La la la . . . posting so I don't get deleted . . .

So, for those of you who didn't know, Annie and I drove to Albany to visit Areji and see Diru open for the Deftones with Fall of Troy.  What follows is an attempt at objectivity - I say attempt because being within a 10-ft radius of any member of Dir en grey turns me into a shameless fangirl - and therefore those people who are easily offended by criticism of any Diru member would best not read it. *cough* Areji *cough*

The day opened at 5am with Areji demanding that we go wait in line.  Immediately.  In response, I was passive-agressively cranky until 10.  For the record, it was somewhat justifiable crankiness since no one else showed up until after 11.  And either the Deftones' or the Fall of Troy's bus driver bought five ginormous jugs of Fabuloso cleaner from Dollar General.  I probably don't want to know why.

One of the equipment drivers had a smoke and told us stories from 37 years of driving equipment for rock stars.  His favorite artists to listen to and work for were Bruce Springsteen and Glen Frey from the Eagles.  He also thought Dir en grey were assholes.  Although Areji was quite offended by this and later said it was because he was racist, it is entirely possible that a) cultural misunderstanding occured or b) Dir en grey are in fact assholes to the support staff.  In all fairness, he seemed to think many of his former employers were assholes.

A little later other fans started to show up.  Interestingly enough, it was all Diru fans wanting to be right in the front until an hour or two before the show.  According to some of the girls who also went to the NYC shows, the same happened there, so I can only assume that Diru fans are more dedicated/insane than Deftones fans.

One of the NYC fans was the (in)famous Missy of LJ and internet forum fame.  In person, she is nice and personable, albeit probably far too obsessed with Die/Diru for her own good.  She really doesn't deserve all the crap she gets from other fans, for the most part.

Finally at 6 we got to go into Northern Lights, which probably held less than 400.  The show was originally scheduled for the Armory, which Areji said holds about 1200, but was moved because of poor ticket sales, according to the Deftones' driver and one of the show's promoters.  There was also a rumor circulating that Dir en grey was only opening as a favor to the Deftones, to help increase flagging ticket sales.  Although it's only a rumor, it seems credible since probably 1/2-1/3 of the crowd was primarily interested in Dir en grey.  The stage was really really small - between the amps and Shinya's drums, there was barely room for the others to stand - so I would guesstimate it was about 20 ft long.  We all got into the front row - Areji in front of Kyo, Annie in front of Kaoru, and me next to Annie in front of Toshiya.  The two girls next to me arrived at 5 and were also in the front row, which kind of made Anne and me want to punch Arejikins in the head for making us get up so needlessly early.  The entire two front rows were almost exclusively made up of Diru fans.

The first band was Fall of Troy.  I was very happy that all of the Diru fans had better manners then on the Family Values tour, and politely listened to and applauded Fall of Troy, although most didn't care much for their music.   I thought they were only ok - the singer/guitarist's microphone was too soft and their four songs all sounded kind of the same.

After their set, the DJs from the radio station sponsoring the event tried to pump up the crowd.  It went something like this:
DJ: Aren't you excited for the Deftones?
Audience: Yay.
DJ: Um, ok, how about Dir en grey?
Audience: YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!
DJ: -.-;; Well, I think we've found this crowd's g-spot . . .
It never ceases to amaze me how oblivious the American music industry is to Dir en grey's popularity here.  At some point (I think before?), the two girls next to me started a Dir en grey cheer, which probably confused them even more.

Finally, Diru's roadies (and Nora) finished setting up and GDS started playing.  Like good fans, we all jumped and yelled "KILL" in time to the music.  Then Diru came out in variations on black t-shirts and tight jeans and everyone (yes, me too, I told you they make me fangirl) started screaming their names too.  Then, they played.  The set had 10 songs and included in some order:
The Final
Ryoujoku no Ame
Clever Sleazoid
Grief
The III D Empire
Dead Tree
The Fatal Believer
Repitition of Hatred
Merciless Cult
Lie Buried With a Vengance

Overall, they could have played better.  For example, Kaoru missed his enterance on one song, swished his hips with an expression of "I'm so cool it doesn't matter", and came in two measures late.  His guitar solo in Ryoujoku no Ame could have been louder and he acted too cool to care about playing it right.  Kyo repeatedly went flat and missed high notes and skipped lines.  Toshiya and Kaoru both took water and towel breaks in the middle of songs.

However, other aspects of the performance more than compensated.  At the beginning of Dead Tree, Kyo did an a cappella quasi-Buddhist chant with heavy reverb on the mic - it was awesome!  Dir en grey also looked like they were genuinely enjoying themselves (probably because they upstaged the Deftones).  Kaoru, Toshiya, and Kyo also showed a lot of personality - Kaoru kept doing his "I'm captain awesome" and "rolling hair thunder" moves, Toshiya sent love to his fangirls and hung his bass from the ceiling while playing it, and Kyo made electric eye contact with the front rows.

But I think the best part was energy resulting from the small venue, the enthusiastic fans, and Diru's music.  For the entire set, everyone in the front two rows was headbanging, doing furitsuke, and singing along with nearly every song, belting out English and Japanese lyrics alike and screaming "fuck" back at Kyo.  I was headbanging so hard I had to hold my glasses on, and I don't even like to headbang.  About halfway through, even the Deftones fans joined in, and started a mosh pit and a crush towards the front.  I barely held onto the bar and jumped on people's feet to keep my place. The security guys seemed worried we'd pass out, so they passed out water bottles and sprayed water on the fans.  Annie claims that her hair remained cute because of the magical properties of Toshiya spit.  At the end, Kaoru, Toshiya, and Die threw lots of picks, most falling short of the crowd, so security handed them to us - I got one of Toshiya's and Annie got Kaoru's.  It only lasted about an hour, but it was an amazing and exhausting hour.

At the end, because of the jumping and cheering and Areji making us get up at 5am, we went to buy our tour shirts and get water I wisely stashed in the trunk of my car.  We were all too dead to even consider staying for the Deftones.  And after a shower, a scone, and a nice cup of tea I basked in post-concert happy.


*On a final note, since Annie and I could see every member very well we were able to conclued that Kyo's fishhooking is fake.  We could see that the blood was the wrong consistency for mouth blood (intersting fact learned while having wisdom teeth pulled) and did not darken properly once it congealed.  Annie suspected as much because to do it night after night would also be extremely painful and make it impossible for Kyo to sing well.  

This is the most terrifying picture of Gackt I have ever seen:
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i302/gakkuhai/rawr-leopard.jpg