9/23/09, Meguro Rokumeikan: Chemical Pictures, Hi:BRiD, Otogadead, Juliette

Up at 4, office at 6, Rokumeikan at 12, filmin' somethin' i dunno shut up, then just sitting around being nervous.

Those of you who have seen us live before, bless your hearts for thinking nothing but nice things, and I'm glad it doesn't look like we're struggling up there. Because ever since May I feel like we've been very hit-or-miss. Some shows were great, others not so great, and sometimes we all agreed whether it was a good or bad one and sometimes we didn't. That might be more frustrating than the quality of the show, actually; the inability to come to a consensus.

But last night was awesome!

Setlist:
-Welcome to our CHAOS-
1. Jibaku Souchi
2. Suffering
3. Yamu Sora
-Bluesmen-
4. Black Box
5. Reincarnation
6. Walking Ashland
7. Stand By Me
-fast riff from old website-
Encore -Praparat-

Jibaku Souchi, a very demanding song, executed pretty much flawlessly; Walking Ashland whipping everyone into a frenzy; Joe going absolutely bonkers, Tenten giving his all, Schwarz bein' cool as a cucumber... and I certainly felt collected and in control, and it feels good to hit that pocket.


In all honesty, I feel like some of it was the new costumes. So much easier to move around in than the other ones, bizarrely. Lighter, less restrictive. At first glance they don't look very CP-ish, but we had the opportunity to strike a great deal with BtSSB. Even though our glam aesthetic and their gothic aesthetic are worlds apart, they were very easy to work with, and it's the first time I've had a costume designed to the specifications I laid out in the first place, as opposed to sort of ignoring what I had in mind. Also, the new CP logo looks really neat; we had pins for sale and I stuck mine on my strap so I'll show those to you later.


The call for an encore came, and it was Shota's last show with us, and we knew we had to make an announcement...
Tenten started with, "We didn't really want to do an encore tonight."
The fans called out "Why?"
And then he just blurted it out. Pause. Schwarz is leaving. Shouts of shock, more than a few tears. I got emotional in a numb sense; I've already made my peace with his decision but watching the fans find out for the first time was not pleasant. And during Praparat, the words took on another more prescient meaning.
How are you supposed to smile? Ridiculous.

And as we went to the car, fans were respectful (we'd been told not to stay around and chat by management, and I think they could sort of see we weren't necessarily in the mood for a chat, given the news)... but I felt bad for them. I made sure to at least say thanks and smile, and thank those who just wanted to tell us they bought the CD.

By the 4th I hope it's sunk in, and the in-stores should go fine, I hope. More thoughts in my next post.


Finally though thanks to Nemo who came all the way from Nagano to come see us play! That was crazy nice of her.