VAMPS NYC 2013 Concert

This past weekend I went to see VAMPS in NYC! This was really exciting for me because I missed their 2010 concert so I hadn't seen them since '09! And they're one of my top 3 favorite bands. I took some photos; sorry they're not the best quality, I used my iphone4 and there was a lot of movement lol.

It was a fantastic concert - great lighting and sound, and everyone was extremely energetic and active (even K.A.Z. who is usually a bit more withdrawn). Two things really made the concert for me especially. Hyde was wearing his glowy contacts. I think they reflect light to UV rays or something like that and they're so freakin awesome. This was the first time I've seen him wear them in person; I've seen them in tons of videos of Japan lives and thought they were so awesome so it was great to finally see them in person. They look so evil! XD

Also something that really personalized the concert for me is that K.A.Z. looked over and made eye contact with me and noticed I had my vampire teeth in! He smiled and nodded so that was a lot of fun. And during "Devil Side", he did the same to my girlfriend who was wearing her devil horns XD

This is my favorite photo from the concert (above). I love the composition and feeling of it!

There were also 2 opening acts, one called KILLCODE which was a lot better than I expected. They looked kinda funny though. One of the guitarists looked like Santa Claus. And then the DJ from Slipknot which I thought was kind of an interesting choice. I really liked his stuff but I felt it was a little out of place for this concert. Unfortunately he didn't really get the crowd moving like KILLCODE did. If he had used more of Hyde's voice in some of the tracks or sections of VAMPS songs like he did in the first song he did, I think it might have been a little better. But despite that, he attempted a crowd surf and dove straight into the short asian girls in the front. Needless to say, he didn't make it very far...

Also, it was Arimatsu's birthday (the drummer)! So they rolled out a birthday cake for him which he blew out the candles of and said a thank you to everyone on the mic.

Followed by a sweet drum solo!

I also appreciated that Hyde thanked everyone for standing in line in the cold. And it was! My girlfriend and I stood in line for close to 7 hours in below freezing weather, part of which was windy, snowing, or freezing rain. We only got through with take-out ramen and heat packs we stored in our shoes and gloves!

Love this photo of Ju-Ken lol

Took a quick picture of the set afterward; I love that backdrop.

Looks like Gotham!

On the following day we went to Rockefeller Plaza to do some Christmas shopping at Nintendo World and the surrounding area. First time I've seen the Christmas tree there in person.

And here's the concert swag. They only had 2 items which was both a little disappointing and a bit of a relief. While I would really have liked to have a few more things (having missed the 2010 concert and all the merch that came with it), the quality is great and I love that graphic, and it didn't break the bank. Still, I was a little surprised they didn't have the new best of album there.

I bought a large for the shirt since they're often made in Asia and run too small on me, but this was printed in Mexico! So I'll wash it and wear it a bit and if it's still too large after a while I can take it in a little using all those cosplay sewing techniques!

Amazing concert, really hope they come back soon.

Miyavi Cosplay from Torture

This is a cosplay I did for Miyavi's concert in New York at Irving Plaza last year. It was part of his "WHAT'S MY NAME?" World Tour. And it was Halloween, so people across the city weren't freaked out by my visual presence! It took me some time to upload this costume for no reason at all. So here it is! Just a few pics. Details can be found on its cosplay.com spot.

And this is the music video that the costume is from.

An yeah, it was awesome meeting Miyavi, as Miyavi XD

L'Arc~en~Ciel World Tour 2012 Trip

My girlfriend and I wanted to go to a bunch of concerts this month - Distant Worlds and Exist Trace in Boston, and L'Arc~en~Ciel at Madison Square Garden in New York. We didn't think we would be able to see any of them due to financial constraints, so we applied to win tickets for the latter through JaMe USA. Doesn't hurt to try right? Can't win if you do enter. Well neither of us had ever won anything we applied to in such a manner, with so many other possible contestants, but lo and behold, we won! Needless to say, we were ecstatic. That cut down on expenses significantly, and we just had to pay for travel, etc. Here's some of the photos from the trip:

This was the big banner they had set up in Times Square. It was really cool to see.

We had to wait until a few hours before the concert started to actually redeem the tickets so we spent most of it wandering the city. We hit up Uniqlo (everything was on sale!), Nintendo World, Kunokuniya Bookstore, and various other shops along the way. Always fun going to the city. Would love to do some photoshoots there, or do a day of drawing and taking reference pics for illustration work.

We were of the first to enter Madison Square Garden when the doors opened at 7 PM. We were actually a bit surprised at first because the place wasn't packed right from the beginning like it was at the SM Town concert, but it eventually did fill in quite a bit right before the concert started. In this photo you can see all the tiers of seating, so we were 100 level (that's first tier on the diagonal), stage left. We really lucked out with how good of seats we got from those free tickets!

The show began at around 8:30 PM with a video of the band with some cool special effects (showing a world map of the stops of the tour, Hyde looking a lot like Jenova from FF7, followed by him punching the screen in the slow-mo - speed-up style of the movie 300. They finally came on stage and it was a lot of fun to watch.

These two shots were taken at the start of the encore, where they brought a disco ball out. That was really awesome.

A few other things of note. First, L'Arc~en~Ciel is the first ever Japanese band to play Madison Square Garden. It took them 20 years to get to this point so congratulations to them! Second, Ken who spoke English very well did most of the MC. He talked about how he visited the Museum of Natural History because he saw it in "Night at the Museum", and he kept asking his cab driver if it was the museum in the movie. He also bought a Statue of Liberty mug because he thought it was "cute" lol. He also said something about hoping we all enjoy "us". He made a big joke out of it as a play on words because of his Japanese accent - "us" sounded a lot like "ass". So he pointed to his ass saying "not ass, but us!" He's a funny guy. Tetsu for some random and hilarious reason had a basketful of bananas and tootsie pops that he kissed and threw into the audience, while also shooting way at the audience via a squirt gun. Hyde was  awesome as usual with a pretty cool outfit (and awesome hat), and Yukihiro was silent. Lastly, the whole thing was filmed by them for DVD so if you missed the concert or even if you made it, you can see the whole thing that way when it gets released!

Here's Lizz standing next to the tour ad poster just after the concert. It got out at about 10:30 PM

On our way to Grand Central, they were already taking down the banner in Time Square! We contemplated asking for it but realized there was no way we could have carried it with us, let alone hang it somewhere ^^; they probably wouldn't let us anyway.

And I couldn't help myself; some of these lamp posts have pokeballs on them, making the connection of Castelia City in Black and White feel even closer to NYC! XD

Also, this was the setlist which they've played at every stop, courtesy of yuki_kumi.

01. いばらの涙 (Ibara No Namida)
02. CHASE -English version-
03. GOOD LUCK MY WAY
-hyde MC-
04. HONEY
05. DRINK IT DOWN
06. REVELATION
07. 叙情詩 (Jojoushi)
-ken MC-
08. X X X -English version-
09. fate
10. forbidden lover
11. MY HEART DRAWS A DREAM
-ken MC-
12. Caress of Venus
13. Driver's High
14. STAY AWAY
15. READY STEADY GO
-encore-
16. あなた (Anata)
17. winter fall
18. Blurry Eyes -tetsuya MC-
-hyde MC-
19. 虹 (Niji)