big in japan

so, jesse hooked me up with these tix for this show. the 2nd band on the bill were friends of his from Texas, Fair To Midland, and they were actually really good live. It was their last night on the tour and got fucked with by the other bands. silly string baby powder etc etc. Me and jesse started to reminisce about being on tour since the same thing happened to us on the Trust Company tour. ahh old times. anyway, the whole night there was this buzz about the headliner which none of us had really heard of. Melvins girlfriends sister met with us there and is a huge fan i guess. they waited in like for like 4 hours to get tickets along with many other gothic clad weirdo kids and Japanese fanatics.

Their name is Dir En Grey and they are the hugest thing since Pokemon. They are like Japan's answer to Marilyn Manson or something. thats what i heard anyway. So the house lights are still on and we're just waiting and these fucking nut ball kids would freak out when a tech would place a mic stand onto stage and the excitment built with any kind of movement up there. You'd think Elvis came back to life and walked into a truck stop in Kansas when they took the sheet off the drum set. and what a drumset it was! double bass a cage hanging toms. matching pair of 20" chinas overhead. redonkulous. (and completely unnecessary. more on that in a sec) After the drum sheet i didnt think it could get any more crazy but then the techs brought out this box thing to the front of the stage. it was like a mini drum riser made of aluminum tubing and steel grating. the crowd started swaying like a stormy sea of Japanese goth kids. Then, like a throbbing pornstar's penis ready to erupt the crowd was at 11 when the lights went out. each band member emerged from side stage. first the drummer, guitarists, bassist.. and then the singer. i started cracking up. first of all these guys are dressed like Guns N Roses circa 1991, but what got me laughing was the singer the little girls were pining for was tiny. he was like 4'- 6, skinny as hell and had bleached blond hair. at that moment i realized what the box the techs brough out earlier was for. it was so people could see him. so funny.

Now, at this point they are mildly amusing just on their looks.. then the music starts.. its a loud techno beat and theres two huge and annoying strobe lights on each side of the drums. then that stops awkwardly and the band starts playing. for the next hour and a half it was the same mediocre blend of butt rock and new metal with off key Yoko Ono singing. and the kids were eating it up!! i couldnt believe it. this band was so horrible and they were mesmerized. there were a handfull of parents up in the balcony area where we were and i just kept thinking how this band is giving heavy music a really shitty image in the parents eyes.

The singer took off his shirt at one point evoking a high pitched cheer from the crowd at 10% more decibels than it had been. then he started cutting his chest which let him bleed for the rest of the show. cool guy! the one thing cool they had going for them was the movies they played over the projector behind them. some really fucked up shit! one was animated pencil sketches. with a little girl and her mom. gutting a fish. fish guts turn into people. food takes over moms body and then turns into a naked dude who stands on the table and diarrheas all over the girl who eventually uses a machine to split him in half at the crotch after being chased by his snakelike penis with a human face on the tip. etc etc. another one was live action geshia women eating baby heads and getting raped by monsters while blowing bloody puss bubbles from their mouth. very The Ring-esque. pretty rad shit tho... there was also a lot of WW2 nagasaki/heroshima footage with mushroom clouds, decimated towns and gnar ass bomb victims. i think the irony of a japanese band coming here and showing footage like that and possibly even writing songs about how fucked America was to Japan and Japanese Americans, what japan went through and them totally loving it mindlessly was totally lost on those fucking retarded brainwashed kids.

The only reason they are so popular is because in Japan and in their videos they dress up in outrageous outfits and have this whole Japanese Anime Goth vibe going on. they are also somehow associated with Manga comics and animated movies or something.


anyway... i dont get it. and i know its not because i'm old and out of touch.. i'm pretty hip for 30 i like to think. this shit was garbage and those kids are fucking stupid.

Jesse forgot to leave his car at Bart so we had to walk like 6 blocks back to his tattoo shop. I miss hanging out with Jesse.