Live Report 11/23/08, Urawa Narciss: LAVERITE, Vagu Project, etc

We'd known that Yue was going to be leaving for awhile, so we wanted to make the circumstances surrounding it as maudlin as possible. If Visual is anything, it is purposefully artificially melodramatic.

I mean, don't get me wrong; Ryota and I are indeed quite bummed that Yue won't be with us anymore, but we framed the whole thing around the concept of "graduation", as most Japanese bands do. And since Yue is against the idea of being in a band ever again, it certainly does feel like "growing up" to him. I sincerely respect this and am in awe at his resolve.

Preparations began last week at our final studio rehearsal. Ryota had prepared a new opening song to play as we came on stage, the incidental music to some old TV drama; and the new free CD was a music-box version of Sephirot. Ryota explained to everyone that it should be like a lullaby: "we'll be gone for awhile, but put this song on, go to sleep, and dream; when when you wake up, we'll be there."

How ridiculous is that? :D

Another thing we'd decided is that frankly we were just done with our costumes. We liked the graduation theme so we decided to wear suits, which was evocative of Raphael in particular. Luckily I was in the market for a new suit so I easily justified the purchase, and even got a discount because I was super nice to the older lady helping me out. (It's amazing how much being personable will get you over here.)

These are the CDs that we prepared; it was the first time we'd distributed something in a standard jewel case so I felt proud, I suppose.

Someone sent us floooooooowerrrrrrrrrrs

I got a haircut & straightening too, again at Harajuku Lipps, which is the place for which I was a dancer/hair model back in April at the Gatsby/Choki Choki event. They always do a great job and are always doing a lot of work for models and magazines. They are STILL giving me a scandalous discount so of course I keep going back. The fact that they count me as a friend helps too. If you click on "staff" and then on "photo" down at the bottom, there are a few pictures from that event.

It's nice to have bangs to speak of, it feels much easier to style, and of course I'm stick straight again. I've had this urge lately to start over and go back to my natural difficult curliness. I will probably regret this.

Yue has a cool hat.

The staff at Narciss has always taken great care of us, above and beyond the care I feel a band like us really deserves. Hidetora, formerly of G.O.Z VII, has been a particular friend of Laverite, giving us great advice, introducing us to great people, and the like. He also was able to get us to go last that night, "seeing as how this is an important night for you guys", and the staff was more than willing to make the schedule so.

Unfortunately this meant an awful lot of waiting. We got to Narciss at 11:30am with the other guys to load equipment into the place and filled out the paperwork for the show (guest list, reservation list, member pass list, song list with lighting cues and PA requests, I think that's it). Since the rehearsal order is the reverse of the performance order, we started setup immediately to begin rehearsal right at 11:50. That took until maybe 10 past, and then... waaaaaaaiting. Foreeeeeeever.

Luckily, Vagu Project was going to go on right before us, so we both had a lot time to wait, so we got to hang out a little bit in the dressing room to pass the time. Keita even came to see me, as I'd given him a pass, and we got to hang out before I had to go down and get ready. That night was also Masaki's birthday party, which I, for obvious reasons, was unable to attend. Keita took a little video message of me first, though, and then went down to watch us.

I was more nervous than I can remember, which is strange, because Ryota, Yue and I all had a beer before the show to prevent that very thing. Ryota barely drinks and ended up not drinking over half of his. Lightweight! Worse than me!

Typically numbers for Laverite are fairly low, but this time there were a staggering amount of people in the place. Inertia was there, Kyu, Bunny, Keita, one of the girls from the Lolita shoot I interpreted for this summer, long-time fans and new faces.

It felt great. Energy resonates back and forth between musicians and listeners and builds to high tension. We played Sephirot, Tenkuu no Kanata e, Kamen no Butoukai, Sexy Dance, and SOLIDARITY. Yue had a nice little MC after Sephirot, and just before Solidarity, we each said a little something. I thanked everyone for supporting this silly little group, and then switched to English to thank the large number of foreigners there that evening.

I love the new suit, and with the new hair and slightly different makeup I felt more intense in my performance. Yue was on a roll, and while Ryota would tell me he made a few mistakes (typical Ryota grumbling!), I thought he was fantastic.

During Solidarity, I was beaming like an idiot (standard fare), when I spotted one of the girls in the very front row with an inexplicably forlorn look on her face, and man I had to look away or I woulda started looking equally sad.

And then it was over.

We went back, the curtains closed, and the album I always hear at Narciss, Abandoned Pools' "Humanistic" (which the PA guy always plays when we're there because he knows I love that album), come over the house speakers, and we paused to let things sink in. We heard typical post-show chatter from the fans through the backstage door. We, however, were silent. "And that's it," said Yue.

And then, "En-co-re! En-co-re!"

Wait, what? Us?

The backstage phone rang. Yue answered. He listened, then said, "Yes, we'll do it."

The chanting continued, and real quick we three just said, "Criticism? Yeah, we'll do Criticism," and one of the stagehands came back and said, "whenever you're ready."

I went out first, and then silence, which is the reaction that tends to accompany me. Ryota and Yue followed and a fan in the front row got Yue's attention and gave him a bouquet of flowers. It was seriously all Elagabalus up in there with all the flowers.

Then followed the wildest performance of Criticism we've done. It felt good. It does not feel good, however, two days later, and it especially did not feel good the day after either. I am in paaaaaaaain. Good pain. (Just kidding, pain is pain.)

Then a quick jaunt out front to greet fans, then back inside to clean up and talk to a potential new singyman maybe don't hold me to that, and then cleanup, which also meant taking home the huge bouquets at the door. At the demachi we went around to every girl waiting out there in the cold and gave them a flower.

So Laverite is on hiatus. I plan on doing sessions and other stuff and mostly just taking a break I guess, but Laverite isn't quite done yet. Things look moderately up in a lot of respects.

One is a session band with Hidetora (Akira, G.O.Z VII), with him on vocals, Yuuichi (G.O.Z VII) on drums, Kayuki (Homura) on guitar, and me on bass! That'll be December 8th at Narciss, so come check it out!

Yue will always be a friend; he is a genuinely good guy. I'm glad he's happier these days. ^_^

Thanks to everyone's well-wishes and support, whether you came to see us or not, we three were able to have a really neat year together.

What am I going to write about in the meantime?? :-P

Live Report 5/31/08, Urawa Narciss: LAVERITE, Vagu Project, Mamono, Rakan, Karate Bakabon Sono Go, Murasaki, Mezmerize

Saturday was a long night that started off quite promising when this arrived at Narciss:

Yue's company had sent that to us, and it was beautiful, smelled wonderful, and caused a bit of buzz.

We were scheduled to go first, so I took the opportunity before we went on to do a little video interview:




Yue and Ryota have been ill with Bubonic something or smallpox maybe, and it really showed in their performances. I tried to make up for things, but that can be tough on your own. The crowd was a little less energetic than we've had in the past, but honestly as long as there are smiling faces I'm more than pleased.

In fact, Alicia and a friend were there, which was just so awesome! She and I have been to many-an Exist Trace live and it's always good to see her. Also in attendance was blog commented Lisa who is now officially the coolest Rock Japan Elec-tric reader (although I welcome other contestants). She is just here on vacation and she managed to fit in a dinky little Laverite show in between stuff like, you know, Dir en grey and D'espairsRay and stuff. I cannot bow low enough to express my thanks to those who have and who will come out to support me, and often more than once! It was great meeting her finally.

After us was Rakan, whose drummer took a liking to me and especially my staff girl, and at the end of the night after I'd washed off my makeup finally noticed that I was not Japanese. I don't look Japanese in the slightest so I'm constantly baffled as to these band guys' reactions. Maybe just because we all look so funny to begin with.
Anyway, from the brief bit of their set I saw, Rakan was a bundle of energy. I was envious.

After them were mah dawgs Vagu Project, whom I hadn't seen in a long time, and they were very, very pleased to see me. It was great hanging out with those guys in a totally different context; backstage Yui hung out with us and he showed me his cool mixing board... he was putting finishing touches on a new song they were debuting that night, and it sounded really, really good. It was a slower-tempo'd rock ballad sorta thing, with some really fantastic lyrics and great vocal harmonies from Ryo... it was a very tightly-constructed song.

Mamono was next, and as you might predict, they were completely normal, gentle guys outside of costume and absolutely insane on stage. They probably had the biggest crowd of the night, I'd wager. They used a lot of smoke and lights in their set, and created a neat little world on stage. They reminded me a lot of Schwarz Lilie, with some of that overly Tim Burton-y layer removed.

Murasaki played "Zan", I think, and then a cover version of "Nagori Yuki" (Mucc's was better) and I went and changed clothes and took care of money stuff.

But then there was a session band called "Karate Bakabon Sono Go", and Dan (formerly of Ensoku, also mah dawg) was on drums. The guitarist had a goatee and he generally had a goat-like appearance and that was neat. They were very strange.

Last was Mezmerize, who formed in January and are breaking up next month. If we last past July we can officially say, "hey, at least we outlived Mezmerize." Also they played a Kagerou song.


The Narciss staff wanted us to take the flowers home, so we wrapped up 4 bunches in brown paper and Yue, Ryota, our staff girl, and I each got one. On the way to the station from the live house, as we ran into various girls who had been at the live, I gave each one a white rose from the bunch.

These are a couple of the things a couple of fans brought for us... the akafuku was delicious! (The Aquarius was already ours, though. :-P)

Nachi, my buddy from all the ET lives (and who told Miko that I'm in a band when I pretty much expressly didn't want to tell her what a jerk even though he's awesome) came out to see us and I was so happy! I seriously love that guy and wish you all could meet him.

And then I got seriously ill coming back home and man yesterday did not feel good at all. But that meant I got to stay home and look for jobs, so that was nice I guess?

Our next live is on 6/15, and we're playing a new song. The guys say that with the bassline I wrote it sounds "L'arc-ish", which I take as a compliment.

Everyone who came out to see us is a winner! And just by reading about it, you're a winner too. :)