Fade LIVE at SHIMOKITAZAWA Garden
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Fade LIVE at SHIMOKITAZAWA Garden
11th of October 2012
(Please note that this is no report. It's my blog and my very personal fade experience)
BEFORE
To get to this concert from Ishinomaki I took the night-bus the night before at 10 PM. Seven hours later I arrived in Tokyo and another hour later I dropped onto the Futon in the apartment of one of our volunteers here, who had kindly let me stay over and spared me further hotel costs. You can’t imagine how dead I felt, because I hadn’t gotten to sleep much the night before either. Later I headed out to visit the Sakura house I had been staying at during my Tokyo-month AND I went to print the German ST Brainstorming file, buy folders for it and buy paint. Why paint? Well due to the brainstorming I had come up with this.
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.30 minutes in front of the mirror in the appartment of friend. I usually never wear make-up so spending such a time infront of a mirroris notable *lol*. It had cost me the time to get to eat something though. I felt guilty for not taking better care of myself. At such times I always have in mind what the band would say if they knew. So I did grab a snack and shamelessly ate it on my way to the train.
I wanted to meet up with Shannon (HERE for Blog & her fade report) and Alisa (for_th3_written) but I was a bit late and they were not there. I waited a half hour checking all entrances and yet managed to miss them. While I was waiting I couldn’t help but grin over how people would pass by and shamelessly stare at arm. I felt slightly uncomfortable, surprised due to the fact that Japanese people could be so “impolite” to stare and at the same time I relaxed and thought 'Well I guess this is good fade promotion'. I could see some people recognize the writing. I’m pretty sure they were on their way to the live.
At the venue I got into cue with some nice girls and kept looking for the both US ST Mod ladies. When I finally saw them I was relieved. I had been wondering if they hadn’t caught their train or were at the station waiting. They had arrived just before I had headed out to check the station once more with 15 more minutes left till the doors were to open.
PRE SHOW
We entered a small nice venue. Although I had 29 we ended up in gaps and in first and second row. I had a very nice girl standing next to me. We started chatting in Japanese (as far as I could *lol*). She complimented my arm painting and guess what: ofcourse she is GACKT-fan too. I must say that most of the Japanese fans I get to know at fade lives are GACKT / YFC -fans, too BUT I also met 'pure' fade fans. That really made me happy.
The girl (Yui) and I kept talking and at times I’d look around until I suddenly got stuck at small windows in the wall which were covered with black metal curtains. Behind these curtains I saw Jon ….. and either Rui or a staff he was talking to. I couldn’t help but laugh and wave. Yui asked me what’s going on and I told her. She was very excited and waved, too. I seemed like nobody else noticed. However at some point Jon turned around and froze. He came closer to the window and said something to the person with him so that person would turn around too. We waved more and he said something that must have been: 'They can really see us'. Then the other person reached out and closed the curtain closer. *LOL* This was a very nice opening for the concert.
We could still make out shadows until at some point they vanished an a bit later the music would start and the screen with the “fade” projection would rise.
THE SHOW
Set list: (Thank you to Shannon for snatching it and letting me take a photo. I’m really bad at this *lol*)
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.What am I supposed to say? I’m serious! I can’t really bring the music to you as it was, can’t I. So everything I can do is telling you the small little stories between the lines. And believe me: they can be very very nice. At least I enjoyed them to the fullest.
Usually when I cheer I raise up my right arm. That day I took my painted left one to show my appreciation to 5°. I made this live my 5° live. ^_~ And I was happy to see him grin and look into my direction (you can never tell how much they see, ne) again and again during the show. I admit to be very curious about him. I can’t help but wonder what kind of person he is. I can’t help but want to ask him questions and get to talk with him a bit. This is 5°’s strength. He and Rui are the biggest mysteries of fade. Btw. I did read Shannon's report. I had noticed some fast movement of 5° from the corner of my eye and then his hat was gone, but I didn’t see it fall off nor his glasses almost following *lol*. It’s always nice to have many eyes and many people report. Sometimes it must be hard on the band, but if they realize that these small “fails” are what makes a live even more interesting, then they have nothing to worry about. I mean: nobody is perfect and that actually makes people interesting and adorable.
Did you read Jon’s blog and fade’s blog about Jon’s new mike? And do you remember the rehearsal pictures of the fade blog with Kansei and Jon close up? While they were leaning against each other at times, one time Jon turned around to Kansei while singing and almost hit Kansei’s face with the mike while Kansei leaned away with a slightly surprised expression. Jon noticed and he’d put a 'Sorry man!' expression on. Made me smile, too.
While the spirits were high for this live, there was a lot of cheering, too. I was very grateful for people cheering along while I did. Japanese fans tend to be quiet, ne. Especially between the songs the cheers will suddenly die into silence. At the beginning Jon went 'What’s with that silence? XD' (or so I guess, because one can’t rely on my Japanese yet). I must say that fade lives are exhausting me way more than YFC or GACKT lives in Germany did. And this time - being exhausted from volunteer work, the journey and lack of rest - I was panting and gasping for breath between the songs myself. Yet I can’t get used to this. I always feel bad for the band when the KIAI collapses like that. It feels as if we don’t have enough and let them down a bit. I guess they know their Japanese crowds well and don’t feel like that about it, still they HAVE something to compare it with. This time I also really wondered if there is a cheer-difference between shows when we gaijins (rather rude word for strangers, yet we overseas people use it all the time and feel amused over it) are there and aren’t there X’D.
I wonder why for the first time I felt I’m putting EVERYTHING on the line to properly participate and put everything into responding to the band. Having visited YFC before (which I still love so much) that was very surprising to me. Because I thought I had given my everything at YFC concerts, too. I guess it’s because another strong point of fade is good personal fan-contact and the existence of fan-participation through StreetTeams. It DOES make a difference. It makes you want to give your best to push at their backs in some very intense way.
I had my thoughts wash away whenever the band started playing again. They were pretty passionate this time. Something felt weird about Kansei to me though. At the beginning he seemed to be exhausted and his movements seemed slower. Maybe he was a bit drunk or had caught a cold. However: it got better towards the end.
Someone stop Jon or me (no don’t). What is this fascination? *lol* He’s moving around a lot, so it’s impossible to escape him. He has his eyes wander over the crowd and catch people as they slack off. ;P When he spotted me in the crowd he grinned, so did he, when he spotted some more faces he knew. Once he was singing at me. I was singing along all the way. I did so intensely that sometimes I had to stop in movement and stay still to power my voice out. More good points about fade: you get to sing along a lot if you want YET Especially with “Beautiful” it’s sometimes really hard to sing the same chord, because it’s simply not fit for a female voice *lol* and it’s in a height where singing one chord higher is already way too high *lol*. I love to sing a second voice anyways, but when they have the crowd sing alone its a little weird. Because it’s hard for women to sing and there are so many of them in the crowd. >.< The time when Jon had prepared us to sing along we were breathless enough for the answer to be weak. He went “Are you really sure you can do it? I can’t believe you like that!” Second shout was better yet he told us to not let him down because he was still unsure if we could do it unless we’d prove it. From within the crowd it’s hard to judge. I guess we could have done better, but I guess it was acceptable!
To cheering in general: Jon is good at leading the crowd. He is a fantastic frontman. He knows how to move people, how to provoke them and how to catch them back when their attention or KIAI wander off for some reason. One time Kansei made a slightly too careful attempt to get the crowd cheer one more time during the song after Jon had us cheer. The about of people reacting was veeeeery small. I myself also noticed too late to actually react in time thought I DID notice. Kansei looked a bit sad over the fail. I was really upset that he didn’t try once more to let us console him. Because it’s not like we don’t look generally. It was just the timing that we had no chance to react. He didn’t count in that a crowd tends to be slow. You have to prepare them early enough, ne! X’D
Kansei got really tested this time. His guitar stopped playing at some point. I think not many people noticed though. He looked slightly confused and was leaning towards the staff. The staff would try to help but for a felt long time nothing happened. Kansei kept playing while the staff tried to fix it. Meanwhile Noriyuki jumped in. He threw in heavy base tunes to make up for the missing guitar and went up to the front to catch the attention of the audience, firing them up to rock. Even if I happened to notice, they did a good job. Pretty experienced with technic fails, aren’t they! ^_~
I give a stunned WOW for “TEN”. The performance was amazing. Jon told before hands that it was one of his personal favourites from that album and you could see that. He’d fully be with himself, fly off with the tunes and show a deeply enraptured smile while moving to the tunes of the interlude-sections. The stage was covered in golden light. The image and mood were simply perfect. I didn’t realize before how beautiful that song can really be. Live performance makes a difference.
I didn’t want it to end again. I was exhausted to the core, but so happy and though we had been warned the end always comes abruptly. I guess it felt stranger because fade was playing first (which I found very surprising, yet I have to say I’m grateful for it this time). I looked closely at Rui as he left. He’s really deeply in the zone, even as he leaves. He looked as exhausted that night as I felt. 5° was the last one to leave. He went past the spot where I was, then rapidly moved around and threw his pick. I think he tried to throw it into my direction because of my painted arm, but I don’t know. The pic flew more to the right and onto the hand of a man next to me. (Didn’t notice you tried to get it Shannon! Sorry!). I had my hands stretched out too (usually I don’t really try catching stuff) and our hands bumped together and the pick fell to the ground. I looked at the man, he looked at me, and I made a gesture to invite him to get it because it had been on his hand first. He didn’t move so I bent down and picked it up and offered it to him again, because he had it first. He smiled at me, so did his wife (?) besides him and he shook his head with a rejecting gesture and then made gestures towards me to keep it. I asked “Honou ni?” (really?) to make sure he hadn’t changed his mind, but no, he was sure and seemed to be happy enough with my happy face *lol*. Yui besides me congratulated and was overflowing with happiness.
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AFTER SHOW
After grapping my bag and the fade document I went off to the back with Shannon and Alisa to make space for the fans of the bands. We did sneak peak past the screen at the stage before though, saw Jon and had a staff hand the set-list to Shannon. After that I got to talk with my new and old (met at last fade LIVE) Japanese fadeFamily to then get into the queue for a drink (drink like coke, not drink like alcohol X’D). While White Sisters were on I kept standing with some of the Japanese girls next to the counter and close to the backstage door. The bar was slightly around the corner, so you couldn’t see the stage. I was quite happy to be protected a bit back there. Usually I make sure to keep supporting other band too, but in this case the music was not to my taste. It was OK, yet far too loud for me. I used the time to re-new the paint on my arm in case 5° would pass by *lol*
I wandered off to get myself a fade towel at the goods desk outside the venue. There were people standing around and talking and smoking. It was a nice atmosphere. As I was standing at the goods table it happened again: I asked for what I wanted, looked around, sighed and decided to again add things until I would reach over ¥5.000. To tell the truth: I also did count my budget that way last time, too, because I can’t help but feel good to invest money into fade. I really feel like I want to do my part to finance them. Goods are just an excuse to do so. I did really also want that 5° towel and fade shirt though X’D. As I wanted to leave the staff asked me if I painted my arm myself (or so I think it’s what the question was X’D Must have guessed right cause they were satisfied with my answer). I said that I do like fade and 5°’s art and the two ladies behind the goods table suddenly went ‘Thank you so so much for liking us and doing this. Thank you’. Seriously I’m no good with this. I can understand their feelings and politeness (I have been doing such jobs, too, ne) yet as fan I feel so much gratitude for what is presented to me that it feels strange to get thanked while you feel thankful yourself. The same thing happens to me in volunteer work often too. You are grateful that people let you (a stranger) participate in their lives and recovery and yet you get flooded with people’s gratitude at the same time. You see. I’m having an amazing time.
Returning to my girls I had to find that the stuff must have taken away my expensive coke that I had put down on the counter while I went for the goods. My girls hadn’t even noticed. I was surprised because the counter was in L form and the staff had been at the other end and very busy all the time and my friends were standing right next to the coke. X’D So watch your drinks when you go to a live in Japan. I didn’t mind much though.
I was surprised to find that there were little kids with mommies backstage. They had protective headphones on and were left to walk around at the venue a bit with their mommies as the bands changed. So cuuuuute. The next time the backstage door opened I first saw the fade staff and then realized that Rui was walking past by me and after him all other band members. I greeted them and had Jon give me a wink and “Hey!”. They took a way at the back of the small hall behind the desks with the technical staff (and stuff). And then they left. I was wondering if they’d leave this time, but I couldn’t imagine that and simply shrugged it off. I was busy with Yui anyways who was really excited about the band passing by so close. She’s such an adorable person *o*. I had been practising a bit of German with here before after I found out she’s studying it and was having a test coming up. The world is so small. I’m grateful to fade for giving all this wonderful encounters to me. :’) I feel very blessed for having been pulled into knowing them closer by dear Miss ST Sandy.
The next band that came on sounded good but they were very loud again. My ears are not used to loud tunes at all, so after every fade concert they are complaining with a loud constant peeping tune for the next 1-2 days after a live. So I simply told my friends I’d get a break outside. And I sat down on the stairs leading outside because I knew that Alisa would have to leave earlier and she had went off with Shannon to listen to the music for a bit longer. I was confident to catch her there once more and see her off. The kind staff who is always around the guys was at the good’s table and was strolling by past the doorway from time to time while I was sitting there and leaning against the handrail. I wonder if he was worried or bothered because he knows I’m fade fan and ST.
I indeed could say bye to Alisa. A bit later the fade staff would receive a call and go upstairs. When he came back he had Jon with him. I was looking every time when someone passed by. I noticed the staff and closed my eyes again but then I heard Jon talking with a fan right from above me. He’s such a kind guy. He took the time to have a little talk with me. He asked how things are in Ishinomaki ( 1. he remembers), he asked how I’m doing and thanked me for coming down all the way. He was worried if I could enjoy the live at all cause I was clearly exhausted, but I could happily tell him that I put my everything on the line by cheering and singing along *lol*. He said that they had received the pendants [1] and thanked me for them ( 2. he connects my name in the letter to me). And I asked him if I can give what I brought into his hands to finally be calm over handing it over. When I gave him he document he looked surprised and asked what it was. I explained that it was a document containing all the ideas of the German ST regarding street team work and fade promotion. I told him that it was more for the staff, but that it might be good for the band to read to. He assured me with “No ofcourse I’ll read it!”. ( 3. he treasures the work of STs and fans and takes lots of time to go through everything). He had to go and excused himself while I excused myself for resting a bit more until they’d come to the goods table.
After a while I felt uncomfortable about leaving Shannon alone, now that Alisa was gone, and returned to the venue. Just in time since the concert had just ended and I found her immediately in the crowd because I had given two of my shining bracelets to Yui and Shannon was with her and the other Japanese girls. I could make out Noriyuki behind the curtain to the backstage area. Then they all vanished and Shannon said she’d wait outside. A moment later 5° came by. We called out to him with Yui as he was heading towards the backstage door. After looking around confused he spotted us and waved back at us with a bright smile.
Shannon came back to tell me that the band was at the goods desk. They had used another way which they couldn’t use before. I guess they had to cross the stage to do so which was now possible. Actually it was Noriyuki, Jon and Kansei again. They are hardworkers if it comes to fanservice. The space was very narrow and we were all close up. While the guys were signing things I came up to Noriyuki and talked a bit. About 5° and Rui retreating again *lol*. I asked if 5° was going to return, but Nori said he just went off. When I told him that it was a shame since I had aimed to let him sign his own plectrum Nori reacted immediately and had the staff carry the pick backstage for me. That’s already the second time he did so. I used the chance to thank him for having me come to the live. He was confused but smiled a bit after I explained that it was his blog entry that made me buy tickets while I hadn’t planned to. The staff returned with the pick signed by 5°.
While people got less I asked the staff member and the guys if there was anything to help with. I’m so used to backstage work that I wouldn’t have minded to help carrying. It would surely have been fun and I had regained my spirits for a while by then. They went 'Nooo no no no no' *lol* Jon told me to please relax and enjoy myself as their guest today since I have had taken the trouble to come down all the way from Ishinomaki for them. :’3 Kansei told me that he really likes my painted arm. I answered that it was part of putting into practise what was written in the document. He asked which document but as I started explaining he suddenly went “AAAAhhhh yeah I know. Yes Jon told about that” ( 4) = Jon spreads the news right away).
I stepped back and enjoyed watching the guys interact with people. I was surprised but the Japanese girls sometimes really came very close up. Sometimes they would touch Nori who was next to the good’s table due to the lack of space. He was asked about his accessories and showed his earrings. He has a so called flesh tunnel earring (I researched that on Wikipedia *lol*) and he suddenly took it off and stuck his finger through his earlobe. XD There was a scream of surprise going through the crowd of girls. I must say that I found myself joining the “EEEEEEEEEEEhhh?” because I didn’t expect him to put his finger through. *lol* Nori looked unimpressed over the reactions. He always seems to look unimpressed. I wonder if maybe he’s just not too strong in facial expressions and that’s all, because according to his actions he’s a very kind and also patient guy.
They were told by the staff that it was time to leave. Some fans shouted after Jon because they had been chatting and hadn’t asked him to sign stuff yet. He returned twice and then said That he was really sorry, that he’s do the last one and then really had to go. It’s good to see how much (we) fans like to stick to the band. It shows that they’re doing an awesome Job in fan contact. I’ve got little experience with bands. But I get the impression that the fan-band connection fade has is very special.
IT WAS JUST THE BEGINNING
I got a fade present at simply EVERY following day till today.
Fade with fan presents and amongst them the pendants [1] I sent
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Source: fade official Blog
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.[Read the background story of the pendants]
[1] the story is: These pendants are from Funakoshi. A village here in Miyagi prefecture that has been completely destroyed by the tsunami on March 11th. The people live in temporary housing in Ishinomaki (1 hour away) but they have a strong leader gathering them to rebuild their town. They come every day for fishing. And the men use the roof tiles of the buildings to create stone pendants. These tiles are made of a jet-black slate Ishinomaki is famous for. After polishing the stones (which is basically the work the volunteers of “It’s not Just Mud” are helping with two days a week) the women paint the pendants, put on a lacquer and weave strings to create necklaces, phone straps and bracelets which they sell at several places on behalf of the community. I am helping to create these stones. And as I watched people work at it I felt like they guys of fade would have bought some of the stuff if they were with me, so I simply bought five in their name and sent them over.
Jon phrases the work of the German ST
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Source: Jon's official Twitter
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Jon gives evidence of seriously aiming to use the document
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Source: Jon's official Twitter
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Fade staff account suddenly appears in my twitter followers list.
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Source: My twitter
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Can this get any better? YES! The moment when I see our ideas put into practise. The first things are already happening. I’m looking forward to how far we can go together. And I’m wondering if I/we manage to prepare something small to hand over at the next live. Fade is coming to Sendai at 29th of October. It’s just an hour away from here. No way I can miss out when they get this close.
Thank you for reading. Forgive the mass of mistakes. I’m kind of messed up after work, ne! But my spirits are too high to let it be until the next day off.
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