ever will. Great setlist for us old school fans too, even though it's missing their oldest material.

The last show of the tour was definitely the best, in my opinion.

The band and especially Kyo was really fired up and even though this in general has been a more energetic and "positive" tour (in the sense of the band actually being happy to interact with the audience) this last show was really a stand out. I think out of the many performances of Rinkaku I've seen this was probably the best also. When the show ended and the lights came back on people just kept screaming for another encore until the venue staff started forcing us out. I also managed to catch Shinyas wristband after the concert, which was a first for me. Nice to have some real Dir artifacts to wear to future gigs.

A funny anecdote from the second to last show though is that not only did Die manage to lodge a waterbottle in the ceiling of the live house when throwing stuff, he also managed to break his guitar during one of the songs and just ran around teasing the crowd instead of getting a backup and continuing playing. Similarly, Toshiya broke off a string from his bass during THE IIID EMPIRE on the last show and then proceeded to just pull the rest off as well.

I want to add that this was probably the most visually interesting Dir en grey lives I've attended too, lots and lots of lightning and laser effects and clever use of video screens and light in combination. I'm hoping they will release at least some partial footage from this tour since they did film at least some footage at most of the dates, but you never know.

Finally, some advice for people who want to attend lives in Japan, never stand next to Japanese guys during concerts if you want to have a good time. They generally just stand around or at most halfheartedly wave their arm a bit. I did that mistake during parts of the last show and I ended up having to move because they were so boring. The girls always go all in so just stick by them if you want to actually participate in the headbanging and stuff.

This was it for this tour for me but if anyone has any questions about it I'll do my best to answer them. I won't be participating in DSS but I'll most likely end up at parts of the kisou tour at least so expect some kind of reports then.

13 hours ago, zombieparadise said:

I saw it live at a ZEPP Nagoya show last month and wasn't too impressed. I felt it was all over the place.

I'll admit I'm not the biggest Dir fan, but I really loved ARCHE and as a follow up this just didn't do it for me.

That was roughly my first impression too, and I am a huge fan so I think it's a general consensus at this point regardless of fandom level. It sounds like the studio version is more fleshed out though and the song grew on me a bit between the first and third time I saw it. I'll report if anything changes tonight.

I assume for everyone else who hasn't attended the lives it's difficult to know. Can't judge the song from a 5 second clip. As usual it doesn't really represent the track that well since the chorus is a lot more melodic than the rest of the song.

I remember this one standing out a little at least compared to the rest of the pop rock onslaught during the concert. It features piano (the acoustic CLASSIC kind, you know? Could be title reference) kind of heavily, at least it did during the live, which helped set it apart. I doubt it will please us old school fans much but you new style mucc fans are probably going to love it.

I've been going wrong with mucc for the last nine years or so. Based on that fact alone I'm surprised how much I enjoyed yesterdays live. They played some of their best songs like 大嫌い、我、在るべき場所、ママ and オルゴール. Which I've been wanting to see for the past ten years or so. 

Sadly of course they were interlaced with upbeat pop rock which made them stand out a bit, but what can you do.

Review of the show is that it was good enough to consider seeing them again, even though I probably won't go out of my way unless it's nostalgia tours. I noticed how excited the fans seemed for some of the new songs and it made me realise that as far as the band is concerned, they are not flopping, so I can see why they want to keep at the current direction and that's why one can't have much hope for a return of old mucc.

Didn't feel like creating a live report thread so here it is. 

They played all those plus another new song called CLASSIC, tonight. (due for release 2016.09.14)

It all sounded like bland modern MUCC to me, the kind of music you'd find on any anime soundtrack. (ironically it's going to be a anime track too apparently)

Having seen both versions of Fukai live in person now I can honestly say I don't really feel the Vulgarism version in comparison to the original. It's definitely weaker even though they are of course both great tracks.

Also, nope, no G.D.S on this tour, sadly. 

No problem, I forgot to mention but new OBSCURE isn't all that bad anymore now that I've seen it live in Japan. But I really can't tell if its due to the audience participation being so awesome for the track or if it's better acoustics or so. Either way I found it quite fun.

Okay, some notes about the concert today:

The songs are performed largely in their original versions except for OBSCURE, and they're done in the same tuning as on the album as far as I'm able to tell using six string guitars. 

Best live tracks by far was audience KILLER LOOP, MARMALADE CHAINSAW, CHILD PREY (the Japanese audience really made this song to be honest) and Shokubeni. I weren't able to get into NEW AGE CULTURE or R TO THE CORE yet due to their awkward/difficult audience participation but the songs themselves were awesome.

Sadly no AMBER or Fukai yet but that's coming tomorrow.

One of the strongest impressions I got from the show was how much better Uroko has become live, Kyo really hit all the right notes and the Japanese audience really knows how to improve the mood compared to Europe. 

During Phenomenon Kyo was doing strange dances and drooling all over his hand which he then proceeded to rub all over his body. I'm pretty sure the fangirls were pleased. He also looked leaner more akin to his Vulgarism body than how he's been looking lately.

After Phenomenon was also the only inward scream of the show, for those who are about such things.

The whole band seemed really into it, smiling, posing and running around trying to rouse the audience... very much felt like a throwback to the more casual experience of old.

Utafumi is almost exactly 3 minutes long, and I can't really grasp it. My first impression is: Extremely messy. Lots of clean singing and some passages with quick indecipherable screaming.  I was not able to get into it, but then again this was my spontaneous reaction when I saw the live premiere of Chain Repulsion too, which is now a favorite, so I'm going to give it a few more shows before I properly review it.

Worst part of the show was playing The Inferno. Like really, you have a 19 song setlist and you decide to throw one of the worst tracks of ARCHE on there? How about doing another VULGAR track or just...really any other song?

But I digress, an amazing experience.

Stay tuned, I'll try to bring some notes tomorrow as well.

I'm assuming it's just the guys gathering together all their old drinking buddies and coercing them into writing some bullshit comments about an album they probably have never bothered listening to.  As far as I read none of the comments made any specific or in depth analysis about the actual music. 

I'll be reporting to the best of my abilities from the second leg of the vulgar tour, osaka and forward. So please look forward to that! 

Some of the best news all year! I was hoping this would happen at some point since all the essential players were still around in some capacity.

Also, regarding Shintaro, he was not a part of the original lineup of Metronome... He joined like 9 years into the project (2007), so as far as I'm concerned this lineup is all good! 

About time people started covering the good stuff. I hope for this to become a thing in Tokyo as well.

Hi,

You didn't allow us to guess though!

Welcome back either way, familiar faces are always a good thing.

I think I own everything they released, I could try to get around to making booklet scans if you wish. I was planning on getting around to doing translations myself but I'm always overly encumbered by assignments from class.

It's nice to see that someone keeps their memory alive besides myself!