blast from the past: live report | J (8/2003)

Friday, August 1
New Best Concert Ever!

Now playing:
j
pyromania

I don't even know where to begin!

It doesn't look it, but i think it was about 50/50 boys-to-girls.

I arrived around 5:30; Tomo (a friend of a friend who got me an FC ticket) showed up at 6:00, we chucked our stuff in lockers (¥300) and headed inside. No drink charge, and the merch table was open but everyone was heading for the stage, so so did we. And we stood there for an HOUR listening to HIP-HOP on the sound system. And the headbang bars were arranged like the gates for horses at a race track ("And they're off!"), perpendicular to the stage (so you can't lean forward and headbang on em, unless you wanna look like an idget and be pointed sideways towards the exits... but of course, J isn't a headbang kinda live -- it's a bounce kinda live.)

The two girls on the left were collecting photos and quotes for a birthday site they're making for J; it'll be up on... when's his birthday? 8/21? And then down one month later. Here's the addy anyway: http://www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~xgate... but i think you need a password to get in. (My quote: "Kick Ass Mother Fucker!"

Also, someone (right now i can only remember her username "Butter Cookies!") came up and went, "Are you Go?" -- which is enough to make my day right there (i love that, esp. when they follow up with a complement on my writing in front of other foreigners, because then other people eavesdropping nearby look over like, "ooh, famous writer desu ka?!?").

The three of us chatted for a bit, and then over Butter Cookie's shoulder i saw the bar closing... and then up on the lighting rig the techs were taking there places behind the spotlights... and then on the second floor there's Kaytea and Rosi and Izumi waving at me! Hello!

Guitarists Takashi Fuzita and Franz Stahl, and Scott Garrett on le batterie.

Lights out, and Diablo March starts up, and onto the stage comes Franz and Scott and Takashi and finally J... right there, ten feet away! And oy, the C-R-U-S-H of bodies!

Which leads us to the best part, but also the worst part, of the night... there's many more guys in the crowd. So it's brutaler than Deg ever was. My head! My neck! My skull! My eyes! The lumps and bruises and cuts and bloody lip! All those boots, raining down from the heavens as far as the eye can see!

And it being a slightly older crowd -- the median age was probably 25 (compared to 18 or 19 for Deg standing lives... oh! and the opposite of a standing live is a "hall" live -- not a sitting live - new term i learned last night...). The practical result being that it's not the polite-lightweight-teeniebopers-skittering-across-your-shoulders kind of crowdsurfing, it's NFL-linebacker-pile-up crowdsurfing -- everyone's older, stronger, stockier, tattoodier... and it's virtually non-stop, because all but one or two of the songs the band ripped through were of the fuck-shit-up fast-fast-fast punk variety.

One cool mother fucker!

I don't even know how long the show went -- time lost all meaning. It must've been like 15 or 16 of those 3-min, 4-min rockers though, closing with... i -think- they closed with Feel Your Blaze but that might've been the second-to-last song... before the band headed off stage with some waves and much cheers. Ah, and J saw me a bunch of times. :)

They came back out maybe five minutes later, as soon as the audience started up the encore chant (only it wasn't en-co-ru, en-co-ru, i think it was just "J! J! J! J!"). J pops out, thanks everyone, jokes around, cool guy. (He smiled and was having a good time the whole show; and you should see him leap off his riser; he gets like 10 feet of air! And knocking down the mic stand with the headstock of his bass, on purpose, like tee-ball, that's pretty cool too if you can afford to do it!)

Me n' X -- AKA David, from japan.box.sk.

And it's time for member shokkai, and first out is Scott (audience: Scott! Scott! Scott! Scott!) and he struts up to J's mic as J sits down behind him. Scott tilts his cap hip-hoppily and goes, "Yo! Wazzup!" and the crowd is like, "Huh!?" so Scott goes "What's happening!?" and again the crowd, being unfamiliar with the phrase, is like, "Huh?" so Scott turns to J and goes, "J, how do you say 'what's happenin'?!"

J grins, nonchalantly sets down his water bottle, walks up to the mic, pauses for a sec, and then like a punch to the gut (but all in good fun, of course) goes:

"Dou!"

Just, SLAP! "Dou!" And it's the funniest thing in the world. The timing was comedic brilliance! It'll go down in history as the funniest thing ever (i was crying from laughing -- a lot of people were -- and keep in mind we're all totally dehydrated so those tears come at an exceptional cost!)

Then out comes Franz, who rattles of some stuff in japanese, in a humourously gangsta-rappish-ly fashion (says something about Shibuya saiko, which everyone loved of course).

Me, Izumi (Aion) and Kaytea.

Then out came Takashi, and said a few words, then he and J delivered a funny exchange, the jist of which i failed to catch, but i DID see Takashi glancing sidelong at J in mock-anger, gripping his fists as if to prepare for a fight, and J laughing... Ah! And Takashi and Scott did a little Street Fighter 2 battle on stage as well, to audience oohs and ahhhs.

And they rolled through a couple more songs, including, as J said, "laaaaassst sonnngggg.... ...Champagne Gold Supermarkeeettttttttt!!!!" and the joint exploded; so much so that when the girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder and pointed "Up?" i got my second wind, smiled, nodded, turned around to lift her, but then without warning I FELT *MYSELF* RISING OFF THE GROUND!

FEET: Uh, Houston, we've lost contact with the ground...

EYES: Danger danger danger building collapse! Roof and walls... rotating!!!

INNER EAR: Mayday mayday mayday! Balance lost! Balance lost!

ME: What the... CROWDSURFING?!?!

LEFT BRAIN: Abort abort!

RIGHT BRAIN: Waaah this is fucking great!!!

And thusly, above the heads of many a J fan, i was conveyed the six short feet from where i had been standing to the front of the stage, where i (amazingly) landed gracefully on my feet, with a little help from one of the slightly intimidated body-catching staff guys, who just braced my shoulders for a split second while my feet touched down. It was all surprisingly gentle up there... But too short! More more more! Again again again!!

Because in the five seconds i was aloft, I had two important realizations:

1. I'm heavy, but unlike the compact, stout, heavy surfer that comes along and crushes those beneath him, my weight is displaced over a larger area! Girth mitigated!
2. I can't surf at a Deg live because the audience is teenaged birds; but here at J, the crowd is all sturdy, weatherbeaten punks! So now's my chance!

I never thought i'd be able to do it; i figured once you pass the age of 25, your crowdsurfing permit gets revoked, yanno? I'm forever indebted to those girls that hoisted me up.

Anyway, yes, so i land on my feet, dash along the front of the stage, around to the side, and back into the fray! The middle of the theater is mosh pit, but a kinder, gentler one -- very much like those kiddieland inflatable bouncing-room things. A couple other crowdsurfing guys i'd seen/nodded to earlier waved to me -- "Come 'ere!" -- so i came to 'em, and they made a face like "Again!?" and.. here we go again! Only this time, the stage is like thirty feet away! So I'm on my back, splayed out, looking up at the second floor (wondering if kaytea had a camera handy, and if so, praying that she'd sneak a quick pic) and i'm keeping my boots up so as not to knock anyone unconscious, and i'm smoothly gliding along, it's like sitting on a floating lounge chair in a pool; no elbows, no pain... it's downright relaxing!

At some point i roll over, onto my stomach (still with my boots up... in the classic skydiver's pose), and suddenly i see the floor rushing up to meet me, but i've got so much whatever-chemical-your-body-produces-when-you're-crowdsurfing gushing through my arteries that the rush is in slow motion. But i don't touch the ground. I bob right back up like a beach ball that's been pushed underwater, and continue on my way, gliding, flying, lights flashing, the music spinning, and then you see the end of the crowd, like a waterfall... and we're going over the edge! And -plop!- i'm back on my feet again, jogging towards the side again. But no more surfing for today, the song's winding down...

Let's just hang out and wave to the band, the song's is ending, ending... people are smiling and and wooo-hooo-ing and J spots me (even 30 feet back, i stand out) and chucks a water bottle right to me. Almost as if to say, "Congratulations on successfully crowdsurfing, here's your plaque!" and i catch it and everyone in a ten-foot radius spins around and looks at me like my head has begun to glow like Christ's in all those Renaissance paintings (i caught the bottle with one hand, leaping maybe, i dunno, thirty feet into the air? Forty? High!) and J's still watching, so i just whip the bottle in a circular motion and splash everyone with a spray of cold water and everyone cheers, including, i want to think, J! What camaraderie! And the band heads off stage.

But the house remains dark. Only a few people make for the exits. A second encore? Doesn't seem like J's style. Then...

A remix of Champagne comes on the speakers, and the colored stage lights burst to life, flash and gyrate... transforming the theater into an actual, literal, full-on rave. People are dancing, girls are on guy's shoulders, dudes are standing on the headbang bars, chanting "J! J! J! J!" to the beat, dancing -- no one's leaving! I'm waiting for people to start throwing of their clothes, so convivial is the atmosphere.

And i meet a bunch of cool people, not in the hi-nice-to-meet-you-i'm-Go kinda way but in that deeper eye-contact-/-smile-/-head-nod way. Holy fuck, what a fantastic, fantastic sense of kinship i feel. Wondrous.

Afterwards, when the house lights scare the music away and people start exiting the venue, i'm walking down the side hall and shaking hands and beaming like i don't know what... covered in sweat, completely wet and reeking, and at the lobby bar i spot Kaytea and Rosi and Izumi. And we chat for a little. I also meet David, (aka X, from japan box) and his hot wife, and everyone's got backstage passes but me but that's OK; i couldn't ask for a better time the the one i had tonight. And i'm looking forward to grabbing a drink with some random slew of J fans and enjoying a simple night of chattering about bands and songs and albums and being the center of attention (which is another thing i love...)...

But as I'm talking to Izumi and David and Kaytea and Rosi over a beer about what a fantastic live tonight was, i'm completely oblivious to the fact that all the other sweaty, messy moshing fans are gradually trickling out. So when i look around for once, i see that the twenty or so souls still in the lobby are all well dressed and have green or red passes in plain view. Uh-oh!

Amazingly, i am not harassed by the AX staff; maybe my pass is just hidden under my shirt, and I'm a foreigner after all... and i'm clearly "with" other approved personages...

And David, wonderfully, he runs out to my locker and gets my stuff (i couldn't go outside to get them myself; i had no pass to get back in!)

Without his help, I'd've had no camera, and thus no photos of meeting J. Who , speak of the devil (ha-ha) joins us after a short while, meets some of the business people and friends of his that are present, eventually comes over to us, i bide my time and (in English) thank him for the show, it was my first J live and very very memorable, and he's like "Oh! Glad you liked it!" and very down-to-earth (and not too eagerly!) i ask (still in English) if a pic is OK, he's like, "Sure," and ka-ching! X snaps the shot and that's three Luna Sea members down, two to go! :)

J bravely bravely fights to remain conscious despite the deathly stench emanating from my filthy, sweaty shirt.

We also chat with Scott and Franz, and how they met up with J (in a nutshell: he liked their music!) and they share some cool little details about touring and studio stuff; just a fun, educational, life-affirmingly cool evening desu.

Then Izumi gets on the phone...