DIR EN GREY 2011
Ok I am horrible with live reports so this is gonna be random.
Mom and I went to Houston and Dallas this year. First time going to two shows in a row. Houston is a LONG ass way down there from here. The ride was alright, it's pretty fun hanging out with Mom and jamming out to DIR EN GREY but I was ready to be out of the truck by the time we got to our stop for the night. We ended up staying in Livingston and headed out the next day into Houston. It was raining the whole way there (about 2 hours..ish) but Mom handled it like a pro! We found the House of Blues and parked right across the street, had a bit of a squee-y moment when we saw the bus and then decided to find lunch. Lunch was FAIL! Nothing was open since it was a Sunday and we ended up at this funky, high end grocery that had a deli. Unfortunately for Mom's and my seemingly unsophisticated tastes, the "rosemary ham with brie" cold sandwiches we got were...bleh. They had some odd sauce and bleu cheese on them. :x Neither of us ended up eating more than a few bites and we threw them away. The cashier there was cute though...xD He even all waved and smiled when we left.
Anyways, we headed back to the House of Blues and ran into cadkitten's dad, though we didn't know it at the time. LOL He told us when the doors were supposed to open so we just headed back to the truck and sat for a while to dry off because it was still very wet in Houston. After a while we got back out and wandered over to where some fans had gathered near the bus(there was a rail thingie) and kinda hung out on the outskirts of the crowd, not really sure where to go. Then someone informed us that the line was upstairs so we all moved up there and waited...and waited...and waited some more. Finally I heard someone mention a "pass the line" pass and went down to the HOB store to check it out. You could buy so much in merch or gift cards and get in the line that goes in right after the VIPS which would be nice because we could get our tshirts and pick a good spot in the balcony(or so I thought, turns out it was closed and I don't know my way around HOB...) Well I called Mom and told her to come on down to the store but she went the wrong way! She ended up walking 4 blocks the wrong way and back and we were both pretty panicked by the time I found her again. HOB is like in this..shopping thing and it's HUGE! D: Poor Mommy! I felt SOOO bad for losing her. So, after that we got our pass and got in the short line and we...you guessed it...waited some more!
Finally we got in, got our tshirts(mine fits! yay!) and picked a spot at these tables they had on a raised platform in the back. We'd pretty much agreed beforehand that we'd take it easy in the back for this show because we had VIP for Dallas so we'd be up front and standing the whole time then(or so we thought, more on that in a bit). I ran wee and when I came back, Mum was standing outside the area. She'd been asked to either pay up($50 for a table! These people are nuts!) or get out. She got out of course...well we were about to go find a place to stand when the waitress for that area came and told us that a (very nice!) lady was offering to share her table with us since it was just going to be her and her friend. We went for it and we met Janice and Dana. Janice was older than Mom and Dana was my age. They were awesome!!! I am SO sad we didn't get their emails. I meant to but in the after-show madness, I forgot. :(
On to the show~ Birthday Massacre were first and I didn't know what to expect from them but OMG the singer (Chibi, I think..) is adorable!! Bouncy and smiley and not bad at vocals either! For once, I truly enjoyed the opening band! They played for a bit and then they left and George, Kuroo, Nora and Rick got busy readying the stage for DEG. Mom and Janice went out to smoke and Dana and I chatted a bit...and somehow ended up on Kyo's......track pants. x3 We were highly amused when he walked out in them a few minutes later proving our...track pants...conversation. Anyway, lights dimmed, Kyoukotsu no Nari started and everything is a blur at this point. The boys came out and blasted into the first song and I was swept away in the sheer happiness and excitement I feel when I'm watching them play. I loved the new songs, sang along with the crowd to the older ones, head banged(my neck and shoulder still hurt) and flipped over them playing the older, rare songs(Mazohyst anyone?). It was, to put it simply, an AWESOME show. I was pleased to see the crowd was relatively well behaved.
My new camera was well behaved too for the most part. This is the first time I've ever been able to get a decent photo of Shinya, unfortunately, Kaoru didn't seem to want to be photographed. I didn't get one good shot of him in either show!
After they left the stage, throwing water bottles and picks(I'm always in the wrong damn place!) and such, we debated about what we were gonna do. The original plan was to wait and follow the bus to Dallas like a couple of hippie groupies(Lulz). That didn't work out. They weren't going to leave for quite some time if at all and Mom and I both needed foods and stuff. So we scrapped that plan and just got on the road. Not for long though because we saw a Whataburger and had to eat there. We don't have Whataburgers and damn are they good! Anyways, we got rolling after that and ran smack into a nasty rain storm that followed us the entire frigging way to Dallas. It was so late by the time we reached the outskirts, the sun was coming up. We were tired and irritable and wanted sleep. We tried a few places but they wanted to charge for two nights(it was like 6am at this point) and we didn't want that. Somehow, in the rain and stress, we ended up downtown Dallas mid-rush hour. OMG...it was awful! We finally stopped at a Walgreens and asked where some nice but affordable hotels were and got directed to some. Finally, we found a decent Holiday Inn that only charged us the one night even though we were checking it at 8am(yes, that late/early...ugh). We unloaded, ate breakfast and crashed until like 3 that afternoon.
We somehow managed to get up and headed to the venue, in the middle of afternoon rush hour traffic of course. We parked in like, the skeeziest place ever. LOL Probably a bad idea but it worked out. Then we got in line after finding other VIPs in a separate one and...waited. We were originally told to be there at 5:40 but then they said it would be about 6:30 so I ran down to a pizza place nearby to get us a slice. It was so warm in there and so cold outside. It was actually snowing...in Dallas. Wth?! Pizza was yummy..I wish we had a place like it around here. Enough about pizza...while we were standing in line, we kinda chatted a bit with the person standing behind us...who happened to be from South Korea. He was a white boy though! LOL (a damn cute one...why am I so shy..shoulda got his email too) He was sweet though, actually like..talked to both of us despite the two little girls standing behind him and constantly getting his attention.
Anyway, it finally came time to go in and my stomach got all butterfly-y and nervous as they walked us up to the area for the M&G. We got tshirts(too small, they only had XL) and a signed poster then kinda milled around while Nora finished handing stuff out and then informed us the band would be up soon. After a bit, she told us to gather over where the band would be which resulted in a mass rush...-_-; (Oh I was also so very disappointed to see that two skankasauruses from the Houston show were here too. They're just..nasty. I mean...nasty.) Anyway, finally the band came in and lined up against the wall we were facing. I was amused but also a bit sad to see Kyo immediately trying to hide in his coat. He completely disappeared at one point. Lol I don't blame him though...it's a bit like being paraded out like toy poodles or something, plus it was cold! Anyway, Nora asked the usual "Who has never been to show?, Who has been more than 10 times?, Where is everyone from?(which earned a "Ehhh?!" from Die when cutie from South Korea spoke up)" etc then asked if anyone had questions for the band. I don't remember what all was asked but Kyo did actually answer one (Lyrics or music first..music is what he said). After all that, the handshake/picture part started and Mom and I were about 10th or so in line...I was freaking nervous even though I just did this last year. x.x; The picture came out horrid and I will not be posting it. After our picture, we shook their hands. I got a little smile from Kaoru and little smile from Kyo..also a nice grip and he stuck his hand out first and I know I'm fangirling over him the most but I can't help it. >//>;
After that, we went downstairs to secure our spots on the rail.......that didn't exist. u.u The venue has a very, very short stage and a tree in the middle of it. It sucks! So we got in the second row right between Kyo and Die. We stood there a while and other people started filtering in, including a somewhat familiar red-head that ended up standing behind us. I hesitated a while and finally turned to ask if she was who I thought she was..and she was! I met cadkitten! :D We chatted and stuff for a while until Mom was like "I am not going to be able to stand here, I'm going to sit." Cad pointed her to where her Dad was sitting and I made sure she was ok with splitting up before I let her go. Cad and I started chatting again and the place started really filling up. In a bit, elya_chan bopped over and I got to meet her too! ^__^/ Yay~! I love randomly meeting peoples!! ♥ Well, things were going good, I was fine standing there, even if my feet were starting to really hurt and I was getting a bit warm as the place got more crowded and packed. I really thought I could make it through this time(I have a bad history of getting ill right before the show starts). Then Birthday Massacre came on and things got a bit...close. Still though, it was fine, we rocked out to their set. By the time they left stage though, I was burning up, wet with sweat and desperately wishing I had my hair clippy and a cold drink. I didn't know the half of it. The further along they got with the equipment set up, the tighter the crowd got. I was getting a bit claustrophobic and was really wishing the band would just get on stage so I could get into the music and forget that Cad and Elya and I were getting a lot more intimate with each other and the people around us. Oh how stupid could I be? x_x The band came out and the crowd fucking pancaked into the front. I could touch the stage, which I did at one point and got elbowed in the hand by this nasty ho. That bitch...urgh. ANYWAY, I made it through one song and I was done. I couldn't breath, these people were freaking crazy!! I wanted to stay so bad too but...I just couldn't. I'm weak. I wasn't even standing on my own feet half the time. I told Cad and Elya I wanted out and then turned and proceed to very slowly squish my way out and make it upstairs. Damnit I hated leaving that spot. I could've played Die's guitar for him. x.x; Ugh! I was glad I got out though....the amount of moshing and pushing was insane. I much preferred last year's crowd that didn't push like that. I still ended up sore as hell from the few minutes I was in there. I couldn't even get to my camera, it was so tight! I just enjoyed the rest of the show up in the balcony area with Mom and Cad's Dad(hehe that rhymed) and an adorable little Japanese girl that bounced the whole time.
After the show was over and I'd screamed myself almost hoarse, we went outside into the blissfully cold air and took up residence against the wall right by the bus door...waiting to be told to leave but more or less just hanging. South Korean cutie stopped by to chat with us again(OMG I should've gotten his email..damnit!)and pouted because his poor VIP poster got ripped in the fray. I also went and said bye to Cad and Elya and Cad's Dad then we hung out against the wall for a while. I was amused by poor Nora running back and forth between the bus and the venue and at one point we got onto her for not wearing her coat! LOL I eventually started to become numb from the cold so I asked when the others were coming out(Kyo and Toshiya had already left in a car to go shower and stuff...I barely caught a peek of them) and she said that Die and Kao were still in there and who knows when they'd come out...lol We hung out for a bit more, told the guitarist(I think) from Birthday Massacre that we liked them and then decided to leave Die and Kao to their...activities and just head back to the hotel(I know, we're lazy stalkers..but it was cold!!) We went back to the area our hotel was and headed to a Walmart for some stuff...like Ibuprofen...then we ate at this place called Taco Cabana. OMG...Beef brisket tacos..YUMMY! I want to go back...like now. God that was SO good! LOL
Anyway, we slept and then hit the road again. Nothing remarkable to that really...long way home and I had school the next day...except I missed it because I overslept. Fortunately for me though, it snowed 5 inches that night and almost everyone missed class. xD (Shush Nii-san, I was very tired...)
So that was my extremely long "live report" that makes no sense and is in crappy format...erm...hope you enjoyed? >_>; Pictures up next!
Holy crap...I wrote a book...o.O;; Erm, you don't have to read it..really. Yikes...>_>
Mom and I went to Houston and Dallas this year. First time going to two shows in a row. Houston is a LONG ass way down there from here. The ride was alright, it's pretty fun hanging out with Mom and jamming out to DIR EN GREY but I was ready to be out of the truck by the time we got to our stop for the night. We ended up staying in Livingston and headed out the next day into Houston. It was raining the whole way there (about 2 hours..ish) but Mom handled it like a pro! We found the House of Blues and parked right across the street, had a bit of a squee-y moment when we saw the bus and then decided to find lunch. Lunch was FAIL! Nothing was open since it was a Sunday and we ended up at this funky, high end grocery that had a deli. Unfortunately for Mom's and my seemingly unsophisticated tastes, the "rosemary ham with brie" cold sandwiches we got were...bleh. They had some odd sauce and bleu cheese on them. :x Neither of us ended up eating more than a few bites and we threw them away. The cashier there was cute though...xD He even all waved and smiled when we left.
Anyways, we headed back to the House of Blues and ran into cadkitten's dad, though we didn't know it at the time. LOL He told us when the doors were supposed to open so we just headed back to the truck and sat for a while to dry off because it was still very wet in Houston. After a while we got back out and wandered over to where some fans had gathered near the bus(there was a rail thingie) and kinda hung out on the outskirts of the crowd, not really sure where to go. Then someone informed us that the line was upstairs so we all moved up there and waited...and waited...and waited some more. Finally I heard someone mention a "pass the line" pass and went down to the HOB store to check it out. You could buy so much in merch or gift cards and get in the line that goes in right after the VIPS which would be nice because we could get our tshirts and pick a good spot in the balcony(or so I thought, turns out it was closed and I don't know my way around HOB...) Well I called Mom and told her to come on down to the store but she went the wrong way! She ended up walking 4 blocks the wrong way and back and we were both pretty panicked by the time I found her again. HOB is like in this..shopping thing and it's HUGE! D: Poor Mommy! I felt SOOO bad for losing her. So, after that we got our pass and got in the short line and we...you guessed it...waited some more!
Finally we got in, got our tshirts(mine fits! yay!) and picked a spot at these tables they had on a raised platform in the back. We'd pretty much agreed beforehand that we'd take it easy in the back for this show because we had VIP for Dallas so we'd be up front and standing the whole time then(or so we thought, more on that in a bit). I ran wee and when I came back, Mum was standing outside the area. She'd been asked to either pay up($50 for a table! These people are nuts!) or get out. She got out of course...well we were about to go find a place to stand when the waitress for that area came and told us that a (very nice!) lady was offering to share her table with us since it was just going to be her and her friend. We went for it and we met Janice and Dana. Janice was older than Mom and Dana was my age. They were awesome!!! I am SO sad we didn't get their emails. I meant to but in the after-show madness, I forgot. :(
On to the show~ Birthday Massacre were first and I didn't know what to expect from them but OMG the singer (Chibi, I think..) is adorable!! Bouncy and smiley and not bad at vocals either! For once, I truly enjoyed the opening band! They played for a bit and then they left and George, Kuroo, Nora and Rick got busy readying the stage for DEG. Mom and Janice went out to smoke and Dana and I chatted a bit...and somehow ended up on Kyo's......track pants. x3 We were highly amused when he walked out in them a few minutes later proving our...track pants...conversation. Anyway, lights dimmed, Kyoukotsu no Nari started and everything is a blur at this point. The boys came out and blasted into the first song and I was swept away in the sheer happiness and excitement I feel when I'm watching them play. I loved the new songs, sang along with the crowd to the older ones, head banged(my neck and shoulder still hurt) and flipped over them playing the older, rare songs(Mazohyst anyone?). It was, to put it simply, an AWESOME show. I was pleased to see the crowd was relatively well behaved.
My new camera was well behaved too for the most part. This is the first time I've ever been able to get a decent photo of Shinya, unfortunately, Kaoru didn't seem to want to be photographed. I didn't get one good shot of him in either show!
After they left the stage, throwing water bottles and picks(I'm always in the wrong damn place!) and such, we debated about what we were gonna do. The original plan was to wait and follow the bus to Dallas like a couple of hippie groupies(Lulz). That didn't work out. They weren't going to leave for quite some time if at all and Mom and I both needed foods and stuff. So we scrapped that plan and just got on the road. Not for long though because we saw a Whataburger and had to eat there. We don't have Whataburgers and damn are they good! Anyways, we got rolling after that and ran smack into a nasty rain storm that followed us the entire frigging way to Dallas. It was so late by the time we reached the outskirts, the sun was coming up. We were tired and irritable and wanted sleep. We tried a few places but they wanted to charge for two nights(it was like 6am at this point) and we didn't want that. Somehow, in the rain and stress, we ended up downtown Dallas mid-rush hour. OMG...it was awful! We finally stopped at a Walgreens and asked where some nice but affordable hotels were and got directed to some. Finally, we found a decent Holiday Inn that only charged us the one night even though we were checking it at 8am(yes, that late/early...ugh). We unloaded, ate breakfast and crashed until like 3 that afternoon.
We somehow managed to get up and headed to the venue, in the middle of afternoon rush hour traffic of course. We parked in like, the skeeziest place ever. LOL Probably a bad idea but it worked out. Then we got in line after finding other VIPs in a separate one and...waited. We were originally told to be there at 5:40 but then they said it would be about 6:30 so I ran down to a pizza place nearby to get us a slice. It was so warm in there and so cold outside. It was actually snowing...in Dallas. Wth?! Pizza was yummy..I wish we had a place like it around here. Enough about pizza...while we were standing in line, we kinda chatted a bit with the person standing behind us...who happened to be from South Korea. He was a white boy though! LOL (a damn cute one...why am I so shy..shoulda got his email too) He was sweet though, actually like..talked to both of us despite the two little girls standing behind him and constantly getting his attention.
Anyway, it finally came time to go in and my stomach got all butterfly-y and nervous as they walked us up to the area for the M&G. We got tshirts(too small, they only had XL) and a signed poster then kinda milled around while Nora finished handing stuff out and then informed us the band would be up soon. After a bit, she told us to gather over where the band would be which resulted in a mass rush...-_-; (Oh I was also so very disappointed to see that two skankasauruses from the Houston show were here too. They're just..nasty. I mean...nasty.) Anyway, finally the band came in and lined up against the wall we were facing. I was amused but also a bit sad to see Kyo immediately trying to hide in his coat. He completely disappeared at one point. Lol I don't blame him though...it's a bit like being paraded out like toy poodles or something, plus it was cold! Anyway, Nora asked the usual "Who has never been to show?, Who has been more than 10 times?, Where is everyone from?(which earned a "Ehhh?!" from Die when cutie from South Korea spoke up)" etc then asked if anyone had questions for the band. I don't remember what all was asked but Kyo did actually answer one (Lyrics or music first..music is what he said). After all that, the handshake/picture part started and Mom and I were about 10th or so in line...I was freaking nervous even though I just did this last year. x.x; The picture came out horrid and I will not be posting it. After our picture, we shook their hands. I got a little smile from Kaoru and little smile from Kyo..also a nice grip and he stuck his hand out first and I know I'm fangirling over him the most but I can't help it. >//>;
After that, we went downstairs to secure our spots on the rail.......that didn't exist. u.u The venue has a very, very short stage and a tree in the middle of it. It sucks! So we got in the second row right between Kyo and Die. We stood there a while and other people started filtering in, including a somewhat familiar red-head that ended up standing behind us. I hesitated a while and finally turned to ask if she was who I thought she was..and she was! I met cadkitten! :D We chatted and stuff for a while until Mom was like "I am not going to be able to stand here, I'm going to sit." Cad pointed her to where her Dad was sitting and I made sure she was ok with splitting up before I let her go. Cad and I started chatting again and the place started really filling up. In a bit, elya_chan bopped over and I got to meet her too! ^__^/ Yay~! I love randomly meeting peoples!! ♥ Well, things were going good, I was fine standing there, even if my feet were starting to really hurt and I was getting a bit warm as the place got more crowded and packed. I really thought I could make it through this time(I have a bad history of getting ill right before the show starts). Then Birthday Massacre came on and things got a bit...close. Still though, it was fine, we rocked out to their set. By the time they left stage though, I was burning up, wet with sweat and desperately wishing I had my hair clippy and a cold drink. I didn't know the half of it. The further along they got with the equipment set up, the tighter the crowd got. I was getting a bit claustrophobic and was really wishing the band would just get on stage so I could get into the music and forget that Cad and Elya and I were getting a lot more intimate with each other and the people around us. Oh how stupid could I be? x_x The band came out and the crowd fucking pancaked into the front. I could touch the stage, which I did at one point and got elbowed in the hand by this nasty ho. That bitch...urgh. ANYWAY, I made it through one song and I was done. I couldn't breath, these people were freaking crazy!! I wanted to stay so bad too but...I just couldn't. I'm weak. I wasn't even standing on my own feet half the time. I told Cad and Elya I wanted out and then turned and proceed to very slowly squish my way out and make it upstairs. Damnit I hated leaving that spot. I could've played Die's guitar for him. x.x; Ugh! I was glad I got out though....the amount of moshing and pushing was insane. I much preferred last year's crowd that didn't push like that. I still ended up sore as hell from the few minutes I was in there. I couldn't even get to my camera, it was so tight! I just enjoyed the rest of the show up in the balcony area with Mom and Cad's Dad(hehe that rhymed) and an adorable little Japanese girl that bounced the whole time.
After the show was over and I'd screamed myself almost hoarse, we went outside into the blissfully cold air and took up residence against the wall right by the bus door...waiting to be told to leave but more or less just hanging. South Korean cutie stopped by to chat with us again(OMG I should've gotten his email..damnit!)and pouted because his poor VIP poster got ripped in the fray. I also went and said bye to Cad and Elya and Cad's Dad then we hung out against the wall for a while. I was amused by poor Nora running back and forth between the bus and the venue and at one point we got onto her for not wearing her coat! LOL I eventually started to become numb from the cold so I asked when the others were coming out(Kyo and Toshiya had already left in a car to go shower and stuff...I barely caught a peek of them) and she said that Die and Kao were still in there and who knows when they'd come out...lol We hung out for a bit more, told the guitarist(I think) from Birthday Massacre that we liked them and then decided to leave Die and Kao to their...activities and just head back to the hotel(I know, we're lazy stalkers..but it was cold!!) We went back to the area our hotel was and headed to a Walmart for some stuff...like Ibuprofen...then we ate at this place called Taco Cabana. OMG...Beef brisket tacos..YUMMY! I want to go back...like now. God that was SO good! LOL
Anyway, we slept and then hit the road again. Nothing remarkable to that really...long way home and I had school the next day...except I missed it because I overslept. Fortunately for me though, it snowed 5 inches that night and almost everyone missed class. xD (Shush Nii-san, I was very tired...)
So that was my extremely long "live report" that makes no sense and is in crappy format...erm...hope you enjoyed? >_>; Pictures up next!
Holy crap...I wrote a book...o.O;; Erm, you don't have to read it..really. Yikes...>_>