Tokyo Report! part 1 of 2
WARK-O!

I just got home from spending the weekend in Tokyo, and for that tiny fraction of you who aren't L'Arc fans I will explain that it was for the Tokyo portion of the L'7 tour. Went to Saturday and Sunday shows, but this report is only about Saturday. Sunday's repo is being written while you read this, probably. Due to work conditions I can't attend Tuesday's live, so this will be the only reports until OSAKA FAINARU BABEH HAADOCOA FUCK YEAH.


I headed out to Tokyo on Saturday morning, just missing the Osaka rain, only to catch a day of drizzle in the Biggest City. My travel buddy for the weekend was Setsumei, from Pieces, who none of you know because she is a lurker. :p We had a hotel in the general area between Tokyo Station (of Shinkansenity and Not-Shinjukuity) and Tokyo Dome (of squee and kya), and I semi-rawred at the check in because they were going to ask for our passports -_- Nandeyannen, we LIVE IN JAPAN thanks for asking.

So anyway.. it was rainy, so we didn't want to wander too much. We grabbed lunch in a little noodle shop then went straight to TEH DOME to immerse ourselves in the (wet) fan community. It took an hour to get through the goods line @_@ and all I got was the Tokyo-edition tumbler and a hoshizolight (glowstick) for the actual live. Also got a good look at most other goods, including the Ciel-chan car, which I must say is quite tiny. It's like a happy-meal toy, rather than a rajikon or something.
I got hit on while we were standing in line ^^;; But the guy looked to be several years younger than me, so I played it cold and not interested. Still cool to meet fellow fans 8D

OH and I should tell what I was wearing, shouldn't I? Of course I should; birdfans wanna know! I had my yellow-and-pink Vivienne t-shirt, striped white-black sweater (it was rainy remember?), strawberry socks, and my live ribbon around my neck in a kinda punkish tie. Naturally, I was wearing my boots of Awesome (see - Paris).

Once the goods were acquired we ran around the entire dome looking in vain for the @(#@ Gate 11. As far as I could tell only 2 gates led to the arena and they were hidden down some stairs. They checked tickets, checked bags (for cameras, not for bombs afaict), and handed out the free paper before we got in the door. Then we had to go down more stairs to get to the actual arena. KYA.

Walking into the bottom level of Tokyo Dome is really impressive. It's the biggest arena in Japan, and you can really FEEL that massiveness. There's smoke in the distance, as is usual for light effects, so the people in the far stands are barely visible. The thin roof lets in sunlight so it doesn't get dark until sundown, and you can see the seams where it can part. Extremely impressive structure. Even better is getting to walk past row upon row of staffs and showing them the tickets (B4, extremely tetsuwards but not quite at the edge of the stage) as they make sure no one from F-section steals an unattended better seat. I loooove the arenas 8D

With 45 minutes until the show was set to start, I decided to go to the bathroom. Bad call. The lineup for bathrooms was MASSIVE, and since you can't leave the arena or even go to other parts of the dome, I couldn't go to a different bathroom. So I stood in line. The time passed slooowly, but I had a nice Japanese girl to chat with (forgot her name but she was genki) so it wasn't atrocious. 50 minutes later (coz L'Arc NEVAR starts on time) I gave up and ran back to my seat because the last thing I wanted to do was miss the beginning.

Good thing I did too because the lights dimmed barely a minute after I got back. I didn't even finish getting my hoshizolight out!

The stage was set up to look like a big ship. I know that's old news but it was new to me since I really couldn't get a global impression from the front of the pit of pain back in Paris. There were "worn" gray logo-bearing flags on poles in groups of 4 on each side of the stage, then also above the screens, and finally 4 more without poles hanging on gray blocks which in turn formed a wall below the screen. There was a brown "wooden" railing running the length from the stage to the far end of the arena with enough space for a boat (TEH FORESHADOWINGS!!) to pass between the stage wings and the stands.

The intro video kicked in on both screens plus the front "sail" that covered the actual stage. We see a lovely CGI pirate ship with white sails and a familiar logo travelling along a sepia map from Shanghai to Taipei. The -DRAMATIC- music swells as we see little clips of the previous lives... Then PARIS is shown and the two of us screamed coz WE WERE THERE HAHAHAHA!
The camera zooms in on the ship to focus on a figure in a black cloak... Many squees of anticipation, until it is revealed to be YUKKIE! Camera then goes to a proud, be-feathered figure standing tall and surveying the horizon : tet-chan is on duty! The map goes to Seoul... Hong Kong... then back to the ship to show the smoking dolphin - ken-chaaaan~ And lastly, another black-cloaked figure appears.. he raises a finger to his lips, licks it, and tests the wind... the cloak falls back and we see teh EYEPATCH OF DOOM as (kyakya) hyde is revealed on deck! The shrieks get shriekier as the logo is posed on the screen and the sail begins to fall off the stage, in time to a familiar BOOM BOOM.

BOOM BOOM.

BOOM BOOM.
KYA.
BOOM BOOM!
KYA!
*KABOOM*

REVELATION!
The grey blocks below the screens are tossed overboard by pirate staffs to reveal banks of cannons, while a HUGE SHIP COMES TEARING THROUGH TOKYO DOME! The front is really made to look like a ship, and it is raised quite high, coming down as the song heads to the first chorus looking like it's just crested a big wave. We can see the mast behind and "crate" amps in the front, very impressive yet simple set up.

YOU GET DUCK SAUCE! REVELATION~

WOOOAH! HEY!
WOOOAH! HEY!
WOOOOAH! HEY!
WOOOOOOOAH HEY!

You get dork socks~ Revelation~~

Kick ass start 8DDDD

Our pirates are looking sexy 8D *made a special effort to notice ALL OF THEM like a good repo writing bird*

hysus - Dressed almost like the intro video, with a billowing white shirt and a black vest over it, which was itself long and frayed in the back like a real pirate coat. Black pants. No eyepatches cos this isn't HYDE P'UNK. His hair was loose but it's not as long as it was in ToK, as you all know already anyway.

carrot ken-chan - Loose black and white and gray layers of shirts and vests. He kept removing layers as the live went on and you will hear more about this later. Still hasn't cut his hair, and with the wet of the day his hair was as poofy as mine, srsly. Also had a little facial hair but it was the kind that screams "I LOST MY RAZOR 8D" as opposed to "I'm growing something cool". TOTALLY HAADOCOA HELLZ YEAH RAWK.

yukkie - Black. All black. BUT it was thin material so when the lighting came down on him just right we could see his muscular form pretty well. Hair pretty much like in Paris.

holy Banana of awesomesauce - Feathers of white and red, with silver bits twisted in, to complement his white and red schoolboy jacket and tight black pants, which offset the blue-and-red Paris skirt! He must really like French soccer teams. He also took some layers off later 8DD Also no wedding ring in sight, and I looked mechamecha closely.

tetsu was GENKIIIIIIIIIIIII!!! Right from the beginning he was running in circles and bouncing and rocking out. Rocking almost as hard as ken-chan, who was headbanging and going insane with a big happy guitar grin. hyde was busy revving up the crowd and being sexy and the usual~ A very very promising start indeed~

Straight from REVELATION into the hip-shaking bouncing and sweating...

Pretty Girl! Pretty Girl! YEAAAH~

With the ship now even with the rest of the stage, his holy smurfness decided to come visit my side of the arena in all his hip shaking glory. HAIL HYSUS FOR HE IS THE PRETTIEST! So on the left side there were hyde-hips, and on the right side the main stage with a bouncing fruit, and on the monitor the image of 8DDDDDDD ken-chan. It is TOTALLY AWESOME and sexy and and I just had to dance~ Had lots of room to do it to since the seat next to me ended up EMPTY (how the fuck does that happen?). So I danced and drooled. A lot. hyde ran back to the centre and ken-chan sang along in the choruses and so did the crowd but TD is big and loud so I can't hear the crowd over the speakers, which is how it always should be.

The explosive sexy beginning continues with Caress of Venus! More dancy bouncing was had by all. Especially by a fruit, who bounced his way down to my end of the stage. I didn't take my eyes off him for more than a second at a time, but that was fine since the action came to him. Smurf sashayed his way down the railings to loop an arm around the pink fruit of winz and make him sing... this DESPITE the fact that tetsu had his own little mic for singing choruses. It hardly needs saying, but obviously hyde only does this for an excuse to touch tetsu. Not that I blame him. I want to touch tetsu too. *flaps*

tetsu sang his choruses so sexily anyway. I love love LOVE how he has high-pitched ones AND low-pitched parts in the same song. It's kya inspiring, really. *kya*
Banana marched offstage (to take off his jacket, as we would soon see) and hysus came to the front - it's time for some squeeing!

hyde : We're back.
Crowd : WELCOME HOME!

He talked about how the tour has been long and tiring since they moved around so much. All the overseas lives went well, but according to hyde Paris had been the best (wtf srsly?). I screamed every time he said "Paris" :3 . Then he gave me a reason to -

hyde : So how many of you saw the Paris live?
Me, Setsumei, and maybe a dozen others - KYAAAA!!!!
hyde : Hoo I see. Well I think Tokyo will be even better. You won't lose, right Tokyo?
crowd : KYA SQUEE

Me : WTF? *thinks* OH RITE. Shinkansen and stuff... I'm in Tokyo... hehehe... (What? It feels all weird yanen... am used to "TOKYO!" being yelled on DVDs only XD;;)

So he made the crowd scream and kya and get loud as he introduced :

DRINK IT DOWN

The ship was dyed red by the creepy lights and smoke effects as green lasers spun around and around and around. Off to the side, a robot pirate marched back and forth, periodically shooting more green lasers from its eyes. Yes, it was a Robot Pirate. Specifically an animatronic robot that looked like a skeleton pirate that you'd see on Pirates of the Carribean (the ride). I am quite sure it wasn't an actor in a really good costume because the movements kept repeating in EXACTLY the same way, and there were those lasers, and no human can be that skinny, and this is Japan, land of robots and the future. So it was pretty damn cool. Would have been better in the dark, but TD lets in too much light so they did what they could.
Somehow I got the impression, which extended to Sunday, that DiD was being DRAMAfied the way DBB was in ToK... Maybe it's just me.
I want to SHIIIIIIIINE on yoooou~
SHINE came straight after, making it my 4th? 5th? time hearing the full song, and I must say I quite like it. I even had it stuck in my head after the live :3 That hadn't happened the last few times I heard it. Effects-wise it was pretty tame, and I don't remember anything special fanservice wise either. It was just pretty and 8D. hysus shines on us all.

Next was a song that I NEVER thought I'd hear live, if only because it would never occur to me to want to. TIME SLIP! ftw.
It was actually kinda dreamy, once I had placed the song. There was smoke billowing around and the lights were whitish so it seemed like the ship was floating in the air. It's great how the whole LIVE!! feeling allows to enjoy songs I don't normally bother with... it's like rediscovering old treasured :3
Incidentally, ken-chan and tet-chan were both sleeveless by this point so my brains just MIGHT have been melting into goo. Mmm... arms...

After this song the boys walked off and the screens lit up for the airing of the Dorama - "Love story for the intermission" which you can watch on the OHP but I will describe it here anyway.

We see Miyuki, a 23-year old OL, at the Live by herself. She thinks.
Miyuki - Ah, L'Arc is so wonderful, live. But... he's not here. We were so happy together....
*flashbacks of Miyuki and her BF (name eventually revealed to be Takuya) doing couply things - listening to L'Arc, shopping, etc.*
Miyuki - It was even his idea to go to all the lives together, but here I am alone *she looks to the empty seat next to her and continues to flashback*
*we see Takuya offer her the L7 keitai charm, in that typical dorama emotional-gift way*
*next scene- Miyuki happens to spot Takuya cheating on her, she is LE SHOCKED*
*back in the arena, Miyuki looks tearfully at the empty seat, then at the charm in her hand, and she drops it...*

"Miss, you dropped this" (I guess this actor is really famous because the crowd went insane)
*they introduce themselves - Ishida and Miyuki*
Ishida - You shouldn't cry. Tears do not suit a L'Arc live, after all~

The music swells and small text reads - to be continued tomorrow!

As the video concludes the very familiar and eerie first notes of get out from the shell ring out... by now it's dark enough that the spotlights can direct attention better, and so we mostly just see hyde until the chorus kicks in. He is singing the Japanese version, now. Yume wa yume no mama de~

GET RID OF YOUR MUSHROOMS! *rawk*
Haven't you realized yet?
When the lights go back to everyone we can see a jumping bouncing ROCK OUT!! banana and a rocking metal 8DDDD carrot. Everyone's yelling HEY! *rock rock* HEY!!
The effect with the hoshizolights is really cool too 8DDD I had taken mine out when the dorama was starting.

Get rid of your mushrooms~ Get rid of your butter~

There are acrobat pirates on either side of the stage, doing a dance that reminds me of the acrobat in AWAKE tour during Ophelia. Except pirates are cooler! Also, a red sail was hoisted up the mast, with L'Arc~en~Ciel written across it.
The ending was dragged on a little extra so that tetsu could have the time to switch bases for the next song :

THE NEPENTHES

For some reason I feel like I'm watching REAL tour... 8D
Another song I never expected to get live, but this one is much more fun! I was swinging my light around in little circles to the beat. SEDUCTIIIVE WELCOMING! More haadocoa headswinging from ken-chan and running in circles from tetsu, and of course HYSUS! He was making love to the camera in his specialist way. Wanna lick you around~
This song is teh sex, and that guitar solo is almost as horny as Snow Drop. SRSLY NAO 8DDD~~~~

The next song started with a very calm and pretty keyboard intro, being played by ken-chan. Bent over the keys, his hair was in front of his face as he focused on getting it right. It was very calming and mood-setting.. until...

8D!

After ken looked up and beamed at us, it was impossible to get back into a dramatic mood for the song, which obviously was going to be My Dear. Actually, when he finished his intro, he was all like *SIGH* and fumbled on a key before getting on to the familiar keyboard line of the actual song. Oh ken-chan, you gatta failing failing~

As My Dear concluded, there came a sound of blowing wind. It lasted a minute or so, since the keyboards had to be cleared... then I noticed that a background of cloudy sky at dusk was being projected onto the ceiling.. and below, a new instrument was brought out for hyde. Then came some very very familiar notes ... I shrieked, I jumped, I couldn't believe it...

LORELEY was starting up!! EWRUEUTEWPTEPTGJE?RF!!!!! One of my favourite songs evar and I get it live and SDJgfip'dsgjhdsg!!!!! *almost moved to tears*

And so I play my saxophone guitar~

FOREVER!!! LALALA LA! LALALAAAA~~

You know what else?? This means.. there will be a DVD version of this song.. where hyde doesn't wear the SQUIRREL SHIRT! Now that is something to celebrate 8D (not that playing saxophone really looks sexy in the first place... his cheeks puff out, it's quite cute XD)

More seriously, I got a much needed hug at the end of this song. Ahhhh the awesomeness!! So beautiful.... Lovely.. Fantastic.. Touching...

Next, the background went darker and torches were lit on the boat. I wasn't sure what was coming until bells rang out and the music kicked in for Eien, another unexpected song. I sorta floated through this one, still rather high from Loreley. I thiiink hyde was posting on the prow for part of it, but I might be getting this confused with Sunday...

The torches were put out but the background stayed similarly dark-reddish, except for golden light under yukkie. He started up the unique pattern of forbidden lover, and the lights went onto ken, then hyde, and lastly tetsu. They all played it very intensely, though I think ken and tetsu were more genki!! than dramatic! Both of them being sleeveless it is hard to say much more than that it was sexay.
Gradually the background turned into flames, so by the time hyde's part crested (KAMI NO NA WO!!!!!~) there were flames projected all over the ceiling. Mecha cool.

At long last it came to an end, but there was a real flame flickering in the distance. That's coz it's time for smorke and failz with ken-chan 8D

First, he imitated the way people swing the hoshizolights around, like "wtf~"

So the MC contents of ken-ness :

"Hey~ It's good being back in Japan. For the other parts of the tour, I always had to speak in foreign languages. It's kinda fun, but I'm so much more comfortable in Japanese. I can say whatever I want. You know, in Hong Kong, I had my MC all prepared ahead of time and written on note paper, even including the intonations..."

- EHHH?
"Yeah I'm a master of intonations now 8D. But anyway I had my notes, and you know the intonations were pencilled over the words, but the thing is... The thing is I had folded the page in half, and when I took it out again to read, the pencil had gotten all smudged. Yeah, I couldn't see the intonations at all. So I just tried to do it like I'd practised. And I guess it worked coz after, they told me they understood. Go me."
- Kya kya kawaii way to go~

"Yeah, it's better in Japanese. I can say what I want... so what should I say? What do you want me to talk about?"
-DSJGFDLSghist89ewtyr23q90r3 <-- 40 000 different answers
"Right. Who wants to hear about the other lives?"
- KYA SQUEE YES!!
"Yeah! OK so you know in Paris, I guess the people who watched it live already know, but in Paris they had to stop the show because of me. I got hit by the streamer machine. It's actually happenned to me twice before-"
- EEEEEEEEH!?!?!
"-but this time I didn't realize what happened. I was on the ground and like 'OH, I fell. Hey I can't move my arm. Oh crap I think I broke my arm'... so I get backstage and they bring out this foreign doctor and he's talking to me like 'bnfdbfdndf? dhishfsfes!' in French, and I dun understand French, so I kept telling him 'OW! IT HURTS! I BROKE A BONE! AND I DONT UNDERSTAND YOU!!!' . (Itai! itai! hone otta! WAKARAHEN!!) Eventually I got told that he was saying nothing's broken, so it was fine..."

(Incidentally, I was highly amused by how he started out speaking standard Japanese but got more and more Osaka-ben-ified as he got into his story XDD!!!)

"Next song now, you get to hear the song that hurt me. SEVENTH HEAVEN!"
The stage was a lot brighter now, and the boys ran around being themselves and there was 8D to be had by all. No streamer blasts though, gee what a shock... I danced and bounced and tetsu danced and bounced too and everyone is happy. The answer waiting UNDER YOUR FEET.
JAMP JAMP JAMP TOKYO!! <--- I think hyde was really wanting to use some Engrish, cos he kept saying JAMP along with TOBE!!

The next song was just as explosive (literaly) as there were FIREWORKS to anounce the arrival of KILLING ME!
I jamped, hysus jamped, I jamped more, and tetsu jamped and came back to visit my side of the arena, and much genki was had by all. With these fast songs I'm too busy dancing to note much more than how much FUN it is. Especially when I'm NOT dying. Not KILLING ME this time, babeh! HAHAHA!

Then it segued into an extended fruit bass solo. Bang badong bzz bzz boing~ The fruit landed nowhere near me. Oh wells.
STAY AWAY was -not- like in the other shows; it was the normal hyde-sung version rather than the switchy version. This is bad because it means I missed the tetsu-sung version for reals, but also good because it means we are prolly getting some P'UNK later!! You can see the logic too right??

In the arena everyone bounces and claps to the beat. And this is good. CLAP! CLAP CLAP! CLAP! CLAP CLAP!
I loved watching them have so much damn FUN playing it. tetsu is revelling in his bass solo, ken is swinging his hair around and humping his guitar, hyde is being his whore-dancing self, and it is glorious.

It ends with the classic but still BIZZAREly placed line - ARE YOU FACKING LEAAAAAAAAAADY??! TOKYO~
hyde doesn't actually sing the intro, letting the crowd yell it instead, but it deosn't really work coz you cannot hear the crowd over the instruments. Which is how I like it. so XD

There were FIREWORKS during RSG too, as well as something going on with the cannons that I didn't actually figure out until Sunday so I will leave it untl that report.

It felt so GREAT, jumping and sweating and making a big stink. I actually felt really loose and relaxed, you'd never guess I had been rained on and anxious just before this show started. Lives have great POWAR to heal the mind and soul. Hail hysus.

At the end, yukkie did his extended drum solo and tetsu left his bass to resonate when the boys marched off the stage. Things went dark again and the fans took a breather. A few minutes of excited OMG as we all anticipated... We all got a pretty good wave going. Up and down and around, though as far as I could see it never made it to the 2nd floor.

At long last the famous mechanical beat came on.. they ARE coming kya kya! But...

They were on the screen, yet for the life of me I could not see where they were. Then I realized that they were on a "boat" that ran along the edge of the arena! On this little boat were P'UNK-EN-CIEL!!! KYA SQUEE WAI!
Except for HYDE P'UNK who had added his eyepatch, only TETSU P'UNK had changed appearance. He was now wearing a white T-shirt with his skirt and pants, plus shades to go with his aura of awesome P'UNKy leaderness. like 83

As the boat made it's way around, the members (very SRSLY) threw baseballs at the fans. For the most part they were aiming at the stands, where they had to throw over a fence, and also where nothing would otherwise end up. When they were a little past the halfway point (which was behind me and so I watched most of this on the screens), the boat stopped and :

"PRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROU! PROU PROU! PRRROUUUUU!
Minna genki? IKU DE!
Prrou prrou~ DUNE~"

Except not. They FAILED HARDCORE after a few seconds of trying to play the intro. it was loltastic XD All four of them are just standing around trying not to laugh, TETSU P'UNK grinning like a moron until he realized that HE had to get things going again. So he did. PROU PROU IKU DE~

The song concluded without further fail, but I almost made myself dizzy from turning to the screen and constantly wanting to turn and actually face them and therefore spinning around like an idiot. 8DDDDD

- PRRRROU~~ Do you wanna hear moooore? Do you wanna? Prrrrou???? OK! HONEY~~

I can't decide what's more adorable. 8D TETSU P'UNK or 8D KEN P'UNK... SRSLY any idiot can 8D but it takes PROFESIONALS to 8D like these two. But you can't escape da FAIL... TETSU P'UNK forgot the lyrics right away so he was all like Da daa~ DA daaa da dadadada daaa~ until he could pick it up again.

ONE TWO THREE FOUR!!!!

OI OI OI OI!!!

You know how it goes. PRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROU! (I answered his prou in equal prou but I doubt he can hear it, or even tell the difference from the echo of himself...)

Once the songs were done, the boat got back in motion. They kept throwing stuff (water bottles now as well as baseballs) but SOMEONE got extra playful~

HYDE P'UNK, feeling evidently frisky, went up to YUKI P'UNK and... KISSED HIM!!!!!!!! Right there in front of tens of thousands of shrieking fans! MWWWAH! right on YP's bony cheek. Le KYA! L'unexpected haiki! (or what? not haihiro surely. and it's NOT yukido coz hysus was the aggressive one). Anyway YUKI P'UNK just stood there rubbing his cheek, like "WAO DID HE REALLY JUST DO THAT 8o".

Meanwhile on the other end of the boat, Prou Prou was being the KING OF THE WORLD with his arms out Titanic-style. (See he is totally a bird too. It's more obvious with every passing day.) This proved to be just TOO tempting for horny hysus... He came up behind featherfruit and -wrapped his arms around him-, really tight. TETSU P'UNK just 8DD and didn't resist, so HYDE P'UNK sloooowly slid hs joined hands down, down, down... until he hand his hands over mukimpo~

The squeeing was tremendous XD And you KNOW I'm not making it up because it's the wrong pairing. So it has to be for reals. Which it was. I saw it.

With that happy atmosphere the boat finished the path and went back behind the stage. I waved and prrou prrou'd back as much as I could, but I don't think my banana saw me. I think KEN P'UNK MIGHT have seen me though, but prolly not. Who knows...

Once they had disapeared, another video came up. This one was a compliation of the previous stops on the tour, showing some footage of the lives as well as media coverage (there was a cut of the France 2 news broadcast, subbed) and airport footage and stuff. In the Paris segment (which is the longest) they showed a few pictures of fans standing in line being genki and... the last shot, the one that holds on screen the longest...

*flaps to calm down*

IT'S US.

SFHDSGHFDSIGH DSFDSF *feathers all over her pretty girls*

SERIOUSLY THERE IS A PICTURE OF US ON THE SCREEN DURING THE LIVES. I saw us VERY CLEARLY ! Din and Tiger and Rieke, and I wasn't able to confirm but Me and Bunneh and Sarah HAVE to be there too. The shot is when we were squished in just before the gates opened.
DFSLGFRELDGHREG !!!!! DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THIS MEANS??

IT MEANS THEY SAW US AND OUT OF ALL THE PICS THAT DAY THEY DECIDED WE ARE THE PRETTY GIRLS THAT THEY WANT TO SHOW OFF ON THE SCREEN! THEY LIKE US! THEY KNOW WE EXIST!! SADHSAFHESIOGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We win, my friends. We TOTALLY fucking WIN! 8DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

At first I didn't believe it but I rechecked on Sunday and I am 100% sure about Tiger and Din-sama and Rieke. *SMOOCHIES*
The video actually ends with some Korea and HK footage but I didn't really see. Too busy freaking out. The boys came back and the last thing on the screen was black with the words...

NEXUS 4

FIRST LISTEN KYA! The scenery was techno-y and multicoloured, and the ambience of the song is very tetsu and also very 1980s. Keyboards and uh... genki. It is going to work very well with SHINE, methinks.

Then there was the very familiar vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrom vrooooooooom~ and FIRE WAVE! Bursts of flame travelling down the stage, mecha hot.

Driver's High! As everyone knows by now it's a live staple simply because it's so much fun jump and bounce along. The boys have fun too, and JAMP JAMP go craazy Tokyo~

Then comes a long clappy - Link!

This is the member-intro version, like in L'Anniversary. The announcer asked everyone to do something/answer a question.

First - Drummer! yukihiro, number 303 - Asked to say something memorable about the overseas food.

yukkie : ........ I forget where but I ate raw octopus legs.
(bird : That would be Korea.)

Second - Bass! tetsu, number 69 - Asked to throw his bananas
(he did, without asking if we wanted to eat them. He made with the second banana before throwing it~ but again the fruit was nowhere near me T.T)

Third - Guitar! ken, number 5 - asked about his adventures in the HK subway, which apparently worried the staff. He needs to compare HK and Tokyo subways
ken : Er.. I've been on a Japanese subway maybe 5 times in the last 10 years so... I have no idea 8D

Finally - Vocal! hyde, number 666 - Asked what his catch phrase would be if he were hired by a host bar :
(All in super formal Japanese) "Welcome, honoured client. Would you like to take a seat? Or perhaps a bath? Or perhaps~ *winks*"
(am told he used this phrase on hydeist too.)

More clappy happy bouncy for the rest of the song and everyone shines togethar~

Then the lights focus on ken-chan, and it's time for the magic to happen. He played a loooong, meandering, beaaaaaaautiful intro and nothing else existed for that time, just ken-chan and the guitar and the overflowing love.

MY HEAAAART DRAWS A DREEEEEEEAM~~

Just as it went into the song proper, hyde said "Will you sing with me?" to us. ^___^

At the crowd singing part, YUME WO EGAKU YO~, the music completely STOPPED so that the crowd could sing, but tetsu and ken sang too and hyde was mouthing the words~ It went on three times as long as the album version, first the completely quiet set, then a semi-musical one, then finally like the album, with the music in full. hyde only sang the high "our hearts draw a dream" part between crowd-sings. IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL. But I didn't have a tiger to moment! with.

At last came hysus' parting MC. 8DD

First he talked about NEXUS 4, wondering aloud "Is this the first time we played it?". tetsu told him yes, and in fact it's never been played in full anywhere at all until today. Only 15 seconds of CM had been released. So this was the world premiere of N4, so to speak.

hyde talked about how they have to film a PV for it, as well as a PV for SHINE, and both are going to happen soon. VERY soon. Like right after the tour, soon. He said the single is only the first of many 8D

When he finished taunting us (he's "not allowed" to say any more details yet), he looked up, and said :
"Wow, it was really rainy tonight, wasn't it?"
- How should we know? we're in here with you....
"Well, despite the rain, I hope we can enjoy the starry sky together~"

The ceiling was illuminated by a starry pattern, and ken started strumming an accoustic... As if the name of the goods hadn't given it away - the last song was Hoshizora.

It was beautiful, with the star effects and the glowsticks and the EMOTIONAL~ hysus and the ever-rawking ken and swinging banana... I enjoyed it, even though ending with this song is a little... shall we say Depressing?

At the conclusion, there was some flinging of picks, but no additional bananas. To leave, we had to wait for the staffs to announce our section, so it took a while... In all, the live took nearly 3 hours! At least a solid 2:30 of music, with the rest being videos/break. Our boys are amaaaaaaaazing~

I was starving and eager for tomorrow to come, so didn't do a whole lot besides eat and write down my notes so I could make this report.

Here's a little reward for reading all that : PICCAS -



Baadobrains in front of the short! hotel door.




Rainy TD, taken from the goods line

I took most of my pics sunday so that's all for now.



Here's a recap, the BIG NEWS for people who don't want to read a whole report :



PARIS PHOTOBOOK announced, hyde said there were shoots in Notre Dame as well. Release date and price not yet determined.
SHINE and NEXUS 4 both get a PV, which they will be filming very soon; single release date to be announced Tuesday.
They have MANY SONGS ready and going to be releasing singles over the duration of the no-lives period. That means it is NOT a hiatus until 2011, just a lack of lives.

Rejoice, my friends, rejoice.


Sunday repo (with MOAR pics) later tonight. Love for L'Arc!