Live Report 3/29/08, Urawa Narciss: LAVERITE, Byakura, AibeLL, OZxBONE, Diablo, Velllapis, Cloche, Saimon

I was the first Laverite member to arrive at Narciss, and all of Byakura was already there. We made the requisite greetings, and then an expression of recognition crossed their faces. "Jimi! Isn't it a little early; what are you doing he--...Ohhhh," they said. That was a really good feeling; they were glad to see me and Omi talked to me a lot about band stuff.

We were scheduled to go in the dreaded position of last; this is not a preferred position because your time in the lobby with the fans is limited or nil, and before your set you have to bring all your crap down from the dressing room to the basement. Also, the rehearsal order is the reverse of the performance order, so our rehearsal was first.

Ryota was running a little late--the roads were really congested. At first I thought that he had overslept or something, as the previous day he had been to the X Japan concert.

(As a quick aside, here are his impressions: While it was certainly a moving experience for him to see X finally, and how emotional it was to see Hide's clips, he couldn't help but feel that no one other than Sugizo was at the top of their game. Ultimately, his reaction was "bored": the 2-hour delay, plus some less-than-good performances, as well as Yoshiki's ostentatious
pretend-time, led him to think that they are perhaps far more than past their prime.)

So Ryota shows up and we all have the meeting: there are eight bands so we're on a tight schedule. We jump into our rehearsal and the PA guy was someone I've always known to be trustworthy, and indeed up until now this was our best pre-live rehearsal. I marked down my levels and we departed the stage; Byakura went up for their rehearsal.

It was only, like, 12:30 by the time we finished our rehearsal. The house opened at 4, and we weren't scheduled to go on until 8:35. We were sooooo bored. Our staff girl fixed some of the worse parts of Yue and my costumes, we went and grabbed food, and apparently I didn't grab enough because I steadily felt worse and worse as the night went on. With 8 bands and about half of all the members being smokers, there was just so much smoke that my head started to hurt.

Finally 8:15 rolls around and we bring our stuff down to the basement and backstage area... and the 6th band is still going.

Diablo came off-stage finally, and Byakura went up. As Diablo was packing up, their vocalist and bassist struck up conversations with us. Really great guys; easy to talk to. There's a cute girl in the band, too, and I ended up finding some equipment they were having a hard time tracking down. I handed her the case, and she took it but neither of us let go; she smiled at me, and, finally realizing I wasn't Japanese, said "Thank you" in nervous English. "You're welcome," I said, equally nervous. "You're good at English," she said. "It's my strong point, yes," I replied. Finally I let go of the case, and the rest of the band called out for her to bring the stuff to the van. She looked back at me.

(*^_^*)

Maybe it was the fact that there was so much pressure from going after Byakura, or the fact that it was already past 9, or whatever, but I was strangely nervous. We went up on stage, the curtain opened, and I could barely hear myself. This occupied most of my thoughts for the first song and a half. I had put all my levels at what I'd written down, so I didn't know what the deal was. Whenever I had a spare moment I bumped my levels up a little bit. I don't know what the deal was. There weren't that many people there for us at all, but people seemed fairly into it. We siphoned off a few Byakura fans that I recognized, which was nice.

Ryota did a great job; Yue was having a lot of fun and our big ol' jump during "Criticism" went of fine, but I don't know... something about me was off. We got off stage, changed, and got our gear in order.

There's a dance club on the second floor of the same building as Narciss, and there was some sort of dance battle going on. There were tons of people in the garage area practicing, as well as in the surrounding area near the convenience stores. All of a sudden, my choreographer showed up! I didn't expect to see him out there so we chatted for a little bit; that was kinda nice. Still, as he went off to dance battle or whatever, I went back and nursed my headache.

Thinking a bit of demachi might do us some good, the three of us went out to meet the fans. Almost immediately, Ryota's fans took him aside to give him presents and chat him up, and a couple of girls took Yue aside. I kind of just stood there for awhile, unsure of what to do. Thankfully, and bless his heart, Omi of Byakura was also alone and approached me to talk a little bit more.

When it came time for us to make our payments to the office, we found that fewer people had come than we'd expected and we had to pay more than I'd have liked. Also, usually I like the advice the staff always gives us at the post-live pow-wows, but I hate to say this one may have cramped my style.
I wear my bass high, because I like to be able to play my parts proficiently and be a good player, first and foremost. In this genre there is a direct relation between bass height and talent. This is fact and it is backed up by me and my observations, gosh darn it. I was told I'd look "cooler" if I wore it lower. I understand where they're coming from but I like being able to play my parts well. At the time, I was thinking "hell no," but for now I'll lower it just a tad and see how that goes. I'm not pleased about that, though.

Diablo's vocalist invited us to open for him at their shusai event, which I thought was freakin' awesome of him, even if we can't do it because we don't have a car.

Now I could barely function I was feeling so sick. Ryota had his little group of fans and I think Yue went home with someone, so I came back home and just craaaaaashed. It wasn't a bad live by any means, but I was feeling too ill not to ignore the little frustrating meaningless things and focus on the fun.

You'll notice I finally got my hair to do something relatively non-boring! My hair refuses to stand up.

Next one is on 4/19, with WHITEBLACK, and I promise I'll stay healthier and in much better spirits. :)