Live Report 6/30/09, Sendai Macana: Chemical Pictures, DaizyStripper, Skull, etc

So here's how Sendai worked:

-Wake up at 6, head out to Ikebukuro to meet the rest of the band and our staff. Ride horrible morning trains.

-Joe, who is supposed to bring the car, oversleeps and says he'll be there an hour or so later. Eat McDonald's breakfast.

-We get a really late start and head off. Tochigi and Fukushima prefectures feel like annoying underfoot cats, but otherwise the drive is fine.

-Get to Macana just in time for our rehearsal. I loved that bass head they had, and I still don't remember the maker. And even though I'd only seen a tiny bit of it, Sendai's pretty cool. DaizyStripper's bassist immediately chats me up and he's a great guy. It was neat realizing that everyone but the vocalist used to be Clavier.

-Shoot a video comment for Visunavi and start our show! Tenten's mother and sister (Eri Taira, a model who shows up a lot in girls' fashion magazines) are in the crowd; I talk to them later and they are lovely.

-Macana's stage is TINY; the wings are pretty wide but then you're hidden behind speakers. The crowd was a little less crazy than we woulda liked, but this is because DaizyStripper fans make up the vast majority of the evening's crowd. Now, this is not a bad thing, as it means we get exposure to more new people, and granted we're still "new".



-As we pack up stuff to load into the van, a girl works up the courage, runs up to me with a present and letter, squeaks out a few words, and runs off again. I don't know what it is, but to me that is the cutest, most adorable type of fan. There are also ones that walk right up and talk to you and say weird stuff, or maybe its not weird I'm just not used to it, and maybe I just haven't learned how to be smooth yet.

-As we start the drive back, we are super-tired. Joe needs to stay awake, so he puts a mix of early Luna Sea on his iPod and sets the volume down low enough not to be a bother. Our makeup girl speaks up. "Hey, uh, Joe..." I'm thinking she wants him to turn it down so she can sleep. "Can you, uh, turn it up?" It quickly turned into an old-skool Luna Sea sing-along with lots of great Ryuichi impersonations. I don't care who you are; Ryuichi impressions are hilarious.

-I end up actually sleeping a little bit in the car, a rare feat. We get back to Ikebukuro at 6am, I go to work at 8:30 after a brief stop at home, and boy was Wednesday difficult. I think my body actually treated today as the day after Tuesday and not yesterday, because I'm way more sore now.


Oh, and some news: Masami is no longer drumming with Chemical Pictures. I love the guy to death and wish he could have become a full-fledged member, but he has his plans and we have ours, so we're going to go with the new guy, Shota. He's young, loves metal, and I love his little touches that skyrocket the song's groove to a euphoric level, particularly on the final portion of "I wanna get away".
Anyway, next time I hang out with Masami, which will happen certainly since we have lots of Ace Attorney and Gyakuten Kenji talk to catch up on, I'll be sure to let y'all know. :)

Also had a nice long talk with Tommy today about a whole bunch of stuff. All youz guyses' awesomeness and the awesomeness of my family aside, she's the only person on this side of the ocean recently who has somehow magically said just the right things to keep me going.


NEXT:
OSAKA, NAGOYA, HARAJUKU, then ONE-MAN, at which we'll be selling a song called "In My Dream" (not a Luna Sea cover), and we have a big announcement! ... I don't know what it is, but Tenten keeps saying we do, so! (I mean, I have an idea of what it could be, but not sure which bit he means.)

Whee~