YFC Sapporo 08/17
Aug. 18th, 2010 01:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pyroyaleI got back just over an hour ago from the first of the GACKT/YFC shows in Sapporo.
It was an epic day and night and was highlighted by GACKT's amazing tattoo placement and the most surreal yet awesome GACKT experience I've ever had.
After wandering around Sapporo for awhile and spending time searching PARCO for the DARTS stand that won't be opening until tomorrow (damn DARTS blog - getting the days wrong!)![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lefcadio and I went to the Zepp.
It's about a twenty minute walk from our hotel but most of the walk is along a nice big road full of bars and restaurants. If you walk over a couple of blocks though, you're in love hotel and hostess bar country. Of course, we walked past the love hotels on the way there ^_^
The Zepp, although it's roughly the same capacity as Osaka, is hidden away and really easily missed. There's little to no space around it and the tour goods stand was tiny and queueless.
We met up withamaiakuyume again and one of my Japanese friends from the DEARS Mansion, Hiromy, also joined us for awhile as she knew I was going to the show and wanted to meet. She's adorable!
I got my ticket from a public website after the birthday live so it was quite late and wasn't a good number - 1544. As I was queuing up, I met this bubbly blonde German girl, Valerie, who had the ticket after mine so we chatted in line and went in the venue together.
Despite our terrible numbers, we still managed to get to the second barrier and if the people at the barrier hadn't have been so territorial we'd have been in the first audience part as there was plenty of room. We still did really well for our numbers though.
I think the order of the announcements tonight was Junji (the announcement of the rules), Chirolyn (the 5 minute warning) and You (the closing announcement). The show started a little late, but not too late.
Again, nothing much was different.
GACKT did have, however, the most epic fake tattoo placements. As before in Sendai he had the two on his right pec (the YFC kanji logo above his nipple and the chicken logo below his collar bone) but added to that he had the YFC lettering logo on his left hip... It was perfectly in line with the V of his hips and was so low that the very bottom of the YFC was dipping below his belt line.
Damn.
Imagine being the person who applied *that* tattoo.
*imagines*
He sounded great again and was holding the notes stronger and longer than Sendai but it sounded like a better sound set up than Sendai so that might have helped. His voice was louder in the mix and Chacha didn't quite drown everyone else out as much as we was doing at times in Sendai.
GACKT was pretty strong and bouncy throughout the show and had an extra sway to his hips but it was really telling on him by JESUS. There was less of a break between JESUS and FLOWER than there was last week and he seemed to be struggling more by the end of FLOWER.
By the end of Uncontrol though, he wasn't good. He was staggering around quite a lot and at one point as he overbalanced, he made this mad grab into thin air with his right hand. I wasn't sure what he was doing until I noticed that his ear piece was out. As soon as he was back sure on his feet, he put the ear piece back in. They don't just sit in his ears, like most monitors they kinda go inside the ear so I'm wondering if that can knock someone's balance? IDK.
Valerie and I left the venue (and walked past a lovely bouquet of flowers to GACKT from VAMPS... sweet!) and caught up with Jessica outside. Standing right behind Jessica, was our lovely staff member.
His name is Chris. SUCCESS! I said I'd get his name and introduce myself!
We had a lovely little chat with him again (and again, he spoke to me first!) as he was complaining about the lack of foreigners at the concert compared to Sendai and he asked me to get a blonde wig and come to the next show so he could interview me again and pretend I was someone else, haha. He also had a Japanese member of staff with him that he introduced to us, a blonde called Aki, I think? I'm sure someone knows the Japanese staff members better than me can tell me if I'm right or not!
After grabbing our bags out of the lockers we headed to the back of the venue to see the band leave.
The back of the Sapporo Zepp is surrounded by apartment blocks. There were no barriers, no ropes and no overly anal (yet cute) Zepp staff members ordering us around. The staff pretty much just left us to it and stood across the road either messing with the wiring on an electrical pole (why?) or practising their batting swings.
A Zepp staff member with epically curly hair wandered over and told us to be quiet because of the apartment blocks and then JOB drove past. Chacha opened the van window and waved but they were very quickly gone.
We then waited for GACKT.
And waited.
And waited.
It took another 50-60 minutes for him to appear.
We were told to be quiet again and then a staff member came out, followed by another staff member, followed by a tall, slim guy with straight black hair and sunglasses, then another staff member then...
HOLY SHIT - THAT TALL SLIM GUY WITH STRAIGHT BLACK HAIR AND SUNGLASSES *IS* GACKT.
It took me a few seconds to recognise him.
FAIL.
I didn't recognise him at first because he was really close to the crowd and there were no barriers, no security guards blocking the way... nothing. He was just *there* and I didn't expect him to be there and that close to us.
He turned, moved a couple of steps in our direction, waved and smiled at us all.
He got in the van and after the driver finally figured out which way he was going, GACKT opened the window and smiled and waved again.
It was a completely surreal experience, not just because of him being so close without any security other than a few very funny Zepp staff members but also because the crowd were following orders. It was absolutely DEATHLY SILENT the whole time he was there.
Even when he smiled and waved at us all, it was just SILENT.
It was so odd to not hear those high pitched squeals and screams of GAKUTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I can't explain how surreal it was. Just the entire strangeness of the situation makes it one of my favourite GACKT memories.
I promise that I will post more from this trek around Japan than just GACKT. We saw some wonderful things in Sendai that I will share eventually!
It was an epic day and night and was highlighted by GACKT's amazing tattoo placement and the most surreal yet awesome GACKT experience I've ever had.
After wandering around Sapporo for awhile and spending time searching PARCO for the DARTS stand that won't be opening until tomorrow (damn DARTS blog - getting the days wrong!)
lefcadio and I went to the Zepp.It's about a twenty minute walk from our hotel but most of the walk is along a nice big road full of bars and restaurants. If you walk over a couple of blocks though, you're in love hotel and hostess bar country. Of course, we walked past the love hotels on the way there ^_^
The Zepp, although it's roughly the same capacity as Osaka, is hidden away and really easily missed. There's little to no space around it and the tour goods stand was tiny and queueless.
We met up with
amaiakuyume again and one of my Japanese friends from the DEARS Mansion, Hiromy, also joined us for awhile as she knew I was going to the show and wanted to meet. She's adorable!I got my ticket from a public website after the birthday live so it was quite late and wasn't a good number - 1544. As I was queuing up, I met this bubbly blonde German girl, Valerie, who had the ticket after mine so we chatted in line and went in the venue together.
Despite our terrible numbers, we still managed to get to the second barrier and if the people at the barrier hadn't have been so territorial we'd have been in the first audience part as there was plenty of room. We still did really well for our numbers though.
I think the order of the announcements tonight was Junji (the announcement of the rules), Chirolyn (the 5 minute warning) and You (the closing announcement). The show started a little late, but not too late.
Again, nothing much was different.
GACKT did have, however, the most epic fake tattoo placements. As before in Sendai he had the two on his right pec (the YFC kanji logo above his nipple and the chicken logo below his collar bone) but added to that he had the YFC lettering logo on his left hip... It was perfectly in line with the V of his hips and was so low that the very bottom of the YFC was dipping below his belt line.
Damn.
Imagine being the person who applied *that* tattoo.
*imagines*
He sounded great again and was holding the notes stronger and longer than Sendai but it sounded like a better sound set up than Sendai so that might have helped. His voice was louder in the mix and Chacha didn't quite drown everyone else out as much as we was doing at times in Sendai.
GACKT was pretty strong and bouncy throughout the show and had an extra sway to his hips but it was really telling on him by JESUS. There was less of a break between JESUS and FLOWER than there was last week and he seemed to be struggling more by the end of FLOWER.
By the end of Uncontrol though, he wasn't good. He was staggering around quite a lot and at one point as he overbalanced, he made this mad grab into thin air with his right hand. I wasn't sure what he was doing until I noticed that his ear piece was out. As soon as he was back sure on his feet, he put the ear piece back in. They don't just sit in his ears, like most monitors they kinda go inside the ear so I'm wondering if that can knock someone's balance? IDK.
Valerie and I left the venue (and walked past a lovely bouquet of flowers to GACKT from VAMPS... sweet!) and caught up with Jessica outside. Standing right behind Jessica, was our lovely staff member.
His name is Chris. SUCCESS! I said I'd get his name and introduce myself!
We had a lovely little chat with him again (and again, he spoke to me first!) as he was complaining about the lack of foreigners at the concert compared to Sendai and he asked me to get a blonde wig and come to the next show so he could interview me again and pretend I was someone else, haha. He also had a Japanese member of staff with him that he introduced to us, a blonde called Aki, I think? I'm sure someone knows the Japanese staff members better than me can tell me if I'm right or not!
After grabbing our bags out of the lockers we headed to the back of the venue to see the band leave.
The back of the Sapporo Zepp is surrounded by apartment blocks. There were no barriers, no ropes and no overly anal (yet cute) Zepp staff members ordering us around. The staff pretty much just left us to it and stood across the road either messing with the wiring on an electrical pole (why?) or practising their batting swings.
A Zepp staff member with epically curly hair wandered over and told us to be quiet because of the apartment blocks and then JOB drove past. Chacha opened the van window and waved but they were very quickly gone.
We then waited for GACKT.
And waited.
And waited.
It took another 50-60 minutes for him to appear.
We were told to be quiet again and then a staff member came out, followed by another staff member, followed by a tall, slim guy with straight black hair and sunglasses, then another staff member then...
HOLY SHIT - THAT TALL SLIM GUY WITH STRAIGHT BLACK HAIR AND SUNGLASSES *IS* GACKT.
It took me a few seconds to recognise him.
FAIL.
I didn't recognise him at first because he was really close to the crowd and there were no barriers, no security guards blocking the way... nothing. He was just *there* and I didn't expect him to be there and that close to us.
He turned, moved a couple of steps in our direction, waved and smiled at us all.
He got in the van and after the driver finally figured out which way he was going, GACKT opened the window and smiled and waved again.
It was a completely surreal experience, not just because of him being so close without any security other than a few very funny Zepp staff members but also because the crowd were following orders. It was absolutely DEATHLY SILENT the whole time he was there.
Even when he smiled and waved at us all, it was just SILENT.
It was so odd to not hear those high pitched squeals and screams of GAKUTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I can't explain how surreal it was. Just the entire strangeness of the situation makes it one of my favourite GACKT memories.
I promise that I will post more from this trek around Japan than just GACKT. We saw some wonderful things in Sendai that I will share eventually!
