昨日この言葉をForumに読んだ :
"They come all the way here, spend close to almost whatever savings they have, because they want to succeed. When you have the hunger, the desire and the passion to succeed, you will definitely do whatever it takes to succeed."

私にはhunger, desire, passionが ある ???

The GazettE Concert - Nippon Budokan 07/09/07


My head and shoulder were still hurt from headbanging... I`ve never done so many headbangs in my life.

Tamara and I arrived at Nippon Budokan before 5 PM. Because the doors were not open yet, we went to MacDonalds to eat. Btw around Nippon Budokan there have been so many guys and girls with J-Rock style. Lots of cosplayers, and there was a guy that really looked like Uruha. I wanted to take his picture, but he was gone before I got a chance to ask him.

Around 5.30 PM we went back to Nippon Budokan, and we got in the hall. We had the worst concert seat ever haha... It was a standing position in the West side, and it`s in the back, the very back. Fortunately there were railings in front of us, so later during the concert I could climb on the railing and got better view, though that position was not confortable at all.

The concert started at about 6.45 PM (15 minutes late). They`re all wearing black, and Uruha and Ruki wore long black jackets. Sorry I didn`t pay any attention to the others (Kai, Aoi, Reita).

Most songs in the concert were from Stacked Rubbish album, and unfortunately I was not familiar with their new songs (I only have Nil, Disorder and some older single). I was familiar only with FILTH IN THE BEAUTY (second or third song), which brought the audience to headbanging during the chorus.

The other song that I recognized was TAION． And it was MUCH MUCH better than the recorded version. TAION was always one of my fave song. And Ruki`s groan was the best, it`s like the wildest thing ever.

There were some new songs, and approaching second hour, the atmosphere was getting intense. The songs were getting wilder, if I may compare, it`s like twice more hardcore than Nine Spiral or Uncontrol. Almost every songs made audience jump and headbang. Jumping, clapping hands, headbanging, doing some hand movements, and jumping again.

After two hours, the concert ended... Ruki laid in the stage, exhausted. Audience yelled for Kai, Uruha, Reita, Aoi, and of course Ruki. Then afterwards Ruki stood up and got back to the backstage.

The light went off. Audience yelled for encore for about 10-15 minutes.

Then afterwards, Kai and Reita entered the stage. I borrowed Tamara`s binocular, and I just wanted to say that Kai looked better in person, than in magazines / photographs. Kai & Reita did a solo drum & bass... and it was amazing. Though the music consisted only of drum & bass, it made us jump and clap hands etc. When the song ended, Uruha, Aoi and Ruki entered the stage and continued with other songs.

The third hour was even more intense. I guessed everyone had already emerged to the atmosphere, and almost eveyone did the headbang etc. Uruha had taken off his long jacket, and he`s only wearing black T-Shirt and that damn sexy thong-boots or whatver it`s called. Using the binocular, you could see his sexy thigh haha... The others also showed more skins (Aoi, Reita and Kai wore T-Shirt that showed their muscles). Though I was in the West side (Aoi`s side) and couldn`t see Uruha`s face (could only see him from behind mostly), I could see his arm muscles with the binocular haha...

The concert ended at about ９．４５ PM. Actually I waited for Cassis or Reila, but they didn`t sing　the　songs this time. But seeing TAION and FILTH IN THE BEAUTY live were AMAZING.

And the concert was really physical. 3 hours of moving your body around, either jumping, yelling, headbanging etc (Mostly headbanging). And Ruki`s voice was amazing in live. When he groaned, it`s like hearing something wild, most like animal`s groan. And Ａｌｌ of them were awesome, Kai was probably one of the best drummer ever, he played it continuoussly for 3 hours, and you know how hard it was to play drum for hardcore songs. I have to say Kai and Ruki ruled. Uruha, Reita and Aoi were not bad, but Ruki and Kai outstood them in performance.

Holy Sith, most of the songs were better in live　than in recorded versions. As comparison, TAION live was probably like Uncontrol R&R live, lots of groans and it`s just freaking awesome. I lost words to describe,

After all, I was really grateful to be able to catch them live in Nippon Budokan... I had been dreaming about it since April ０７, and I thought it`s just impossible to see Gazette live in Tokyo. But dear God, I made it. Thank you very much to whoever up there, thank you... thank you for this experience...

06/02/07 - I arrived at CKS Taipei Airport at 6.10 PM (supposed to be 5.30 PM, but got delayed). Rushing from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 to meet Kee. We bought bus tickets (Kuo Kuang bus) NT$ 125 each. The trip from CKS Airport to Taipei City was about 1.5 hours.

Walked to the hostel, but the door was closed, nobody was there - we followed the map on the door to the new location. My room was at 4th floor, Kee's was at 3rd floor. After unpacking, we took a walk and had dinner in local ramen eating house. Kee helped me with the translation and everything - without her I would be completely lost (Xie xie ni, Kee ^_^). The ramen was nice, and later I bought milk tea. It tasted different from S'pore milk tea.

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07/02/07 - I only slept for 3 hours because I felt so intense. We went to beauty salon to make my hair curly - after it's finished, it looked a bit like Diabolos cornroll hair from behind haha ^_^

We took a walk to Taipei Train Station - taking pictures...

We reached the Taipei Train Station.It has so many lines, so confusing... and all direction were in Chinese/Kanji.

At 1.00 PM We bought round trip ticket from Taipei Station to Banqiao Station (Concert Hall), as Kee suggested that we should do "rehearsal" first, in case we got lost later. It's even difficult to find which train went to Banqiao, because not every train would stop there. The train was quite big, but the door was small.

We reached the Concert Hall around 1.30 PM. Besides us, there were two guys and a girl there (They're theTaiwan guys and Korean girl in the picture). The goodies were not sold yet.

Around 3.00 PM Jutta and Anke arrived at the Concert Hall. Endlich haben wir uns getroffen Afterwards Tamara arrived and we queued for the goodies.

At 6.30 PM they opened the doors. Amongst the audience, there were four Cos-players. Two girls were wearing his Diabolos and Kagen no Tsuki costume (the long black jacket with blond hair). Two guys were wearing Moon Child costumes (one as Sho and one as Kei)

The song orders were :

1. Cube
2. Maria
3. Uncontrol
4. 絵夢～for my dear～
5. Seven
6. REDEMPTION
7. Ash : I've been wanting to see Ash live. His voice was amazing during this song.

The first part of the concert (Cube, Maria, Uncontrol, Emu for my Dear, Seven, REDEMPTION, Ash) , when he was still wearing the long jacket...

Then in Nine Spiral he took the jacket off.

8. NINE SPIRAL
9. Speed Master
10. Lu:na : Because there's no background dancer in Lu:na, he did the dance himself, which was really erotic. He shook his hips...
11. Storm
12. Papa lapped a pop lopped : Two female dancers accompanied him during the song, and in the opening of the song, he seemed like doing french kissing to the two dancers - and the crowd went wild. One of the female dancer kneeled in front of him and there were some *Vanilla live* scenes (the infamous Masa one ^_^).

13. Kalmia
14. Fragrance
15. Mind Forest
16. Metamorphoze
17. Birdcage

After Birdcage, he disappeared and they closed the screen. The crowd shouted and screamed, asking him to give encore. We screamed about 5-10 minutes I guess, and then suddenly there's a guitar melody of Mirror

18. Mirror : For me, this is the climax of the concert. YOU wore a big Afro wig, and did the singing. Chacha still played guitar, Ju-Ken still played his instrument, and the new drummer (I forgot his name) was playing guitar. Where was Gackt ?

HE'S PLAYING DRUM !!!

Gosh, seeing him playing drum was ecstatic. He's really a pro, I've seen him playing drum in TV interview previously, but seeing him playing it alive was really intense. He's brilliant drummer.

I didn't pay attention to YOU's singing (Gomen, gomen...), because I couldn't take my eyes of Gackt behind the drum set.

YOU asked the crowd to scream... so every "YAAAA" he shouted, we yelled back. He did it about 10-15 times, I lost count. Then he fell down to the floor.

Then Gackt gave the introduction about GacktJob in Chinese. He asked the new drummer to introduce himself, then Ju-Ken, then Chacha, and then YOU.


19. ANOTHER WORLD : Gackt was playing guitar... and he touched Chacha a bit. I was hoping he would do some fanservice with YOU, but he didn't.

20. 君が追いかけた夢 (Kimi ga Oikaketa Yume) : First he sang only with piano melody (he didn't play the piano, someone else did), but then the band started playing to accompany his singing.


Around 11 PM it finished and we walked back...

Afterwards I couldn't sleep. I was afraid I couldn't wake up for the morning flight.

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08/02/07 - I tried to sleep for 2-3 hours and woke up around 5 AM - then took a taxi to the airport. But my flight was delayed for 10 hours due to bad weather. I've arrived back in Singapore at 9.50 PM.

Endlich gesagt, I hated to go home. I always felt happy when I arrived in Changi, but this time it's different. I might have left a piece of me in Taipei. I felt unfinished because I didn't see the second concert. I felt a bit unhappy because my seat during the first concert was quite far away and I didn't bring binocular. But seeing Gackt there, it was like a trancient dream - borrowing his word : 泡沫の夢 (utakata no yume) . It's really like a dream, it's like something that happened so far away, so unreal. I still can't believe I went there. All the yelling, the lighting, the screaming, did they really happen ?

It happened so fast, I wanted that moment to last forever, but I think my memory will fade away soon.

I'd like to give anything to be able to see him on stage again.

Overall, it's a nice trip, but too short. But I'm really grateful I can meet new friends there