I don't have a clue what happened in June 1st-21st other than a handful of lives fated to be overshadowed by this one weekend and one live which was admittedly jaw-droppingly amazing (but that can be written about at a later date). One thing that didn't happen much was meeting up with my lovely Crimson, and so in celebration we decided to meet up a few hours early so we could relax and catch up. Always quick to remind me that it's always midnight somewhere, Crimson suggested midday drinks and we sat in the nearest restaurant to finally have a long-overdue natter, but despite trying my best I'm pretty sure that every other thing I said featured some varient of the word "UnsraW".
It was only when sinking a follow-up iced tea (with essence of honey lozenge for poorly-guts here) that I finally realised how nervous I was, although god knows why. Was I worried about what they would play? No. Was I worried about what they would look like? No (although this was indeed an uncertainty we'll cover in a moment). Was I afraid of what the crowd would be like? No, because I had already vowed to myself not to let any amount of shitty gig-goers ruin my experience - having never seen UnsraW on home turf I had never experienced an UnsraW crowd, and only had very mixed opinions to go by. I didn't know why I was nervous, all I knew is how badly my hands were shaking, and how dangerously high my resting heart-rate had become.
(flowers outside the venue, welcoming back Madoka and for the whole band)
By the time we returned to the venue they were letting the first fifty people in, and as numbers 26 and 27 we made out way to queue on the stairs. As staff came and went I caught a glimpse at the merch table and cursed under my breath, because I hadn't intended on buyging anything for myself but the designs were simply gorgeous! More on those later.
On the way past the merch table we were handed flyers for a special memorial box, available for people who attended the shows. Why thank you very much! Fold that up, cram it in a pocket and hope that it's still legible in three hours.
(Update: it survived!)
Crimson and I got ourselves into the hall safe and sound and right into second row, comfortably between guitarist Madoka and vocalist Yuuki just as we had planned. Only moments later we were also joined by the wonderful tribe of Kita, MelJay and Peachy from over on ~Twisted in Tokyo~ (and no, I'm still not over the shock of meeting such lovely people), and as the venue filled around us we joked about how our lovely pocket of foreigners all seemed to congregate in front of Madoka. We talked animatedly about a whole myriad of things, from cult-related musical drama to our own respective hassles of getting tickets ... one thing we didn't talk about however was UnsraW themselves, or what lay ahead, and rather we left the topic acknowledged only silently, our conversation growing stunted as the minutes of Senor Owl (I forgot his name!) ticked by agonisingly slowly. However, slow as it might have been those minutes did indeed tick, and they ticked until we had been inside for just over a full hour, and the lights finally went down. Crimson grabbed my hand, and in a moment of simultaneous weakness and gratitude I remember sort of wishing that she'd never let go.
It has to be said that end of finale is one hell of an amazing opener, not only giving something to get the crowd riled up with bbut allowing a prescribed moment for each band member to appear onstage and drink in their own individual reactions. Which is exactly what they did. Drummer Shou was the first to appear and already from the get-go there was no pretense of "cool" or "hardcore" - this man has a smile like a rainbow. It first hit me like a tonne of bricks back in 2010 in snowy-cold Munich and it was still there in frozen London, and here it was again effortlessly lighting up a room which had every right to be simply pitch black. Bassist Jin appeared next, jumping up on the crate and flashing a cheeky grin flled with his favourite vampire fangs (I can neither explain nor endorse these), and with just these two first members already the anxiety, the trepidation, it was all disappating. It seemed that nothing had changed, nothing was different, no feelings here were any different than they had been one yewar ago, two years ago. The track continued and out came guitarist Tetsu, who was shortly followed by fellow guitarist Madoka, and aside from the latter having had removed his facial piercings they were the guitarists we had always known, Tetsu observant, a creature of his own and slow to smile, Madoka twitchy to a fault but something strangely alive behind those silver-blue contacts tonight, much more watchful as if he was searching the entire hall for something, lips glossy-red and tense. Shou, Jin and Madoka had all been playing in session bands or as support up until this point, but this was the first time any of us had seen Madoka since the bands original last live back in 2011; it was good to see that not much had changed.
Madoka took his place in front of us and then there was only one person left, and ... the feeling there and then in that crowd became one of the highlights across both nights, a highlight I could never even hope to put into words. The song played its way through innocently enough as if it didn't know what it was about to introduce, while the tension in the crowd rose to impossible heights, one giant hive mind knowing and damn well needing the one thing it knew it was finally going to get.
I felt Crimson's hand give a little under mine as I probably held on too tight, and then, right then, it was finally safe to let go.
Yuuki strode forward and up onto his crate like it was second nature, like he had been practicing that stride every day for the entire past year, and the crowd surged and cried out, screamed and shouted and it simply wasn't enough. He pounded the microphone against his chest and demanded more, demanded that we reach deep and let out everything we had never been able to show him until now. And he fed on all of it.
I mentioned the uncertainty of what they would look like, and when I said "they" I mostly meant "Yuuki". Over the years we've seen Yuuki morph like a damn shapeshifter, he has been almost unhealthily thin and he has been much stockier than your average vocalist, and we have seen him lose weight but retain his ridiculous muscle mass, and after a year we had no way of predicting just how he would look now. I was surprised to see the whole band back in their final costumes, but although Yuuki definitely wasn't looking as thin as he has in the past his outfit was quite literally hanging off him. A mixture of eras, while he wore his final costume his hair was the same black and blonde as Reborn in 2009, and brilliantly enough he wore a mask from the early years, not entirely unlike Abel in '07. The perfect emalgumation of everyone he had been. He shouted furiously at us with the cumalative power of their six years behind him, like nothing we could give him was enough. In retrospect, maybe this was a recurring trend for the big guy, who back in April asked who could save him. We would give it our best shot.
The band powered into -9- before the dust could even try to settle, before any of us could gather our senses long enough to realise where we were, what we were doing, what was happening, nd without pausing for thought they drove ruthlessly on into REBORN right afterwards. It's yet another thing I can't put into words, but it really was a trial by fire, Level 10 - the band tore the stage up, starting the show with all the intensity of an encore and showing no sign of letting up. In the precious seconds between songs you would expect Yuuki to say something, a greeting, a question, even some rousing one-liner, but we weren't to be treated with such courtesy. Yuuki was in no mood to speak. Rather, his mood was ... throughout the whole live he was astonishingly violent, sometimes to a legitimately disturbing degree. He pounded the mic against his chest as if he wanted to drive it throughto the bone. He stomped furiously on the crate until at one point I thought he would go through it. Tortured, he would aim kicks at the poor thing or at Shou's riser, he would fall to his knees and he would strike the floor with the side of his fist before giving up entirely and faling still, breathing hard, trembling at the fingertips. Early in the set he ripped his coat off and threw it to the ground like it was a personal disgrace to him, and as for the mic stand ... god knows what he was seeing when he looked at that thing, but for whole songs he would sing directly to it, wander the stage with it in fact, before eventually snapping and casting it aside or throwing it to the stage, so hard that at one point something flew off it upon impact. I suppose that on a personal level it made me a little sad, because his frustration was so tangible and we had all been hoping that he would have been able to reconcile these things within himself before now.
IN THE FACT has always been one of my favourite songs, ever since that fateful January 2007, not just by UnsraW but by any band ever, and as much as it was a given that they would play it it is still never any less amazing. Only this time I think that the band finally started to understand the crowd that they were dealing with. As the song heats up to the chorus the crowd started to shout in time with the music, seeming to get louder and louder each time, until you couldn't hear Yuuki over the noise we were making, and so for the final repeat the guy just gave up, letting us shout our way up until the scream he lets out at the beginning of the chorus. This scream, by the way, was executed perfectly, which is something I definitely want to make a point of. No UnsraW fan out there is going to say that Yuuki has a perfect voice, not by a mile, but ... whatever he's done over the last year, it's done no harm to his singing. Every song throughout the whole night was pitch-perfect, above his normal standards at lives. Screams = flawless. Particularly high or low notes = no problem. I don't know if it was something he was consciously aware of or something that just came together for him at the end, but ... it was a brilliant thing.
After a surprising little voyage into the Guilty mini-album with WITHERING BLOOD they launched mercilessly into -509-, another one of my absolute favourite UnsraW songs since they brought it into their arsenal on the European tour in 2010, and after easing off a little with 腐現 Yuuki left the stage, leaving the other four musicians to take the spotlight. Shou started off to rile us up a little and I figured the guy was going to get himself a little solo, but before long Jin joined in, making a kind of rhythm team mash up (I have to say here that while I have never considered Jin sexy per sé, the way he moved right then when it was just the drums and bass was quite entrancing - I've never notice him become so involved in his playing before). Not too long after this Madoka and Tetsu joined in too, creating what we finally know to be the brilliant instrumental interlude that is SEVEN. Goodness me, brilliant would be an understatement. The whole piece was dark and heavy, the kind of UnsraW i love best and very reminiscent of something from the final Kleza singles, making me quite sure that this was going to be a track lined up for the future album that never was. People in the crowd were totally getting into it, occassionally headbanging and enjoying the whole song even without vocals. I remember desperately trying to fix this track in my mind, simply too good to forget.
I found an entire bottle of water upended over my head at the end of the track (from either Yuuki or Madoka, the memory alludes me now), leaving me laughing with my hair over my eyes despire crazy saizen girl as the band left the stage, and immediately everyone called for an encore (or rather, instead of calling "ENCORE!" everyone cried out "UNSRAW!").
They didn't keep us waiting long and gave a short little two-song encore, Yuuki having not relaxed in the slightest and still going slightly insane during 艶蝕の夢 in particular, shaking and screaming at the mic stand once more. And I guess that a two-song encore just wasn't enough because entirely unsated I think we started calling them back before they even completely left the stage again. This time when they came back they were all wearing the beautiful wonderful fantastic shirts from the merch desks, cementing in my head the need to get one. Yuuki's in particular did a great job of showing off just how much muscle the guy had, and I was genuinely shocked at how he had seemed to lose weight and yet still keep those incredible arms! They took their time this time, wandering the front of the stage, grinning like proud children and really enjoying being back. A lengthy and double handshake from Shou while the guy grinned down at me was enough to keep this little blogger happy and after drinking in their audience's shouts they took their places again and Yuuki in turn shouted for us to bring it on, and they closed their set (very strangely) with WINE, another personal favourite that delivers precious memories from London 2010. Just like in London, Yuuki had the crowd clapping over his shrieks in the middle, chasing us up with those horrifyingly perfect deep growls before each chorus.
We left with conflicting feelings of exhiliration and confusion, content and yet unsettled. I was glad to have a ticket for the next day because if that had been my last show I wouldn't've known how to feel. They played perfectly, no better than normal but with no sense of sadness or sorrow (apart from our brief moment with Madoka ...), it was like a regular Friday night show, and I guess that's what made it so amazing. It did make me all the more anxious for the next day however.
After the show I took a chance and hassled someone I thought I recognised and it paid off, it turned out to be Luna, an acquaintance I'd met some 18 months back online who had flown out just for the weekend, and living up to our vow of taking Before And After photos Crimson and I kidnapped our new friend for some post-live purikura. Bidding farewell to Crimson myself and Luna stayed out in Ikebukuro, discussing the show, the band and their future, and amazed to have met another super-wonderful person I nearly missed my last train home. It was only when I did get back home that I realised just how content I felt, and that I embraced the feeling that the next day, the last live, everything might just be alright after all.
Brilliant ^__^ You said all the things I forgot to say, meaning, like, almost everything you said was something I was too dumb to remember, lol. Great post, seriously! Felt like I was back in the venue again, all jittery and nervous. These days, I'll grasp at any last strands of memory I have left of the boys :-( Ne, I hope we get to meet at a show again soon!!! Looking forward to your next post! :-D
ReplyDeleteOne comment? ONE comment? Goodness me.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, UnsraW is one of my most favourite VK bands ever, and I am seething with spitting jealousy at your magnificent experience. Brilliant review and detailed descriptions. Those same songs you mention are my faves too, especially Wine, with its interlude of pretty guitar followed by staccato riffs and Black/Death Metal cries of “Eeeeeyaaaaa!”
Really wish I could have been there. Sighs abound.
Again, thanks for a top tier description of an awesome band!
Oh my goodness, the "iiyaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" in WINE, so much love.
DeleteThanks a lot for your comment, I'm glad you liked it. In fact, three months later as it may be, I'm just getting around to posting about Day 2 as well - I would be honoured for your thoughts when that's (finally!) upped!