Dir en Grey

This past weekend I headed to Kyoto with my friend to see Dir en Grey play at KBS Hall in Kyoto. The show was all standing and KBS Hall isn't really that huge. There were probably about 1300 people and even though I had ticket 1253, being a foot taller than everyone else standing at the back was no problem. By the time Dir en Grey came on stage the crowd had packed so tight up front I could move halfway up no problem as well.

I'm not sure if this is correct or not, but I think this is the first Japanese tour they've done where they had an opening band. In Toronto, they had 2, neither which were really anything special. Interestingly enough, the opening act was an American band called 10 Years, and they were actually decent. Best song they played was called Actions & Motives, but it turns out it's from a new upcoming, unreleased album, so there are no samples to be found anywhere yet.

The concert itself was fantastic, mostly new stuff, but they threw in a pretty old song in there as well and it threw off the Japanese fans. See they have this thing, where basically everyone in the audience is co-ordinated. Everyone knows exactly when and how to move at each part of each song. This is also a little strange for me, but standing at the back I can just do my own thing and not attract evil eyes from the synchronised fans, not that I would really care, but whatever. So, when they threw in this really old song no one knew what to do. Many had probably never been to a show where they played the song, and for the few who had it had been to long ago for them to remember what to do. So I'm standing at the back, doing my own thing, and everyone else is standing completely still, just watching.

The encore was crazy. Non-stop rocking with everything cranked up to 11. It was during this part that I was hit on the forehead by a pick thrown by Die, on of the guitarists. I couldn't catch it, but I knew where it landed on the floor and quickly managed to step on it and drag it closer so I could retrieve it.

A couple of other random things:
I was surprised at the number of older women (40+) fans in the crowd. There was actually a lady standing right next to me who could be 50 and was wearing this crazy short, tight, leather dress. It was actually quite off-putting and threw off my mojo for a little bit.

After the show as we were waiting in line to get our coat check stuff back there were two girls who must have been boiling or just trying to draw some eyes, because they proceeded to take off their shirts, and wait in the line, wearing only their bras and short mini-skirts. Very nice, but also very strange. Completely throwing that shy, Japanese girl stereotype out the window.

All in all, an excellent night.