SHOXX vol. 172 part. 3 AOI
Aoi
The tour [DECOMPOSITION BEAUTY] finished in the Yokohama Arena live [Meaningless Art That People Showed], and I think this tour made you feel the development of the band strongly.
Objectively I think that our band has developed mentally, but it’s my personal analysis.
I see. Your mental change affected your sound and the live atmosphere.
Well, we are human, so we feel up and down at different times in our lives. But even if we have such waves, they don’t really affect our live concerts. The presence of the waves itself really I think matches the GazettE’s lives in a way, I think that we managed to take the next big step as a band.
Actually, the final live in Yokohama Arena was the succession of your overwhelming live performances. Honestly speaking, I felt your skills had become much better than the hall tour of last year.
Well, still I don’t know whether we could do everything perfectly as we wanted to do. But generally speaking, I think we really changed. I think I myself changed first.
What part do you feel has changed?
I think I always have good tension. Well, sometimes I may not sound that good, but I can often improve on the spot, and then I am able to do it then.
Through this tour, there are many aspects which you changed, not only mentally and also as a player.
Yeah. I think that it has been good and bad.
Good and ‘bad’ aspects?
I mean all venues in the tour last year were halls. Of course it was very important for us to do that, but on the other hand, I had a feeling that we showed and made the audience listen to too much fitting in the halls. When I played in live houses again, I actually felt a little strange at first.
Aoi, you said in our previous interview that you didn’t think there was a difference between halls and live houses at all, but those places are not the same in every aspect.
Of course, basically the both are the same, but this time we thought about the live house tour a lot. Every time we watched our live video, and even if we ourselves thought “It was a good live!” objectively looking at the live we saw many things that we couldn’t say was good. As for the size, we played in quite smaller places, but we couldn’t make good use of the space well.
Well, that seems strange.
Maybe, we tried to keep a distance from one another more than we needed, I think. Especially, the first live in Meguro Rokumeikan was not a live mix, but it was rather too clean.
But the live in Yokohama Arena Sound Hall done one week before the Yokohama Arena live, was it was pretty mixed up, in a good way I mean.(laugh)
Ah, the floor was really something. For the fans, it was the venue in their home ground, so they did whatever they wanted to, I think. I was surprised thinking “Hey, why are you guys so energetic!”, they were pretty cool..(laugh)
For you Aoi, were you satisfied with playing the live in Sound Hall?
Well, it was good. Honestly speaking, I have something with ‘Sanho’. I’m not a fan of the venue personally. Well, maybe my compatibility is not so good, I just don’t seem to match it.(smile)
Is it like your weak point? (laugh)
Yes, it’s something like that. But this time I enjoyed it for the first time. We were gradually getting better from the Rokumeikan to the Arena. Even in small live houses, we wanted to make our sound better, and also we wanted to do really wild lives more than before, we wanted a lot, so it was really good that we could do that tour before the Yokohama Arena live.
Perhaps, that live tour between the hall tour and Yokohama Arena live, was the one which you the GazettE really affected your pride and prestige as a live band.
Pride….I don’t know whether it was our pride or not, but for example if there is a band which is active in Takatababa Arena now, I don’t think that we are beaten by them.(laugh) Actually I don’t want to be beaten by anyone younger than me yet!(laugh)
After you finished your [FURY&SORROW] tour in which you returned to your starting point as the GazettE, how was [Meaningless Art That People Showed] in Yokohama Arena for you, Aoi?
If I talk in detail there were quite many things, but really it felt good, and I enjoyed it, it was a good live.
About that final live, if I say simply, I can’t find any other words except “I was just overwhelmed.”. It was a live which I found myself pressured by the heat and energy from both the band of the GazettE and fans who support you.
I see. To be honest, I didn’t feel like that was the final live.
What do you mean?
Well, I felt that I achieved it more than usual. Before, in our final lives such as the Budoukan live in last year, I used to be nervous at the beginning, but this time I didn’t feel nervous at all, and the other members also had good tension, kept relaxed, and played. I felt the audience enjoyed it so much to see us. I really think it was a good live. So I I didn’t think that it was an ending point.
That’s right.
Yes. In Arena, I really enjoyed it and it felt so good. In the encore when I played guitar solo of [LINDA], I felt like “This venue is mine!”.(laugh) From others around me, I heard many things such as it’s hard to play in Arena because there is a big distance to the back, and the sound is dead on the stage, but there were no problems, the live really overcame all that..
It was a live where I could feel the strong presence of the band again.
But the audience was the best on that day. I really thought so when I saw the live images soon after we finished our live.
No one forced it but 10,000 people moved all together, which is really amazing.
Yes. Those guys were the best! We were affected by them, and I thought that I would have to work that much harder not to be beaten by them.(laugh) It was superb view, which was awesome.
Aoi, you said through the microphone in the end of the live that “I love you guys!”, which wasn’t just a line, but your real honest feelings, didn’t you?
Yes. At the end I wanted to say something in my words, and those words came out. Usually I’m too shy to say that kind of stuff.(laugh)
What will follow from your thought “Here is not the end.”, which you said before?
After that live finished, our staff said “Next is in Suidobashi(=Tokyo Dome)!”, “Next is overseas!”, and I thought “What they are saying?”, but I saw a dream for a moment that “We could go there with them.”.
As you are a band man, I hope you have a big dream.
I don’t aim just for that, but I think I could go there with them. But first of all, we have to finish our next recording, before the next tour. And we have to work harder to skill up before we talk about our dreams. We have to force ourselves into a corner more and more.