L'Arc~en~Ciel Concert 2012

Last week at this exact hour, I was at the Madison Square Garden in New York to watch one of my favorite bands: L'Arc~en~Ciel. I feel really nostalgic so I thought this might be the best time to relieve my memories and write about my experience.

I had always wanted to attend Laruku's concert so when they announced that they were coming to the US, I decided that I had to go no matter what. I went to Ticketmaster as soon as the presale started, but the front section ran out in about 8 minutes. I was too late and could only get the further ones.

As the concert date drew near, I kept having a mixed feeling. I was very excited to see Laruku but I also worried a lot about it (blame my worrywart personality). Seeing them live had been my number one wish for more than eleven years so I had a very high expectation. But their recent songs were not doing it for me. What if the songs that they sang were those newer ones which I didn't like at all? To be honest, I had been into K-Pop so I had not been listening to Laruku at all. I didn't remember any lyrics of their old hit songs. What if I couldn't sing along and enjoy the concert at all? It all came down to: what if they failed to meet my expectation? But this is Laruku we are talking about. They were so awesome and delivered a stunning performance. To my surprise, as soon as they played the intro, all the lyrics came back to my mind and I was able to sing along, dance, and jump around. I enjoyed it each and every second I was there.

Anyway, before going to the concert, I had checked online the concert goods they were going to sell. I was only interested in the hooded towel, but I think $70 for a towel is just too much. Since I didn't want to buy anything and every ticket is a fixed numbered seat, I decided not to go there early. The concert started at 8, but my fiancé and I arrived around 6 pm. Laruku concert wouldn't be complete without a glow stick, so I purchased one. I had always wanted to wave a glow stick like those fans in Laruku DVDs ^^ I thought I could do some people watching, but there weren't that many people with weird or flashy clothing. There were some, but not as many as during VAMPS concert a few years ago. The door finally opened maybe sometime around 7:30. As I had expected, my seat was soooo far away from the stage. Practically I won't be able to see anything on stage and could only rely on the big screens. I was glad that I asked my fiancé to bring his binocular, which helped a lot later on to see everything up close, to the point that each member's facial expressions were visible.

While waiting for the concert to start, I opened my glow stick packaging and was totally disappointed that I got the yellow color. I wanted blue the most, but everything else was fine as long as it wasn't yellow. I kept complaining and complaining, when suddenly the lights went out and everyone started to cheer. I stood up spontaneously and turned on my glow stick. Apparently it wasn't yellow but green! Cool!!! I couldn't believe that my dream to see Laruku was going to come true. I was way too excited that I was dazed and unable to grasp what was going on, so the opening was a little bit too hazy for me. With the help of Youtube videos, now I remember what the opening was like xD The screen displayed each member's name, then there was a movie of four people being encapsulated (reminds me of the Final Fantasy movie), with hyde opening his eyes, punching the screen, and the screen broke into pieces (in the movie, not real). The stage went dark again and suddenly the real hyde appeared under a spot light, singing solo for a little bit before finally joined by the entire band.

This is how the concert goes.

• Ibara no Namida (いばらの涙)
  This is the first song in the concert. As written above, hyde sang the first verse alone without any musical accompaniment (the stage was dark and only hyde was visible), then the stage light up and tetsu, ken, and yukihiro appeared. Forgive my inner fangirl, but hyde is soooo gorgeous ♥
• Chase
  
  yukihiro
  
• Good Luck My Way
• hyde MC
  

  What's up New York!!!!
  Where are we?
  Where?
  Yeahhh... *Or something like that. I just heard he made some grumbling noise* xD
  L'Arc~en~Ciel Madison Square Garden!!!
  We are the first Japanese band on this stage.
  *He said something but I couldn't hear it properly*
  We'll show you the best time tonight, alright? Alright!
  Are you ready???

• Honey
  One of the songs I voted for! Like usual, hyde played his guitar here.
  
  hyde playing guitar
  
• Drink It Down
  Another favorite song of mine :)
• Revelation
  I had always wanted to see this song performed live, and my dream came true. There was so much energy during this song. Of course I did the yelling part while jumping together with the other fans. At the beginning of the song, both Laruku and the fans (me included) did the yelling part for such a long time. So much fun!!!
• Jojoushi (叙情詩)
  They played the long intro first. As soon as I heard the intro, I kept telling my fiancé quietly, "My cell phone song! My cell phone song!" LOL. Throughout the entire song, hyde, ken, and tetsu were all sitting down in front of yukkie and his drums.
  
  tetsu
  
• XXX
• Fate
  Old time favorite. Whenever he sang the chorus I would start jumping like crazy xD
• Forbidden Lover
  Another old time favorite. But in order to match the sadness of the song, I decided to refrain myself from jumping and just wave serenely.
• My Heart Draws a Dream
  
  yukkie
  
  I was enchanted by hyde's smile *o*
  
• ken MC
  ken did the MC in English. He looked so cute reading it from a piece of paper. While it was a little difficult to understand because of his accent, I really appreciated that he tried speaking in English. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to understand him at all.
  

  Welcome to ### *I couldn't catch what he said*
  I came to new york a few days ago and I went to American Museum of Natural History because i love the movie "Night at The Museum".
  I asked the taxi driver, "Is American Museum of Natural History the museum in the movie?"
  He smiled and said, "Yessss!"
  I saw ### *didn't know what he said* and the American Indian and king by the entrance and I got very excited.
  At box office I asked again, "Is this museum in the movie?"
  He said, "Million people have asked me that."
  One of them *indicating himself*
  I didn't see ### *didn't hear it again* inside but do you know where he is?
  Where? Ha??? Haaaa??? Oh oh oh oh oh.
  *He said something here but I couldn't catch it again*
  I saw a lot of naked mannequins, almost naked so i took a lot of pictures *so typical of ken. LOL*
  The museum was so big. I got tired so I went back to hotel.
  By the way I bought a souvenir for yukkie.
  *He walked to the drum and give a bag of souvenirs to yukkie*
  *yukkie took out a box of monopoly from the bag*
  American monopoly!
  All four members of L'Arc~en~Ciel will play monopoly together at the hotel tonight.
  I bought a mug for myself too because it was very cute *laughing to himself, which made the audience laugh at him*
  *yukkie took out a mug and put it in front of his drum*
  Very cute. ### *didn't get what he said again*
  Enough of my talking
  Are you excited???
  Do you enjoy us?
  Do you enjoy us? *he said us, but he actually pat his butt*
  Ass? *pat his butt again*
  Not ass *pat his butt again*
  Us *pointed to himself*
  Sorry, I'm stranger here *I think he said stranger, but I might be wrong*
  Let's do next song, Caress of Venus

• Caress of Venus
  At the beginning of the song, there were black ribbons/confetti falling from the top. I loved how hyde danced. Sway here and sway there xD
• Driver's High
  Another song where I could join the yelling part "Clash!" and "Flash!" while jumping around ^^
• Stay Away
  Laruku didn't dance like in the music video, but the big screen was showing a bunch of human graphic dancing along to the song.
  
  ken
  
• Ready Steady Go
  The big screen was showing the text Ready Steady Go in giant green font. At the beginning there was some fireworks/pyrotechnics which shocked the heck out of me xD
  
  READY STEADY GO!!
  
• Intermission
  The big screen showed a graphic of people making a wave, so all the fans followed and made their own wave (me included).
• Anata (あなた)
  Before the band appeared, the big screen showed the chorus lyrics in romaji and the fans were singing along to it. In the middle of the song, hyde made a hand motion asking the fans to sing the chorus, so we sang again. This is another song where I just waved to match the mood of the song.
• Winterfall
• Blurry Eyes
  As usual, they stopped in the middle after the part "Why do you stare at the sky with your blurry eyes?" tetsu came out carrying a basket and asked, "Do you wanna eat my f**king bananas? Who??? Do you wanna lick my lollipops?" and started throwing bananas and lollipops to the screaming audience xD He asked again, "Do you wanna hear more?" then the song continued.
  
  L'Arc~en~Ciel: yukihiro, tetsu, hyde, ken
  
• hyde MC
  

  Did you have fun?
  Thank you so much.
  Thank you so much America.
  We're so excited to be here.
  You are the best.
  Thank you, thank you.
  It took us twenty years to get here.
  Will we meet again?
  True?
  Thank you so much America.
  Tonight the last song is Niji.

• Niji (虹)
  During the song, feathers were falling down to the audience.
  
  ken
  
• hyde closing
  

  Thank you New York.
  Thank you New Yorkkk!!!
  *hyde blew kisses. I almost died from it. LOL*
  Thank you.
  Hope you have a good night.

• Tetsu closing
  After hyde left the stage, tetsu came and started throwing bananas and lollipops again. He also brought a gold banana (some kind of decoration?) and banana water gun. He squirted some water to the audience before throwing it. He tried to throw the last banana far away, but it fell into the staff area. The staff tried to threw the banana to the audience at the back, but it fell into a different staff area again. One fan ran there right away and asked for it so the staff just gave it to her. tetsu then said "Mata ne. See you again!" and left.
  
  tetsu
  

For clothing, tetsu wore grey vest with somewhat red/pink over shirt, black skirt and black pants. His hair is like the usual length but shaved on one side, the color is mixed brown and red/pink. hyde wore black sleeveless shirt, black cardigan, and black baggy pants. His hair is long dreadlock, mostly blonde, but I saw a mixed of black color too (it was not that noticeable though). In the middle of the concert, I think starting at Jojoushi, he wore a somewhat girly somewhat elegant black hat, but still looked good no matter what xD After the intermission, the cardigan changed into white. ken wore all black clothing and the usual hairstyle. yukkie wore long sleeved shirt, skin color with black ornaments, his hair was short. I almost thought that yukkie didn't wear anything on top but just tattooed all over his body. LOL

At the end, after tetsu left the stage I was sooo ready to chant encore but surprisingly everyone just got up and left. I was like, wth? yukkie and ken didn't even come to say goodbye! How can this be?! Oh well, there was nothing I could do, so I was forced to leave the concert hall too. I think the concert took around 2.5-3 hours, but it sure didn't feel like it. I was having so much fun. I wish I could go see Laruku again!!! I can't wait until the DVD to come out so I could recall my memories more vividly.

About cameras, the staff didn't check the bags at all when we entered the concert hall. During the concert, the security kept walking around and "catching" people, telling them not to take any videos or pictures. But in such a large concert hall, it's impossible to catch every person, so you could sneak around and take pictures or videos. Just make sure when the security walk closer, stop taking and hide your camera. I didn't bring any digital camera so I could only take pictures with my cell phone. If you go to YouTube though, there are plenty of nice videos of the concert so go and watch them while waiting for the DVD to come out ^^

Are you ready? 2007 またハートに火をつけろ！in OKINAWA

I finally watched L'Arc~en~Ciel's Are you ready? 2007 またハートに火をつけろ！in OKINAWA DVD which I've abandoned for almost a year! I haven't watched the second DVD yet though. Hahaha... I bought a lot of DVDs lately in an attempt to complete my Laruku and w-inds. collection, but they keep releasing new stuff (which is good!) before I finished watching everything, so many got abandoned =P

From watching the DVDs, I could tell that there were various types of people that came to watch Laruku. From young to not-too-young (I can't say old because they are not grannies), people from all around the world, etc. The way those people dressed were also different. I can see people in casual clothing, cute dress, feminine type, rock style, kimono, and another one that I only saw in this DVD (which means in Okinawa): beach style!!! You know, girls with bikini top and beach sarong. Hold on... Why did I review the audience instead of the DVD content in the first place???

Well, I only have one thing to say about this DVD: hyde IS SO SEXY!!!! Especially during Pretty girl, the backdrop screen was showing a girl dancing shaking her butt throughout the whole song, and hyde exactly did the same thing!!! And then metropolis, he's always so inviting whenever he sings that xD~ If possible, I would certainly hug him right away after he finished singing those songs xD

OK, let's get into the right direction. The song list contains some old and new songs (new at that time, from the KISS album, I believe this concert was held before the Theatre of Kiss). The songs that I love most was there, 叙情詩 (Joujoushi), performed at the end of the show, as lovely as usual. I'm also happy that 砂時計 (Sunadokei) was in the set list as well.

Something worth noting:

• Watch Link carefully, and you might see hyde tried to poke the others' butt. Hahaha... He went to ken first, and tetsu after that. Of course, he wasn't able to do that to yukkie, since yukkie was sitting to play the drums. He's such a naughty boy! Hahahaha...


• Unlike the other concerts, after the concert ended, all the members came out to the stage again and bowed to the audience while holding hands. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the first time they did it. Oh, before that, tetsu made sure that he threw enough bananas to the audience! He might be promoting "a banana a day prevents a problem in the restroom", if you know what I mean. Hahahahha... JUST KIDDING!


• P'unk~en~Ciel performed two songs: Feeling Fine 2007 and HONEY 2007. I must say they were so great to be able to play twice faster than the normal speed. You know how HONEY is already a fast tempo song normally, so playing it faster than that is really amazing. By the way, I like the way they played HONEY 2007. Slow, and fast, and slow again, and fast again. It's like they were trying to tease us! Hahaha...

Overall, I personally think that the concert can't be put into the same level as Grand Cross, L'Anniversary, and Theatre of Kiss. But it's LARUKU, you know!!! So it's still good as always. Worth watching =D

PS: If there are things worth noting on the second DVD, I'll make sure to write about it! ^^

Interesting but weird at the same time

I had a nice dream, but in a way it's kinda weird. In the dream, I was friend with Laruku. Even more, tetsu and I were an item. This is the weird part since I'm not a big fan of him (I'm a fan, but I'm not crazy about him as I'm crazy about hyde). The dream would be more perfect if it was hyde who became my boyfriend. Hahahaha...

So anyway, the dream had something to do with cell phone numbers. tetsu was being extremely careful, and he decided to delete his number from my cell to avoid leaking information. He was afraid that my friends would look at my cell phone and start spreading his phone number to all of the fans. His rationale was quite understandable, proven by one of my friends wanting to borrow my cellphone to see Laruku's cell numbers. As I tried to keep their numbers secret, I didn't have any other choice than to refuse her, although she was quite persistent. tetsu's reason was valid, but my friend told me that it was not fair for him to delete his number from my cell. She was right, I was quite mad since I was his girlfriend after all. "Couldn't he trust me more?" I thought to myself.

And then it was the time for me and my friend to go to Laruku's concert. Of course, Laruku had gone to the venue first to prepare for everything. Somehow when we got there, the concert hall was so huge that we were lost. There were no signs anywhere that indicated where the entrance was. I decided to call ken right away, but he didn't pick up the phone. I realized that ken was usually busy with his guitars before the concert that he never picked up any calls. My friend blamed tetsu for deleting his number from my cell, so now we couldn't even contact him when we needed his help. I actually had his number memorized, I just didn't tell my friend about it. But I was still mad at him that I didn't want to call him either. So we just decided to ask the people around if they knew where the entrance was. Nobody knew where it was, those people weren't even there for Laruku's concert. As I was desperate not to be late for the concert, I took my phone and started dialing hyde's number. It was connecting, waiting the destination to pick up the phone. I was waiting patiently, and finally there was the sound of somebody picking it up...

And then my alarm rang... Awesome, just at the perfect moment -__-;;; I haven't even had a chance to listen to hyde's voice!!! Arrrgghhhh damn it! Why is it that something always wakes me up when my dream is reaching its perfect moment T__T

As I was taking shower, I tried to analyze what just happened in the dream. It sure was strange. First of all, I never desire to be tetsu's girlfriend. Second, he's a married man, you know. And then, why did I choose ken as the first person to contact? Why not hyde? And why is it that I didn't even think of yukkie? In the dream, I remembered seeing ken and hyde when tetsu was messing with my cellhone, but I didn't see yukkie anywhere. And why is it that the dream revolved around phone numbers in the first place? Hahahaha... It's just so weird. Nevertheless, it's an interesting one xD

MySpace Craze

Recently there has been some commotion happening in MySpace. One quite-famous, one soon-to-be-famous-for-sure, and one completely-totally-major Japanese bands joined the social networking site.

As for me, I have an account in several different social networking sites as well. There are two that I use quite often and the rest are rarely used at all. For security reasons, I decided to close down all that I rarely use anymore, and MySpace is one of them.

Just a few days after I closed my MySpace account, I found out that MONORAL had an account there. I kind of regretted deleting my account, but that was too late already, so I thought 'Whatever...' A few days after that, VAMPS, a band that was just started by HYDE and K.A.Z. (yes, by my lovely HYDE!!!), also opened an account in MySpace. That sort of motivated me to reopen my account, although the actual action never happened.

And then something happened on the next few days. L'Arc~en~Ciel opened an official MySpace account. DOH, I so totally went to MySpace and opened an account right away without thinking of anything anymore. LOL. Although I know those pages must have been maintained by the staff, not them personally, I just like the idea of being "connected" to them, although it's just through a social networking site and no more. I must be insane for doing all of these... ^-^;;



Anyway, check Laruku's MySpace out. The layout is so COOL. I want a nice layout like that too...

VAMPS' MySpace, reminds me of... McDonald's??? xD (Edit: The red and yellow layout has been changed now).

MONORAL's MySpace

I want!!!

There is this one thing that I want sooooo much at the moment: L'Arc~en~Ciel poster that is hung outside Shibuya 109 in Japan, with the size of 18 meter x 4 meter, advertising for the new album 'Kiss'. Yes, I want that huge thing hanging on the wall in my room!!!

But then again it's impossible to get it... *sigh*

Phil

There is this someone, a daily customer of the coffee shop that I work at, who always buys short coffee. He is quite friendly and likes to tease people. Once he tried to memorize the workers' name and he asked for my nick name coz he thought my name was too long. On the next day he forgot my name already. So here is how our conversation went... M = Mr. somebody (hehehe... I forgot his name too), P = me.

M : Hi Ms. D!
Ms. D : Hi!
M : *looking at me* Ummm... let's see... *thinking* Ummmm......... *thinking deeper* Ummmmmmmmmmmm... *thinking deepest* I'm sorry, I forgot your name. I couldn't remember at all.
P : Hehehe... Pei.
M : What's that?
P : My name is Pei.
M : Oh! Philly!
P : No, it's Pei.
M : Who? Phiiii...
P : It's 'Pe'.
M : Pppppp...
P : Peeeee...
M : Pppppe?
P : Yea, Peeee...i
M : Yeah, I got it! *smiling brightly* Philly!
P : (Haihhhh... *saying in my mind*) Yea, anything that's easy for you. *gave up already*
M : Yeah! Phil! I'll just call you Phil!
P : Huh???
M : Ms. D and Phil! Ms. D and Phil!

Since that day he always calls me Phil -___- And so there are 2 Phil in my workplace: The Great Phil and The Phil Jr. -> me. Hehehehe... This is crazy! I don't know what the real Phil would say if he knows about this.

Anyway, some people are wondering why I put L'Arc Insurance^TM on the last post's title. That's because I used the phrase 'Accident happens suddenly'. The phrase appeared in L'Arc~en~Ciel concert in Budokan around 1994 or 1995 when hyde was still pretty. hydeeeeeeeeee I love you!!!! Hehehehe... *Hopefully somebody is not jealous* =P Back to the concert thing, ken-chan suddenly fell down during the 'Blurry Eyes' song, and after that there was this commercial info about L'Arc Insurance^TM. Hahahahha... The funny thing was that ken could still laugh even when he was in the 'fell down' position. ken oh ken, so funny...



Breaking news! I was talking to someone and he was so happy to hear that my new Laruku album hadn't arrived yet. Right after I hung up the phone, the doorbell rang. It was the postwoman! She delivered my new L'Arc~en~Ciel album, AWAKE!!! YeaY!!! The design of the album is a little bit disappointing actually, but since the songs are great, and I love hyde very much (This is more like the main reason. Hehehehe...), so I forgive them! Hehehehe... Go go Laruku!!! Go go hyde!!! I am listening to my favorite song 'Jyoujyoushi' rite now. Oh by the way, that someone whom I was talking to before, said that he wouldn't enjoy the songs coz he didn't understand the meaning of the lyrics. He said it would just be a bunch of cang cing cung ceng cong (-> must be a revenge of what I said. Hehehehe...). Gotcha!!! I even have the Chinese meaning rite now! All of the lyrics! Special for you! Hehehehe...

Okay, I want to continue listening to Laruku again. Ttyl...