Monday, February 18, 2008

Live Report 2/17/08, Urawa Narciss: LAVERITE, Larme D'ange, OZxBONE, CKroll, Despair

It has been a long time since I'd been to Narciss, although this wasn't exactly in the same capacity.

First band up was OZxBONE, traditional thrash metal but silly. Their guitarist is a ridiculously nice guy who I got to talk to a little bit.

The second band was Despair and they were high school kids or something and I didn't even watch their rehearsal.


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Larme D'ange is from Osaka and really talented. Friends of mine who came to the show said that this band had the best vocalist of the evening. Another of my friends was blown away by their guitarist Hiiragi. The other guitarist seems to be going to America all the time so it was a bummer to miss him as I would have liked to have talked a little bit. I only watched a little bit of their rehearsal, though. Still, backstage they were very polite to me.


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CKroll went after them and I only watched a little of their rehearsal too. The blue dude is a nice guy in person; greets you with a loud voice and a smile.


The last band of the evening was a Luna Sea cover band with a cute chick drummer. They didn't do the covers poorly, but they didn't do them super awesomely or anything. They were an above-average cover band; what I mean by that is that when they play the songs they sound fairly faithful to the original and you're glad you heard a good song. I tend to like cover bands that do weird, gimmicky stuff with the material: Richard Cheese is one, but more recently The Dan Band has totally wowed me.


The fifth band was--

--okay, I have a confession.

I've been lying to you for a few months.

Well, not really lying, per se, more like withholding information, and from the looks of things, withholding it poorly.




The fifth band of the evening was LAVERITE.

They're pretty good. I mean, it was their first live. The guitarist, Ryota, is very talented, though, with a strong ear for a pleasant guitar solo; sometimes with a focus on technical flair and mostly with an emphasis on melody. They seemed pretty nervous, though; Ryota didn't move all that much and Yue, the vocalist, did his best to make up for it and largely succeeded. Helping them out on bass is Jimi, and he had a good amount of energy and is one damn fine bassist but it was pretty obvious that he hasn't played live in a few years.

The samples on the site aren't that hot, and Jimi's bass tracks aren't even on there as the recordings were made before he joined but the CD was printed up after he joined. And they aren't the two songs he would have picked from their repertoire. Still, they did a respectable job. They had 20 or so people come to see them and while there were only 3 or so people at the very front, people seemed to be enjoying themselves. The anquette box was filled, and while no photos were sold, they seem excited about their next free live at Narciss on 3/5. Personally, I'll be attending every single Laverite live from here on out.

Here they are on visunavi too. :)

Tomorrow I'll start telling a more detailed story of Laverite.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome, congratulations! Maybe now I'll be able to see YOU play live when I come to Japan this summer! I hope this goes far for you man!

Anonymous said...

Gee, is it gauche to ask a band member for a bootleg recording or an illegal download? *was cheerfully born yesterday*

Meanwhile, somewhere Miko is writing a blog report of your Narciss debut.

But most importantly: Congrats, Elec! May LAVERITE proceed jinx-free!

Anonymous said...

Congrats on your debut! I actually found your website on Visunavi a while back and was like "Who is that gaijin???" LOL
I think it's great that you're doing this!!
If you ever play in Kansai I'll try my best to come and support you :D

Anonymous said...

Dude, fuck yeah. Awesome. High fives all around.

And excellent technique of dropping it finally, by the way. Good stuff.

Anonymous said...

Really cool, can't wait to see some videos! I'll definitely be attending a live when I finally get to Japan in half a year.

pair dog said...

Oh man, when you don't look at the photos, it's very hard to discern your hinting with the last band ;D it took me a few minutes to realize "holy shit, that's Elec!"

You guys are on visunavi and everything already?! That's awesome.
Looking forward to some material.

Anonymous said...

lmao I just loove your review about Laverite!
haha gratulations, this is so awsome... but you dont have a drummer right?
I really hope you guys manage to get somewhere.

Anonymous said...

congratulations man, hope your bands does well

Ryan said...

Awesome, dude! Good luck with everything. I see that you guys have 7 songs already (live report on the official site), get that shit recorded man! Make sure to tell us where we can buy your upcoming demos/singles.

Anonymous said...

OMG! i knew it! you suck at subtlety.

Lemon said...
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Lemon said...

Congratulations Elec!!! I was just waiting for your band to show up. I want to buy your guys' CD so get one out real soon. You guys wouldn't happen to be doing any lives around March 24-29 would you?

Elec said...

Thanks, everyone!

Mr. Volt: I suspect that files of the CD will make their way to the stealosphere soon. :-*
Also, Miko was too busy having nothing to do with me to write a live report. :-*

Xelyna: Yeah, Laura told me! I can't believe you found that; were you just browsing randomly?!

Fumashi: No drummer at the moment; we're looking. For now everything's programmed in. It's not rare among bands but I'd much prefer a live drummer too.

Lemon: You're in luck; we're playing at Narciss on 3/29 with Byakura(!) so if you can, please come on down! :D

positivespace said...

I was wondering when you'd let us know the deal on that! I heard about it from Xelyna and right when I saw the photo I knew it was.

You rock the eyeliner pretty well! Good luck!

Anonymous said...

This may be a little late, but... Congratulations!!! I've been following your blog for a while and it's really great to see your band already playing shows (with an awesome review I might add).

Congrats again and best of luck! (⌒▽⌒)/

Unknown said...

w00t! believe it or not, i think being on Visunavi is even cooler than the actual performance!