It Withers and Withers

July 31st was the day I had been waiting for since coming to Japan. Finally, after years of being a fan I could see Dir en Grey live in their home element. I missed the tail end of their last Japan tour by a couple of weeks when I first got here and with all the recent overseas touring I was wondering if I would ever even get the chance. So when it was announced a few months back that they would be playing 2 days at Budokan you better believe I was all over that. Tickets went on sale at 10 am one Saturday morning and by 10:45 both shows were completely sold out. I tried getting tickets for the August 1st show which was the start of the new Inward Scream Tour, but since I got to the ticket machine around 10:20 it was already sold out and I had to settle for the 2005-2006 It Withers and Withers Tour Final.

The doors opened at 5:30 and Andy and myself with nothing really to do arrived at 4:30. Earlier in the day I visited Yasukuni Shrine right across the street and honestly I don’t see what all the controversy is about. I toured the museum beside the shrine, and while there is a strong Japanese bias in a lot of the exhibitions, I didn’t really get the feeling that it was glorifying war or any kind of evil deeds that occurred during wars. As for the shrine itself, there were old people selling flowers outside of it and another old man feeding some birds. It seemed like a really quiet, serene place to me. Honestly, China has enough shit going on in their own country and Korea has got more pressing issues closer to home as well with Kim Jong Il shooting off missiles that Yasukuni and the people going there should be much lower on their list of priorities than it is.

Anyway back to the live. Waiting outside of Budokan we saw tons of people dressed up not just like band members, but in all sorts of other crazy get ups and it got me thinking just how many of these people dress like this normally. I have seen very few people outside of the concert environment dressed in any kind of fashion and even then half of those people were trying to get customers into their maid cafes in Akihabara. I wonder what the band members themselves think of it all. Early on they dressed up a lot but that was their style and part of the gimmick but over the years they’ve become so much more natural that I wonder why so many people going to the show still dressed up so extravagantly. I’m not knocking it or anything, but I was sweating my balls off enough as it was in my loose fitting clothes that I can’t even imagine how uncomfortable it would be in these multi-layered extravagant outfits in such heat.

Once the doors opened everyone started pouring in and the place filled up quick. As big as Budokan is we could actually see pretty decently. I knew we had pretty bad seats (about 6 or 7 rows from the very back up on the second floor) and I wasn’t expecting much so I was pleasantly surprised to find out how relatively well we actually could see the stage. Once the show actually started though the way the lights were positioned made it tough to see anyone but Kyo for most of the show which was kind of a bummer, but at least Kyo was quite lively bouncing around all over the place. He was really genki for someone who had just been hospitalized the week before.

The set list is as follows. I stole this off a mixi message board post and as much as I remember it’s accurate.

悲劇は目蓋を下ろした優しき鬱
Merciless Cult
朔-saku-
GABAGE
Jesus Christ R'n R
Machievallism
New Song
RED...[em]
孤独に死す、故に孤独。
dead tree
陵辱の雨
Spilled Milk
Beautiful Dirt
CLEVER SLEAZOID
THE IIID EMPIRE

encore1

かすみ
優しさは腐敗につき
鼓動

encore2

umbrella
CHILD PREY
C
THE FINAL

All and all a pretty decent set list. The new single, Ryoujoku no Ame is a great live song. The single itself is decent but in the live there’s just a whole different energy to it. The August 1st concert had 6 new songs though which woulda been pretty cool but not much I can do about that.

The energy of the fans was crazy. American and European fans were complaining about the lack of interaction between the band and fans, but the Japanese fans weren’t getting anything either really. Kyo never said anything, although I heard there was a little MC part at the end of the August 1st show and the band members didn’t really do too much moving around but there was the occasional run across the stage or move towards the edge.

Overall I was throughly satisfied. I think I enjoyed the Kagrra live a little bit more though just because of the smaller space and more intimate atmosphere. It's hard to compare because the settings were so different though. Seeing Dir en Grey in a similarly small setting would be amazing I’m sure. Unfortunately, since they’re traveling to America to tour and I’m heading back in a month I’ll have to wait quite a while before I can get that chance, but hopefully, one day.