Live Report 8/31/08, Urawa Narciss: LAVERITE, Cinema Strip, Cheeky, Mistes, CKroll, Baby, Az:Madius, Dorothy

We were 4th out of 8, so here are the bands I didn't see, to get them out of the way:

CKroll, the scary-looking blue dude is ridiculously nice and down-to-earth


Dorothy


Baby, who were excited to catch me and Ryota playing along to Sugar tunes backstage



before

We took the stage and were pleasantly surprised to see an absolutely full house, and plenty of people up toward the very front ready to rock along with us. They weren't necessarily people who had come just for us, but still, it really helped us feel good. We kept up the energy from the previous live very easily and had a great show. I can't help but grin like an idiot up there, so apparently I've become the "smiley one", which is honestly just fine by me. It's fun up there and I'm not about to hide that.

almost after

We didn't call out enough people to break even, of course, but still it was a great turnout. A few coworkers came out, coupla housemates, and Bunny came out too, which was really sweet of her because Narciss is far for people who aren't me. There were also a couple of other girls who said hello but didn't stick around long enough to chat! :(

We sold a small handful of photo sets and were asked to sign them, which is still surreal, and we got presents of snacks from a few girls.
The Closet Child CD sold out way fast, and "Rose mary" is all given out, so the only available Laverite CD is the free Sephirot/Criticism thing in the indie shops.

By the way, I think I've brought this up before, but it gets asked about a lot, and someone (who?! Thanks!!) kindly explained it in one of the comment threads, but here goes:
We have to pay to play a live.

This shouldn't surprise anyone, but it does. This isn't just a Japan thing, either. Here's how it works.

We enter an agreement with the live house that we'll be able to bring in a pre-established number of people; say, twenty. At the door, everyone is asked what band they came to see, and if they reserved a ticket. We give our reservation list to the front before the house opens. You can also show up on the day and say you're there to see whoever, but reserving gets you a slight discount.

For every ticket we do not sell, we pay for. Sometimes, only 4 people come. Tickets are between 2,000 and 3,000 yen, so you can do the math there. That is, of course, on top of equipment rental and the cost of having a sound and video recording made of our performance.

Back when I was playing in punk and ska bands, however, often times we'd just play for free and if the house made enough of a profit we'd typically get $100 or some chump change, but it was just for kicks and at least we weren't operating in the red so it was all good. I don't know what I'm doing in a VK band, though.

Okay, other bands. Cheeky was a lot of fun as usual, and their vocalist Sadon and I got along really well, and the backstage almost turned into an eikaiwa for a second.

Cinema Strip continues to be ridiculously solid, and since Leo and I have similar performing backgrounds we got along quite well too. He had me teach him some psuedo-moonwalkin' dance moves, so I hope he uses them onstage so I can be like "I taught him everything he knows!"

Mistes are also pretty cool actually, and good dudes. Three of them went to high school with Yue, which we discovered randomly last time we played with them. Pretty neat.

Az:Madius is three chicks and they're certainly no Danger Gang or Exist Trace yet. But, to be fair, we're not exactly a Lareine yet.

Another fun show under our belt. The next live is at Takadanobaba Area on 9/24, and we play first. That's going to be somewhat of an 'audition' live for us, because we've never played at Area before. I've never been there before, even.

That's kind of a ways away, so I've gotta find something to talk about until then!
Work is pretty sweet and stuff on the money side I suppose, but it affords me pretty much no more free time anymore, which is why this report is like a week and a half late. Last night I met up with Masaki after work at our respective half-way-home points for drinks and both of us couldn't believe how much work it took to make a plan to chill out.

Welcome to adulthood I guess!

Live Report 8/8/08, Urawa Narciss: Laverite, The Skull**** Revolvers, Mistes, All or Nothing, Zig+Zag, Baby

The first of our 3 shows in August! (Good LORD my eyes are round...)

Baby was up first but I didn't see them and they were down in the downstairs dressing room the whole time so yeah.

All or Nothing were crazy guys, cracking jokes left and right, and a couple of them had pretty strong Kansai accents. Didn't get to hear them, unfortunately, but they caught our rehearsal and when we were finished, they told us how much they liked the song "Solidarity", which was really nice of them. We talked to them a lot more in the dressing room, and I played Dream Theater tunes with their guitarist, and then we gave up because it's impossible.

We were 3rd, and initially things were going well. We didn't draw that many people who were there for Laverite, but other people in the hall seemed to be enjoying it, doing the hand thingies and responding well when I looked out at them and smiled.

The show was not without its problems. We played fantastically, I thought; a huge step up from the previous live. I felt really good about my performance, having honed and studied my own movement as Masaki taught me. We've each got our distinct personalities in the band, so I guess I'm the happy one.

Just before "Criticism", Ryota misstepped and changed his sound bank; during the intro of the song he frantically tried to get back to the right program. I put some more flourish on the bass tapping part to fill in the sound. Luckily there was at least one other guitar part being played with the synth parts through the PA, so it didn't sound too dead. Ryota pulled a nice save, doing a cool slide and coming in just in time for the main riff.

Just before our last song, the PA guy (some older guy no one had ever seen before) screwed up the cue we'd gone over perfectly in rehearsal and instead of fading out the previous backing track, faded in to our final song, which meant that keyboard parts were playing along their merry little way without us. After a brief moment of panic, at the same moment, like a cartoon, all three of us shrugged our shoulders and just came in for the second pass of the phrase. I thought it was a killer save, and in fact I often think mistakes are forgiveable if the band can cover well and not fall apart. We don't fall apart.

Ryota was very displeased, however. He'd also overshot the opening of "Sephirot" and his sweep-picking in the solo was, in his own words afterward, "complete and utter crap". The girl in charge of lights, a Narciss staffer we're familiar with, came back and apologized to us for the missed cue. Honestly every single staff person there is very sweet to us. After she left, comforted by Yue and I, Ryota made the good point that he wished the PA guy would apologize himself. He didn't.
Personally I don't mind all that much. Sure, I'd like to put on the perfect live, and I think we can, but if things happen things happen. I dunno, maybe I'm having too much fun up there.

Next up were The Skull **** Revolvers, whose name still rubs me the wrong way so I don't write it out. They've gotten better, less out-of-tune, and I have to admit they put on quite a show. Violinist needs to ditch the music stand and not look so dang bored, though! He's way too outclassed otherwise. They had a small handful of girls from Europe there to see them, one of whom, a sweet Finnish girl, talked to me and told me how much she enjoys reading Rock Japan Elec-tric! AWESOOOOOOOOOOOOOME


Ooh, almost forgot about Zig+Zag. They were theatrical. Robes and masks and lots of orchestral music, songs that were borderline prog in their meandering, a tiny scary little female vocalist with a staff with a crow on it that she waved around and looked like she was going lop off the heads of the girls in the front row. Their bassist wore a full white mask and a bowler hat, which is at least something because otherwise he had a short, normal haircut. The guitarist had loooooooong Mana-like locks and was a very good player, as was the drummer. They frustrated me a little bit because some of their stuff was so cool and really unique, and then some of it was gimmicky and I wished they'd left it back in 1997.

Mistes also had a couple of performance hiccups at first, but again they covered well. The two guitarists went to the same high school as Yue, so they caught up on old times, mentioning old teachers and old friends.

On the 24th we're playing with Suicide Ali, so that's nifty. Also, one girl who came showed us the Closet Child omnibus! I kinda want a copy too, just to hear the comment we recorded!

Off to rehearsal today!