Live Report 6/15/08, Urawa Narciss: LAVERITE, Atomic Tornado, OZxBONE, Diz-, Denial, Zack's Hidetora Stargazer

First things first: the day before the live, I met up with Shuurei and his pal Mike, both formerly of Okinawa, for some chill out/make new friends time.

From L to R: Shuurei, pizza, Mike

That was a lot of fun, and it was a great way to get psyched for the next day's show.

We went up first, again, although with a setlist that I was really proud of, and a new song at the end ("Solidarity") that most of the crowd seemed to like. I was having a lot of fun, Ryota was moving more than usual (that is to say, moving at all!), etc. Coming off stage, it was the first time that all three of us were at least somewhat satisfied with ourselves.

We came out after our set to meet up with Faith, Shuurei, Mike, and then Marius and Wolfgang, who had some awesome tales of run-ins with Vagu Project and Danger Gang to tell me about. It was awesome to see those guys again. Marius took some live pictures of us so I hope I get to see those sometime!

Next was Diz-, hard and heavy, and their guitarist was a big, big guy. Go big guys in VK.


Then OZxBONE, who are our buddies, and way nice, and they're jokey and silly and SMG-y and there's some cutesy manzai in the middle of their set, so good job, boys.

Atomic Tornado was extremely talented. The guitar solos and twin parts were great, and they all had good presence, and the vocalist had this great 80's metal voice, strong and pure like harsh winter sunlight or something overblown and power-metally like that.


A band called DENIAL was after them, and I really like crisp 7-string guitar playing, and they were solid performers, but there was no bassist, although there was a bass displayed predominantly on stage.

Then uNruSt, who came out to this brutal intro music and then for their first song played something down-tempo, light, and sorta limp, but they got better over their set.


And finally, Zack's Hidetora Stargazer, with Hidetora on vocals, formerly of G.O.ZVII, a band that Yue really respects. Hidetora actually works at Narciss, and he's such a nice guy and gives us fantastic advice and encouragement. They played some GOZVII songs, some Akira songs, and a cover of the Pillows' "Hybrid Rainbow".


The other 5 Americans all had to jet so we made our goodbyes. I was so glad they came out to support me; I'm often quite overwhelmed by how nice people can be.

There's supposed to be a video of me, Ryota, Yue, and our staff girl trying the chocolates that Miss Thrillz sent us, but youtube is not being friendly and that's sad because it's a quaint little thing.


I got a bag full of snacks from one fan, which was really great. We sold quite a few photo sets, and people wrote really nice things on the questionnaires. Also, one fan bought this for Yue:

One thing that's a little bit of a bummer about going first is that we spend all our time in the downstairs backstage area instead of the 3rd floor one with all the other bands of the night, so there's much less interaction. Ah well.

So we got asked to play a special live on 6/24(a band canceled, so other than equipment rental we play for free), which should be interesting. I wonder if anyone will come out on such short notice.

There are a couple of little Laverite-related surprises coming up, so I'll let you all know when I can give away more details.

On 7/26 we're playing with Byakura again (yay!) and in August we'll play with a band called Az:Madius, and at least one if not all of the members are ladies, so it seems. And, on 9/24, we will play our first show at Takadanobaba AREA! :D