Hotei and the Wanderers Funky Punky Tour 2007-2008

The DVD is from the January 27, 2008 concert at Kawaguchi Lillia. I preordered this and watched it in early May and at least once since (was watching random songs, and eventually sat down and watched the whole thing). It’s been sitting as a draft since then because I wanted to do a full report with screencaps, but couldn’t get motivated for that; I may eventually do a longer review (track by track, with pictures), but this will just be an overall impression.

I liked this well enough, though I kind of regret paying full price for it; I don’t think it’s worth that much, and it’s already showing up for close to half price on ebay. I don’t like the front cover; he looks a bit smug; the back cover has individual member pictures along with the details. The DVD came with an eight-page booklet; the covers had a picture of the group on one side and the member names on the other, and there were two-page spreads of several pictures, a group shot and the track list, and an overhead shot and the credits. The extras included member interviews and a slideshow, which was all Hotei.

The performance itself sounded decent; I didn’t notice anything off musically (which means nothing, really, since I wouldn’t notice unless it was very bad); Hotei’s voice was a little off in a couple of places, but was fine otherwise, and there were a couple of instances of slightly off-key backing vocals. Any MCs were not included, though there was a long band introduction sequence. Many of the songs were rearranged to include solos from the various members. The energy level was decent (nobody looked bored, at least); the main part didn’t show much of the audience, but they were shown more in the encore and did seem to be enjoying themselves.

The stage was fairly small, with two levels: Ju-ken (bass) — Hotei (vocal/guitar) — Takuya (guitar) in the front and Steve Eto (percussion) — Tatsuya Nakamura (drums) — Ken Morioka (keyboards) on the higher level in the back. For the acoustic parts, most of the members came down to the front of the stage.

The band, normally

One variation of the stage during the acoustic songs

The camera annoyed me to no end; the main concert had too many artsy camera angles and effects (random body parts (not the parts playing instruments), focus on the person behind with a blurry part of a person in front, too much love for the overhead camera; I spent too much time trying to figure out what various pieces of equipment were and why Ju-ken seemed to have a black on white setlist while everyone else had green on black). The encore was more straightforward. I have a general issue with concert DVDs and solos; I would like to see the soloist, and they weren’t always shown.

This concert was billed as “Hotei and the Wanderers”; I (correctly) expected Hotei to get the majority of the screen time, but expected the others to be shown more-or-less equally. My biases may be influencing my perceptions of camera time per member, so this might not actually mean much; I am not anal-retentive enough to go back through and time the amount each member had on-camera. I was satisfied with the amount of Ju-ken (though more is always better) and Ken Morioka (though that may be because I don’t find keyboard players that interesting visually; a fan of his might have a different opinion), but was not satisfied with the rest. I was surprised that Takuya wasn’t on screen more. Steve Eto was not shown much, which was a severe disappointment; I wasn’t familiar with him, but I like watching percussionists in general and was looking forward to there being one.

Tatsuya Nakamura seemed to have his own camera, which was surprising; it seems that in general drummers are either ignored because they are just the drummer or have an abundance of camera time because they are stationary, but this also had two other members who were mostly stationary and on either side of him who didn’t have the time on camera he did. This was extremely obvious in the two songs that were performed with a three-piece band, and especially in the one where they were all in the front; the camera time was mostly split between Hotei and Nakamura. I didn’t mind watching him; he was enthusiastic and interesting to watch (and I have fallen in love with Losalios, and never would have heard them without this), but wish his time hadn’t been at the expense of others. One thing I did notice was that most of Nakamura’s screen time came from the camera on Morioka’s side; I don’t know if there was a technical reason for that, but it might also explain the lack of Steve Eto; it also seemed that the camera on Ju-ken was mostly from that side as well (when not from the front or overhead). It doesn’t explain why the camera seemed to be on Nakamura more than Morioka, though.

Members (profiles on Hotei’s site):

Tomoyasu Hotei (布袋寅泰) — vocal and guitar
Tatsuya Nakamura (中村達也) — drums
Ju-ken — bass (new site)
Ken Morioka (森岡 賢) — keyboards
Steve Eto — percussion
Takuya — guitar

Everyone except Tatsuya Nakamura provided backing vocals; Morioka had the falsetto-ish backing vocals; Eto had the bass-ish ones (surprisingly; his speaking voice wasn’t that low).

recently watched

where recently = late spring and onwards; I have far too many half-finished drafts that have been sitting long enough that I couldn’t finish them properly without rewatching but hate to delete the parts I wrote. These are mostly the impressions that were left and not thoughts at the time.

Monster Drive Party, Tomoyasu Hotei, 2005 tour — a very intense performance, but it did not translate well to DVD (or at least wasn’t what I want out of a tour DVD); dark and murky; uneven camera (I hate to say too much Hotei (and I wouldn’t have bought this if I didn’t like him), but would have liked to see more of the band in general, and specifically the left side, which was under-represented).

Aurora Madturn, LOSALIOS — solo project of Tatsuya Nakamura (中村達也, drums, ex-Blankey Jet City); core band was Tokie (bass, unkie and support) and Takashi Kato (カトタカシ, 加藤隆志, guitar, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra); some songs featured Asuka Kaneko (金子飛鳥, violin) and/or Masami Tsuchiya (土屋昌巳, guitar, ja.wikipedia). I love this (music and performance and all), but it’s probably not for everyone. The music is instrumental and occasionally a bit repetitive and/or formulaic; the performance is not the most exciting as everyone stays in their own spot on stage (involved and interested and intent on their playing, just not moving around much). The focus is on Nakamura; Tokie and Kato are playing as much to him and each other as to the audience, and when the others appear, they are off to the sides. Mixed in with the performances are some backstage clips and other random footage. (From this, Ghost Club and Three Dog Night are on youtube)

The Avengers ‘66 v1 — a bit much of dated race portrayals; native savages in one (though somewhat poking at that stereotype) and even in black and white, a white person in a dark wig + makeup does not really look Chinese or African. The “Chinese” woman’s wig was particularly obvious and the “African” woman made me think of Hawaii; she was wearing a strapless dress with a large floral pattern and a big flower in her hair. Oddly, most of the men in both episodes seemed to be somewhere near the proper ethnicity for their parts. None of the roles were very large; the “Chinese” woman was only in the beginning of her episode and there was a Chinese man with a small speaking part later, and one of the African men had a brief role as exposition-man (I don’t think the “African” woman spoke; if she did, it wasn’t more than a line or two). Other than the racial issues, these episodes were standard Avengers fare: there is a dust that kills all plants and birds it comes in contact with, and there are carphones and hunting and Mrs. Peel being chased by someone on a horse and generally kicking ass; disappearing physicists, and one reappeared and suddenly hated his Chinese wife, and there is weirdness within a hotel; and one that starts with a man shot by a “native” arrow outside of London and an odd sickness caused by a cult and affecting men who had served in an African colony and drums in the distance that were plot, not soundtrack.

The Avengers ‘66 v2 — I don’t think I took notes and have since returned it; I wasn’t impressed with these episodes. One had Mrs. Peel kidnapped at the beginning, with her substitute acting as Steed’s sidekick throughout the episode, so there was not enough of Mrs. Peel to interest me in this episode. One involved shenanigans at a golf course and was bland. One started with a dead man in a pram and ended up at a dance school and involved a shoemaker and a tattooist.

The Legend of the Shadowless Sword — a Korean attempt at a wuxia-style movie; pretty but extremely predictable. Vaguely historical, set in 927 A.D. The capital of Balhae fell to Georan; the Georans have been killing off all of the royal family of Balhae, but realize they could use one as a public-relations prop; the resistance is also looking for last member of the royal family and find him first (barely); most of the movie is them fleeing and her trying to convince him to be king (and at first, him running away from her because he doesn’t want to be king). A bit gory: geysers of blood, exploding bodies, limbs flying everywhere; visibly and audibly breaking bones were what made me start fast-forwarding through any fight scenes with large groups, though. (movie on wikipedia and imdb; Balhae on wikipedia)

Tomoyasu Hotei – All Time Super Best Tour

The “All Time Super Best Tour” was a celebration of Hotei’s 25 years as a musician; the track list (at the end) has songs from BOØWY and COMPLEX as well as his solo career (including two previously-recorded covers). This is the tour final 2006.06.03 at Saitama Super Arena; the DVD was released 2006.06.28. It is a two-DVD set; the concert is on disc one and is two hours, the encore is disc two and is another hour. It came in a cardboard sleeve with a 24-page photobook (mostly Hotei, but a couple of pages of the band members) and an insert with credits and lyrics to the songs performed in the main concert (but not the encore) on one side and a picture on the other. It was directed by Hiroyuki Nakano (any number of music videos, including several of Hotei’s, and a few films, including Samurai Fiction, starring Hotei). I have to assume that what’s on the DVD is very close to what the audience saw; there were only three weeks between the concert and the DVD release.

I really enjoyed this; I love shows where everyone looks like they are exactly where they want to be. Hotei himself, the band, the crowd all looked thrilled to be there; there were several songs with crowd-provided backing vocals and occasionally main vocals. I like Hotei’s music well enough (though his voice is an acquired taste) and a lot of it is very upbeat (sounding, at least; I have no idea about the lyrics) which lends itself well to a very high-energy show. The lighting was good, and there were a minimum of random body part shots (the occasional dramatic hand did show up occasionally); one of the cameras was (deliberately) shaky, but other than that, I had no complaints. This was really just five guys on stage playing; the stage itself was fairly basic and there were no effects besides lights. I was pleasantly surprised by how much screen time the band got and was very surprised that the other guitarist had multiple solos; I’ve seen concerts of full bands with less even coverage of band members.

The first several songs were all upbeat (or at least fast-paced). The keyboard player had a moment in the spotlight at the beginning of “Devil’s Sugar”, and “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” was one long solo with both the bassist and other guitarist having brief solos. After that was an MC and then two acoustic songs (everyone seated). The next couple of songs after that were slow songs; on one of them, Hotei didn’t even have a guitar, and let the other guitarist have the spotlight for a full solo (he had a few short ones in other places, but this was the real thing). It was kind of disconcerting; Hotei had no guitar, it cut to a closeup of the other guitarist’s hands, and then when it cut back to Hotei, he had a guitar (though watching it more closely, it faded out on him walking back to get it), and Hotei had a solo at the end. For the acoustic and slow songs, the focus was on Hotei almost exclusively, with an occasional shot of other guitarist and a few of the drummer.

There was an intermission after the slow songs; there were varying degrees of costume changes: full outfit for Hotei and minor changes for the band. The songs after the intermission were the more upbeat sort; the crowd was on its feet and moving for this part, singing the first half of “Dreaming” and all of the choruses. There was a short drum solo during “Dancing with the Moonlight”, but the camera was mostly on Hotei for it (that’s one of my biggest general concert video peeves: if there are solos, focus should be on the soloist.) “Velvet Kiss” (the last song for this part) was a slower-tempo instrumental (one long solo, slower only in comparison to the previous songs).

In the encore, there was a short MC and band introduction at the beginning and a few backstage clips at the end; they leave the stage and return twice before the end. The band are all in tour shirts; Hotei starts off in a different shirt, but changes into a tour shirt eventually (he changes both times they leave the stage). These were all fast-tempo songs, with the crowd on its feet and singing along for a large part of it. There was a bass intro to “Poison” and the other guitarist had a short solo there; he called them both by name. By the end, everyone looks tired but still happy to be there, and the crowd is really into it as well. Hotei himself is practically glowing, and everyone is very emotional at the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, though I did have a few minor annoyances. Hotei’s dress sense is interesting (sparkly! purple boots! animal prints! need screencaps!) and his stage mannerisms occasionally bother me. A few of the songs dragged a little. I’m not sure how much guitar-playing Hotei was doing while singing; he had a guitar most of the time, sometimes was probably playing, sometimes was going through the motions, sometimes not even trying. The “going through the motions” is the sort of thing that’s more obvious on a DVD and I kind of wish I hadn’t noticed it here; I started paying too much attention to his hands trying to decide whether or not he was actually playing. I don’t really care whether he was playing or not; he was obviously playing the solos, and the other parts were being played by someone on the stage.

The musicians:

VOCAL&GUITAR : 布袋寅泰 — Tomoyasu Hotei
GUITAR : 大西克巳 — Katsumi Onishi (profile, can’t find a personal site)
BASS : Ju-ken (new site)
DRUMS : 酒井愁 — Shue Sakai
KEYBOARD : 岸利至 –　Toshiyuki Kishi (aka tko)

Backing vocals were provided by Toshiyuki Kishi (anything that needed harmony), Katsumi Onishi, Ju-ken, and the crowd.

Katsumi Onishi records and tours with various people, but also works for a part of Avex Trax as a composer and arranger (the source of the profile). Ju-ken and Shue have been in various bands but mostly support others (occasionally together). Toshiyuki Kishi is currently an official member of abingdon boys school (which may explain why he wasn’t on Hotei’s recent tour; he’d been touring with him since 2000, recorded through Ambivalent, and Hotei mentioned him recently) and has had a lengthy career as a keyboard player (recording and touring), composer, arranger, and remixer. tko and Shue have recently (late 2007) started a project together: Two Tribes.

ends – Live 2005 Total Tone

ends is the solo project of Ryoichi Endo of Soft Ballet, started in 1997, and continuing until the present; it sounds nothing like Soft Ballet, though. He has a magnificent voice, but is unfortunately extremely overlooked and underrated. Musically, it is some sort of rock: I’ve seen the music described as psychedelic and there are elements of that sort of sound; the keyboards have an obvious psychedelic influence, and his older music had a drummer and a percussionist (but no bassist), which adds to that impression. I am terrible at identifying any but the most basic genres, so there are a couple of samples below.

Disc 1 is a show with full band: guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, and disc 2 is an unplugged version, with another guitarist instead of a keyboard player. It also has a koto (琴) player on the first few and the last few tracks; she was traditionally dressed on the first few tracks and more casually on the last few. The bonus track is from an unplugged concert in 2004, with a percussionist instead of a drummer, and is at a smaller venue and more truly unplugged. Each show has a different lineup; the 2005 unplugged had no keyboard player, an additional guitarist and koto player, and a different bassist from the first show; the 2004 unplugged had the same bassist as the first show and the same koto player as the 2005 unplugged but different guitarists and percussionist. There were six songs that were performed in both the electric and unplugged shows, and the extra was one of the repeated songs. The unplugged arrangements were enough different from the electric so that wasn’t that big of a deal, but I don’t think “Superior” really needed to be on there three times.

The first disc was not the most exciting concert I’ve ever seen (just five guys on stage), but was enjoyable; he is a very intense singer. The camera angles were a little odd; there was the foot-of-the stage angle, and lots of views of instruments and random body parts. Since ends is a solo project, the focus was on Endo himself, with a microphone in his face most of the time. My first impression was that the bassist got more screen time than the guitarist in the first few songs, but on rewatch, it seems more even. The guitarist was more likely to have focus on his guitar, while the bassist was more likely to be shown completely, though. The drummer got a few closeups, but all I know about the keyboard player was that he had long hair. Some combination of bassist, guitarist, and keyboard player sang backup; a few songs had pre-recorded backing vocals (choruses only); I don’t think the drummer had a microphone for this show, but could be wrong.

The unplugged set was not as unplugged as it could have been; the guitarists had acoustic-electric guitars mostly, and the bassist had a standard electric bass. Everyone had sheet music, and Endo had a stool and was looking in the general direction of the music most of the time, though that could have been just the way he was sitting. A few places, he did seem to be reading. Some combination of one of the guitarists (Shigeo Naka, from the other show), the bassist, and the drummer provided backing vocals for this part; there weren’t many songs with backing vocals, though. I’m generally not a big fan of unplugged-type shows, but did like this; the koto adds a different touch to some of the songs, and there is some gorgeous acoustic guitar in various places. Some of the arrangements are very different from the originals; they are jazzy or loungey or bluesy, and one made me think of some slow southern rock song (the guitar made me think of something like the Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd; it’s a specific song it reminds me of, but I can’t place it).

The bonus track from 2004 looks like it’s a much smaller venue with everyone sitting in a circle except the bassist (off to the side) and is a much more traditionally unplugged performance: acoustic guitars and percussion and I don’t know what sort of bass that was (from something else; he wasn’t really on screen here; am looking for a better picture). The koto was there, but not used in this song.

The bonus track is the only extra; there wasn’t really anything on here beyond the performances themselves. There were no backstage bits, no MCs, no real interaction with the audience; I have a vague impression that the lack of audience interaction is just the way he is, though. That sort of thing is nice, but not necessary, especially since I don’t actually speak the language. The front cover has a fairly abstract (probably not the right word) version of him; there are a few small pictures on the back. The case is clear; the reverse of the cover is the stage, more or less, and there is an insert with lyrics and credits on one side and more pictures and art on the back.

I wish I had listened to him sooner; there are short clips from this on his site, but I wasn’t really impressed by them, and I’d been actively avoiding Soft Ballet for some reason. I finally had a chance to hear full songs and fell in love with his voice; at that time I had an open order for yahoo.jp and there was a reasonably-priced copy of this DVD. His music (at least, this particular sample) is exactly the sort of thing that I like; I wish I could describe it in such a way that others might want to listen to it. It’s a very emotional reaction, and I can’t really say why I like it beyond “it’s the sort of thing that I like”, unfortunately, which is why there are samples (somewhat randomly chosen).

live sample ~saezuri~:

unplugged sample 遠い朝 (with the koto player):

Toshi – “Grace” Live

To be honest, I bought this because it was extremely cheap and because it had Chachamaru on guitar. I’m not particularly a fan of Toshi; his voice annoys me (never got into X Japan because of it, though I like some portion of the member’s solo works) and I don’t like his music enough to compensate for his voice. I put him in the category of “people who should not sing slow songs” (along with Chachamaru, among others), and there were a lot of slow songs on this. I don’t know why his voice annoys me and I don’t mind Chacha’s; they are very similar. Toshi’s voice is stronger, but there’s just something about it that grates on my nerves. I do like a few of his songs, though (and “Love Dynamics” sticks in my head). This was a VHS release from 1995, featuring shows at Nippon Budokan (3.16) and Urawashi Bunka Center (4.5).

I enjoyed this more than I expected to, though I would have liked it better with less slow songs. The early parts of this weren’t very exciting or energetic or intense. Toshi didn’t seem to really get into it until “Spacious Love” (there must have been an intermission; he had a new outfit), and his energy level remained high for for the rest of the show. The crowd seemed to enjoy it, even the early parts, so maybe it was just me. Toshi’s voice was a little rough in a couple of songs, but was for the most part decent. They left in the MCs, which I like, even though I can’t really understand them.

This is Toshi’s show (understandably) and the band is an afterthought, unfortunately (and I expected this). Even when I’m not watching for specific people, I still want to see the people who are actually playing the music, and even when I don’t care about specific members, I still think they should get equal time. The only members who got significant air time were the guitarist (thankfully) and the bassist; it was especially annoying because I couldn’t tell how many people were on stage. At about 45 minutes into it (out of 110), I fast forwarded to the end to check the credits to see if it was two different nights and if he had two keyboard players (yes to both). I was fairly sure of the two different nights (Chacha’s shirts were very different and at one point changed mid-song), but I wasn’t sure about the keyboard players. Shusei Tsukamoto was definitely behind Chacha at least part of the time and it was obvious there was one on the left at least part of the time, but the one on the left hadn’t been clearly shown, so I wasn’t sure if it was Tsukamoto in a different place on the other night or a different person on the left. There was one shot where there was someone with a ponytail on the left, but it could have been one of the backup singers. The few shots of the backup singers did show a keyboard player in the background, but the light was bad and I thought it was Tsukamoto. The other keyboard player was occasionally in the background of the singers, but only had a couple of close-ups of his own; the drummer was often shown from the back and only had a couple of shots from the front (though he too was occasionally in the background; he was center stage).

I’m not sure how much of this was taken from which show; a lot of the crowd shots were obviously Budokan. Either all of Toshi was taken from the same show, or he wore the exact same thing at both. He did go from wearing a blue suit with a solid yellow shirt to wearing a mostly yellow but patterned shirt with the blue pants, though. Chacha was mostly from the same show; his outfits were very different, but one was only obvious in a couple of songs. The bassist’s outfits were different, but not immediately obviously so; I think both were black and white, but different amounts of each, so it wasn’t easy to tell at a glance which he was wearing. The drummer had a black shirt and a red shirt; sometimes it switched in the same song (one of the cameras was behind him, so he was on screen a lot). The others weren’t really on screen enough for me to notice what they were wearing, really; I think the sax player had on the same or similar outfit whenever he was shown; Tsukamoto had a very loud shirt whenever he was shown, but it could have been two loud shirts. VHS means pausing and finding specific moments is a pain.

Musicians:

Guitar: Yukihiro “Cha Cha MARU” Fujimura (藤村幸宏／茶々丸）　(introduced as Chachamaru)
Bass: Hisafumi Maeda (前田久史) (goes by and was introduced as Jimmy)
Drums: Kozo Suganuma (菅沼孝三)
Piano & Keyboards: Shusei Tsukamoto (塚本周成)
Keyboards: Masahiko Terada (寺田正彦)
Sax: Takeshi Abe (阿部剛)
Chorus: Megumi Okino, Rieko Sakai, Yasumi Maeda

Names as credited (punctuation and capitalization as shown); kanji for some of these was not easily found.

Songs:

1. New Horizons — some pre-show behind-the-scenes
2. Asphalt Jungle — bassist in the spotlight briefly (thankfully; it’s a very bass-heavy song)
3. Love Dynamics — female backup singers who look like they belong in the 80s; ran up one side of the stage, patting Chacha on the head on the way, ran into the wall coming back
4. Dear My Friends — MC before; keyboard player (Tsukamoto?) was actually shown
5. Moon Stone — Tsukamoto’s hands (I assume)! bass solo and acoustic guitar solo! I didn’t realize the words “Moon Stone” were in this until I heard Toshi sing it (it’s lyrics Toshi/music Chachamaru; it’s also on Vienna’s Unknown and Chacha’s English pronunciation is not great). On the CDs, it’s called “Moonstone”.
6. Everlasting Love — acoustic, slow
7. YOKAN — another short MC before; still acoustic; prominent bass, and percussion (the first time he was shown from the front); Chacha had a line to sing (no backing vocals, just a random line, and there’s no rational reason why Toshi’s voice annoys me but his doesn’t bother me)
8. made in HEAVEN — back to electric, but still a slow song, and a named musician: Chachamaru
9. Spacious Love — probably an intermission before; there was a costume change for Toshi (from a blue suit and yellow shirt to a red suit, no shirt). He’s much more energetic and grinning; this is an extremely upbeat song, though; sax and drum solo; gospel-ish towards the end
10. PARADISE — large balls or balloons for the audience, and he’s running around kicking them back and molested the bassist and played with his hair
11. Somebody Loves You — someone threw flowers, and he caught them; bassist and guitarist switched sides; can almost see the other keyboardist behind the backup singers; lots of light (I think Budokan had the house lights on for this song). I’m not familiar with the song, but he sounds a little rough. This one’s not as cleanly edited as the others, partly because of the difference in light, and Toshi is often in a different part of the stage when the angle changes.. The mythical other keyboard player got a few shots; too bad his head was turned. Much interaction with the audience, Toshi had a camera, and introduced the band, and each member had a solo. The other keyboard player had a more exciting solo than Tsukamoto. Only two chorus members for the introductions (Megumi and Rie). Left afterwards
12. Beyond the time — encore? I didn’t know Toshi played piano. Yet another outfit (tour shirt, the design on the shirt matched his necklace). I fast forwarded through this; am generally not interested in any singer+slow song+piano
13. Carry On — another brief MC, Toshi with a 12-string acoustic; Chacha also has a tour shirt and is the only one who changed and was playing slide guitar!
14. Beautiful Harmony — another MC, another slow song; a bit more intense than the earlier ones
15. Grace — another slow song. fog and a backing track (more fast-forwarding; it looked like the singers were there, but no one else was); everyone came out for a bow (and the bassist had a tour shirt on)

Gackt – Training Days 2006 Drug Party

I pre-ordered this, but never watched it; I had a bad case of buyer’s remorse due to problems with amazon.jp and the reports of lip-syncing or wholesale re-recording that came out before i received my copy. Lip-syncing wouldn’t have bothered me as much as re-recording; I want my concert DVDs to be as close to the concert as possible. I don’t think any of the concert reports really mentioned lip-syncing (for Diabolos, every attendee thought a couple of songs were lip-synced; usually different songs, though). I watched just to watch it and didn’t pay enough attention to have an opinion about re-recording, though I did notice a few songs that sounded very different from the surrounding songs. I would not be surprised if he had re-recorded parts, though. Overall, I liked it, but kind of wish I’d saved my money or bought one of the other concerts instead.

I have to admit that Gackt is one of my guilty pleasures, especially the concerts; my usual preference is for lives where the music takes priority over the show, and Gackt does not fall into that category at all, though I think this is the closest he’s been to that (or at least the closest someone on the other side of the world could actually see). I don’t know why I feel the need to buy his DVDs, but I do (at least this and Diabolos; I plan to get the others eventually). I do love some of his music, but am not interested in him personally; I find his various band members more interesting, which makes lives occasionally frustrating.

There was a fan club version and a regular version; the regular version was sold through amazon.jp only. The DVDs were the same, but the fan club version had a slightly different cover (Gackt with wings + band members in the background vs. Gackt with wings only) and came with an extra booklet. The regular version has the front cover as an insert with credits, and a folded up page with lyrics. This (and the upcoming Platinum Box VIII) were released by Dears (fan club) instead of by his label; the back mentions Gordie Entertainment Co.Ltd. and Dears Co.Ltd. The credits do have a section for record label staff (and I’m entertained by the part of the credits which are obviously because of Ju-ken and Jun-ji; there’s a Harley Davidson logo in the list). Nippon Crown is mentioned on the DVDs themselves, after the other two; I can’t read the kanji to see what they are credited for.

The band for this concert consisted of:
You: guitar (no violin at all, unfortunately)
Chachamaru: guitar
Ju-ken: bass
Jun-ji: drums
Jun-ichi “Igao” Igarashi: keyboards — he’s usually offstage, but was actually visible a little; he was offstage to the rear on Chacha’s side

The Concert

This was in some ways a stripped-down version of his usual shows; the shows were at smaller venues than previous tours. The stage was less elaborate, and there were no costume changes, less choreography, and fewer dancers (only two dancers in two songs). It sounded fine, but it looked a bit dark in places due to the lighting (lots of red and blue spotlights). Everyone started out energetic but were dragging toward the end. I enjoyed watching it, but it’s not one of my favorites.

Random thoughts (notes taken while watching):
Jun-ji was enjoying himself during Redemption.
Speed Master sounded very, very different from previous performances; partly voice, partly something else I couldn’t place.
It was weird seeing Lu:na without dancers; there were two masked female dancers in Storm and Papa Lapped a Pap Lopped, and that was all.
Kalmia was a rest break: Chacha and You were sitting on the steps (on each other’s side), with Gackt at the top, and Ju-ken leaning on a speaker/monitor to the side; everyone was starting to look a little tired.
You actually had the solo in Fragrance; they never showed Chacha up close, oddly; also, Gackt had a close and personal relationship with his mikestand.
The encore Mirror starts off in the middle with the yelling at the audience; his voice sounds appallingly hoarse (though it’s ok singing); I think Drug Party version in the extras might have been the first part; at the end of the extra version, everyone’s changing instruments and going back to their own places..
There’s a drum solo after Mirror while everyone changes guitars
Everybody except Chacha looks tired during Another World
Whatever sort of introduce-the-band was done did not make it onto the dvd, sadly.

Shallowness: Everyone looked very good, though Chacha’s hair was inexplicable, and Ju-ken’s makeup (warpaint?) was interesting (it’s something he’s done before with others). There was only one minor instance of fanservice with bandmembers (with Ju-ken in Speed Master), though there was some with the female dancers and might have been something between members off-screen (Ju-ken and Chacha during Speed Master).

Annoyances: The video itself was kind of dark and murky due to the lighting at the show, and the various members were generally not in good light (red or blue lights, usually, and impossible to see them). There were far too many closeups of Gackt’s hands, and there were a few of instances of people doing interesting things off-screen. Also, no violin at all, though I think there was only one song other than Mirror that had a violin part (and I’ve given up on him ever playing violin during Mirror again).

Extra: Commercial Film Collection
The commercial film collections are ads for Gackt’s other recent releases (collection included on the Drug Party DVD, not collections of Drug Party ads); I was disconcerted, to say the least, that the Japanese section started out with a reference to 9/11 (ad for 12月のLove Song~Complete Box~, and included scenes from the video, but still…maybe they should have started with a different ad; that’s not what I was expecting). It also included ads for Crisis Core (PSP), 野に咲く花のように single, the Orico card/Upty ad, Platinum Box VII, and the opening movie of this concert (clips from all previous tours). The Korean and Mandarin versions have the voice-overs dubbed and the rest subtitled in the relevant language; the opening movie had effects with the Japanese concert titles; the other two had those parts redone in their languages.

Extra: Mirror – Drug Party Version
This features You on vocals, wearing what looks like the Afro wig Chacha had in the Diabolos movie and Uptys everywhere (carrying a large one, small ones in his shirt, in his pants, under his arms). Chacha is also on vocals and guitar, with Uptys on his guitar. Ju-ken has a guitar, with Uptys, Jun-ji has a bass and one of the dancer’s wigs, and Gackt is on drums. It was nice to see and hear Chacha singing; it would have been better if he and You had been somewhere in the same key, though. I’m not sure how many of the instruments are actually live; no one is playing the lead guitar part, but Ju-ken looked like he was concentrating on his playing (he may have just been tired, though; Chacha actually looked tired in part of this). The camera annoyed me a bit; it tended to show the bits I was least interested in. It was nice to see Gackt smiling and laughing, though.

Disc 1

1. Cube
2. Maria
3. uncontrol
4. 絵夢 -for my dear-
5. seven
6. REDEMPTION
7. Ash
8. NINE SPIRAL
9. Speed Master
10. Lu:na
11. Storm
12. Papa lapped a pap lopped
13. Kalmia
14. Fragrance
15. mind forest
16. Metamorphoze
17. Birdcage

Disc 2 (Encore + Extras)
18. Mirror
19. ANOTHER WORLD
20. 君が追いかけた夢

Extras
Gackt Commercial Film Collection on DRUG PARTY (Japanese, Korean, Mandarin)
Mirror (DRUG PARTY Ver.)

L’Arc~en~Ciel 15th L’Anniversary Live

This is a two-DVD set taken from the shows that L’Arc~en~Ciel performed last November (25-26, 2006) at Tokyo Dome (sold out) to celebrate their 15 years together. Only two of the members were there fifteen years ago (Tetsu (b) wanted to form a band, found hyde (v) and hiro (g) and pero (d) in 1991; hiro and pero left in 1992 at different times and were replaced by ken (g) and sakura (d); sakura left in 1997 and was replaced by yukihiro (support in 1997, official Jan 1 1998). The tracklist spans their entire career, mostly singles, but with a few other songs thrown in.

This is more fangirl squee and overanalysis than an actual review; I loved this DVD. I adore L’Arc~en~Ciel but am aware of their faults when live (especially hyde’s voice); everyone sounded good and looked good (with occasional wtf-ness, mostly tetsu (especially his hair) but occasionally others; yukihiro had an inexplicable shirt in the extras) and looked like they wanted to be there and were enjoying themselves; hyde’s voice was approximately where it should be and was not as hoarse as it is sometimes. Everyone who’s at all interested in L’Arc~en~Ciel should watch this (except for those that think it’s wrong for yukihiro to play sakura’s songs); it is an excellent concert and a good overview of their career.

There was voting for favorite songs beforehand, the list is here: www.larc-en-ciel.com/archive/15th-req/15th-req.html — I don’t know how much of an effect that had on the final playlists, though. It is mostly older songs (1996 and earlier); I voted for “Ibara no Namida”, which was fourth and which was performed; I would have loved to have seen them perform “I’m So Happy”, though sakura seems to have appropriated it recently (he actually sang it at a Lion Heads show in Shanghai and was using it in their soundchecks otherwise). The song I was most surprised by the lack of was “Blurry Eyes”.

There were four sets (one per era) with costume changes between (for hyde and ken, at least; they chose to wear tour costumes (or something similar) from the relevant periods). I’m not sure which set came from which night; I assume the performances in the extras were from songs which were only performed one night but weren’t in the chosen set. I’m glad they left in the MCs and other random things, even though I can’t understand them, especially the birthday wishes for yukihiro and ken (yukihiro’s was the day before, and was celebrated the first night; ken’s was a couple of days after, and was celebrated the second night.) I don’t think yukihiro was really expecting that (though ken had to be); he was a little teary. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have 50,000 people singing Happy Birthday. There were also random things during Link: ken attempting tongue twisters, hyde breakdancing; I wonder if the other night had tetsu and yukihiro doing random things.

The show started with “The Fourth Avenue Cafe” on a small round stage; they then moved to the main stage for a set of early songs (1994-96); yukihiro was deeply concentrating in this part (these were sakura’s songs). They followed this with a set from 1998-2000, with a medley mostly from this era. The performance of “Trick” featured everyone on guitar and singing a verse. They then returned to the round stage for two songs from Dune (hyde did find a long white tunic!); “I’m in Pain” in the extras looked like it was part of this set (hyde was wearing the same thing, at least). They all were concentrating very hard during these songs. They returned to the main stage with a set from the more recent albums (only the singles); this was the only part where hyde’s voice was a little hoarse. They finished with “Niji”.

I have the Hong Kong version (legitimate, bought from yesasia.com, released by Sony of Hong Kong); it was substantially cheaper than the Japanese version, and since I doubted I could get the first press, I didn’t mind getting the basic version (white DVD case, the DVDs, an insert with credits only). It is Region 3; I’m very happy my extremely cheap DVD player was easily made region-free.

Because I was curious about the distribution of the songs and was going to write it out anyway, below is the tracklist and original albums. L’Arc~en~Ciel Parade 2006 was a medley of nine songs in twelve minutes, so I’m counting them separately. Here is a summary; the tracklist and dates follow:

original lineup: 1
sakura era (1993-1996, 4 albums): 9 full (2 indie, 7 major) + 1 Parade
yukihiro, pre-hiatus (1997-2000, 4 albums): 13 full + 8 Parade
yukihiro, post-hiatus (2004+, 2 albums): 7 + a snippet of bye bye

Gackt -The Greatest Filmography-Red/Blue (US releases)

This is one of two DVDs of Gackt’s videos; Red is the rock-type songs and Blue is the slower songs. I rented Red from Netflix because I was curious about the US release and wasn’t planning on buying it at this time; I don’t like a lot of Gackt’s slower songs, so I didn’t bother renting Blue. I ended up buying them both after all, though. These are the official US versions of these DVDs; they have English subtitles (by Gackt and/or his staff, apparently; the European CD releases seem to have the same English lyrics). They are missing the Japanese subtitled versions of the videos, which were separate versions with the subtitles incorporated in the videos, not a standard subtitle track. Each video is preceded by a brief clip with the credits (director, cast, location, release date). The songs themselves are the Sixth Day versions instead of the original version, when applicable; this was true of the Japanese version as well. The three unplugged songs on Blue are the Seventh Night versions and were originally included on the Platinum Box V (2004). They are all “live” performances with Dears members as audience.

The DVDs have the same covers as the Japanese versions (front at least), and have an insert listing the songs and the PV credits with a picture from each video (and also an ad for Viz’s other live-action movies and a subscription card for Shojo Beat magazine). The Japanese editions had full booklets with lyrics and more screencaps; the credits are taken directly from the Japanese versions, with the English song titles replacing the Japanese. The covers are eyes; Red is the right eye and the packaging is right-to-left and Blue is the left eye with left-to-right packaging; this is apparently the same as in the Japanese version.

The English subtitles were a little distracting; I have a little knowledge of Japanese, and have read multiple translations for some of these songs and had a few moments of ‘that’s not what he’s saying’ or ‘there should be more translation there’ though the first could be explained in part by the translations being more verse-by-verse than line-by-line (and both by my ignorance). In a few places, the English subtitles were not the same as the English lyrics, which was disconcerting. I would have liked to have the original Japanese subtitled versions and a romaji subtitle track, but I am happy they had an official US release.