VAMPS LIVE 2010 BEAST PARIS live repo: shochu66

shochu66

VAMPS LIVE 2010 BEAST PARIS live repo

Nov 01, 2010 22:32

Finally our repo for the Vamps live in Paris 16 October - read it
VAMPS LIVE 2010 BEAST PARIS

SATURDAY 16 OCTOBER 210

After the L’Arc~en~Ciel concert at Le Zenith in May 2008 we are back in Paris - this time for Vamps - and it will be only our second live out of 32 which is not held in Japan. Since our humble and shy beginnings with SMILE tour in 2004 we developped into decent live afficionados of the Japanese School of Live. It makes a big difference for us if a live is in Japan our another country - more on that later. And here the story unfolds…

Early on Saturday morning we are on our way to St. Pancras International to catch the first Eurostar train to Paris. After only a couple of hours sleep (we work in a restaurant and hardly finish before midnight), we sit in our cab, nervous and anxious what the day will bring. Our train tickets have been ordered months ago, weeks of waiting will soon have an end. It is 3 months on the day that we’ve been to Sendai and seen Vamps at Zepp Sendai - and now we are wearing again our Rocking Shoes. We are at the station just in time for a little bite and a tea, and soon they call us for boarding. After we settle down in our seats it doesn’t take long and we are snoozing towards Paris. Nicely protected by our acid android parka and its marvellous hood. After our arrival at the Gare du Nord, we get us metro tickets and soon we board a metro train bound for La Defense.

On our way out of the station in La Defense we see two girls in Vamps t-shirts - but other than that there are not many indicators compared to Japan where one can see people of the Tribe everywhere around town. But right when we surface one of the guitar technicians is passing us - like so often before in Japan. A sure sign that Team Vamps is around. We take it as a good sign and move on towards our hotel. We pass the Espace Grande Arche where some people are gathering already. It’s a fine and bright day but chilly with a cold wind blowing through the vast areas of La Defense. Our room is in the Hilton hotel just opposite, nice and big; we unpack our luggage and before long we are on the road again. Standing again in front of the Espace Grande Arche wondering how the live will be. It’s still early before lunch time and we decide to take the metro down to Etoile and walk around for a while.

We surface in front of L’arc de triomphe and direct our steps towards Trocadero but end up for lunch in a small brasserie called Le corner. After a delicious meal there we only manage a few hundred metres and we are at Trocadero where we touch down at Café Carrette - a splendid institution, famous for its patisserie. Fortified with coffee, a Montblanc and Paris Carrette - pastries out of this world - we return to our hotel. People in front of the hall are getting a bit more.

Hair done and make-up (black eye liner and vamps red lipstick) applied, we get into our black drain pipes, Roen studded belt, Doc Marten’s and finally our black corset (in that sequence, because it is no fun to bend down to tie shoe laces once the corset is tightly fastened). The purple taffeta shawl completes the live suit - still hidden underneath aa parka and a Barbour jacket to face the grim cold outside. Our Vamps towel from Sendai, acid android and Vamps wristbands complete the outfit. We join the queue or rather the gathering of people in front of the entrance to the Espace Grande Arche. And we even don’t have to stand too long out there - soon they open the gate and let us in slowly by slowly. We are really glad to escape the wind and the cold. They check tickets and our h.naoto bags and believe it or not we join a queue - quite unusual in Paris. We miss the boarding by numbers as they do in Japan: it saves time, you don’t need to wait for hours in front of the hall, and it’s always organised and civilised. But we know this is not Japan and things work differently over here. We still have our outdoor jackets with us and wonder where to leave them; we don’t want to bring them into the hall - where would one put all the stuff in an all standing live. So ne-san strolls of to look for coin lockers or something similar. She finds it in the form of la vestiere - we missed it when we came in. Glad to be rid of our coats, we keep on waiting. From time to time we move a bit forward and the masses getting more and more compact and squeezed together. But it’s not really unpleasant. I start feeling pain in the area below my stomach, but keep quiet. I don’t want to spoil it for us. Only when I start feeling really sick, I have to confess to ne-san. She is shuffling me to the outer side of the queue where it is easier to breath and not as tight as on the wall where we’ve been standing before. We think maybe the corset is too tight and loosen it a bit - but I’ve been wearing it before and never had any problems. The feeling of sickness keeps on coming back - one of the staff is showing us to a door and I get some fresh air and after a while return to the queue. Ne-san insists on going back to the hotel, I insist on staying. Doors open is delayed - we miss the Vamps time: in Japan they start at 6:66 no matter what. While we ponder around what to do best, they finally start letting people into the hall. We decide to go in but to stay in the back; I wouldn’t have been able to fight for a good position in the front - although we got in early. Before we pass the door, Vamps’ official photographer is taking pictures from our tattoos (HYDE on our lower necks).

We are finally inside and take positions in front of the seated area, right where the sound engineers are. I’m still not very good, run to the toilet for nothing, come back, feeling sick again, run toilet one more time and finally after seeing my lunch again, start feeling better. Glad that we did not go back to the hotel, we are determined to enjoy the show from the back; and we have never been very comfortable with the thought of spending the live in the front. Not that we mind, in Japan we’ve been there right in front of Hyde 3 or 4, on other occasions maybe 6, 7 rows away, squeezed in with hardly any room left to stand, lying on top of each other and still having the time of our life! But our experience with L’Arc in Zenith clearly showed us the difference between Japanese and Western fans. So we stay there, waiting for the things to come.

The usual announcement to refrain from taping and taking photos (they even emphasize that it is the artists wish) remain unheard by some and during the whole live staff and Vamps crew are patrolling and taking out people. Annoying behaviour of egocentric people…

Finally the familiar Plug in starts and from one moment to the other we are into it. For the first time in a Vamps live we have lots of space around us and can do what we want. And we do it in the way of the Japanese School of Live. We do the same routine as a Japanese crowd would do, the timing and the rhythm is just deeply rooted in us. At most times its different or contrary to what a Western crowd is doing - and that’s why it is so irritating to be more in front (like in Zenith 2 years ago). But here we have space and no one is disturbing us two fools doing what we like.

SE.PLUG IN: prepares the ground as always, tension is raising, we shout their names when they assume their positions on stage (only for Hyde we shout“ Blondie“ for obvious reasons and then it explodes into:

01.DEVIL SIDE: from our position we can see the whole stage and have a particularly good view of Ari (usually when we are very close dear Hyde is blocking the view). Ari’s hair is fairly long now, he is wearing a black tank top over a white tank top and is delivering a tremendous show on his drums - ne-san even saw him swirling around his drum sticks at one time). Jin-chan and Ju-ken are in great shape as always; only Ju-ken wont remove his hat until the end - so no gorgeous Ju-ken hair today. K .A.Z. is his usual cuteness with button eyes and spikey hair and Hyde in sexy jeans and even sexier black shirt worn open. We grab each other around our waists and show them our devil side.
02.REDRUM: keeps the pace high Was it here or during Dolly that I (and I guess ne-chan had a similar experience) discovered that I can actually headbang. I mean not only just whiggling the head a little bit, but a real hardcore headbang - our necks have been sore for days after....
03.DOLLY

It’s not that we wouldn’t have known it already, but after those first song it clearly shows what an exceptionel live band Vamps is - they capture the audience in an istant and right from the beginning, sound and performance are of a superior level.

-MC- Hyde speaks the cutest French ever - not that he actually speaks it. He is rendering French phrases transcribed into Katakana so ’merci’ becomes メルシbecomes ’mershi’. But it’s cute... And the best thing is when he starts talking Japanese. That’s the original Hyde voice.What follows is a block of mid and slow tempo songs:

04.THE PAST: great guitar solo from K.A.Z.
05.GET UP:
06.MEMORIES: one of the songs to put our soul and all our memories into. Boku no daijina memories... Cannot remember if it was here or already during one of the earlier songs, but it happened later again. I sometimes had the feeling that the distance between our place in the back and the stage vanished. For a few precious moments I felt so close to them that it struck me as magic. Same as the fact that I managed to sing along over long parts of some songs - quite an achievement for notorious non-singer who hardly can remember the lyrics.
07.PIANO DUET: the song with the anata effect - we hold our hands and become one with the universe as we did during anata in Paris 2008. A moment almost too beautiful to behold...It’s time for a bit more action coming on with the next two songs:
08.IT’S SAD Always like that part when the music stops and starts again - this is also one of those live moments, since the break is not that pronounced on the album.
09.VAMPADDICTION
10.SAMSARA We like the live version, because it is so much longer then the album version. Very dramatic with wonderful light effects.
11.MY FIRST LAST
12.EUPHORIA: lots of hot interaction with maiku as far as we could see

-MC-

13.HUNTING: the great thing about lives and the big difference to the CD - there is always one more time. Hyde is all over the stage shouting his ‚one more time‘ into every available maiku.
14.ANGEL TRIP: we gave Hyde his naruto - only a small one though. Usually in Japan people are swinging their towels over their had at certain points of the song and in Sendai Hyde commented that it was like a naruto (a whirlpool). In Paris it was only us (maybe some other people behind us) - hope someone noticed the two towels. For us it was so much fun...
15.TROUBLE: long intro with the beat of Trouble and Hyde shouting. This song is such a good example what a talented band can make out of a shallow pop song. We enjoyed the performance and ourselves thoroughly singing along and jumping.
16.Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds: for us one of the best Beatles covers ever. Love this song also for sentimental reasons: we have been great Beatles fans in our teens and the transformation of the original song mirrors the changes we underwent in our lives since those teenie days.
17.SEX BLOOD ROCK N’ROLL:

-EN- We even manage to do the Japanes style shouting for the encore: Vamps desu followed by hand clapping - never thought we would actually do this.

18.LOVE ADDICT: lots of clapping here
19.REVOLUTION: we stomp and bang along
20.MIDNIGHT CELEBRATION: inevitably the last song in a Vamps live - we know it’s coming and we know what is coming. We grab each other around our waists, head bang and shout at Hyde “I play you obey” - it’s always like a fight or a violent embrace. And at the very end Hyde dives into the crowd - topless - lucky those people standing there.

And then it’s over again. The music stops, the lights are going on and we stand there not knowing if it was a dream or real - it’s always the same even after so many lives. Everyone is kind of scattered, people walking around, some are looking for something (lost items, lost dreams, lost innocence…). The hall is getting emptier and we finally make our way to the front of the stage. We lean on the barrier contemplating this and many other lives we’ve seen, wonder when the next will be. Two girls approach us and ask to take pictures from our Hyde tattoos. Mellowed by the live and the emotions we agree. A Japanese girl did the same and to thank us she’s giving us two K.A.Z. picks - うれしい。And short after Vamps’ photographer is behind us and takes more photos of Hyde’s name engraved in our skin. We talk a bit and he tells us that he remembers us from Japan. Watching the Vamps crew dismantling the stage - it’s difficult to move on and say goodbye. When we finally leave a group of French girls is shouting after us “Vous etes tres jolies” we turn around, give them a Vamps V and say ありやっとうalmost Ju-ken-esque. A cute moment…

After retrieving our jackets we have to leave the hall sooner or later. It’s cold outside and windy. And contrary to Japan we are not able to find a nijikai here in La Defense: no izakaya not even a konbini or a supermarket open to buy something for the after party. We give up and return to our room, order vegetable soup from the room service, Badoit sparkling water has to stand in for the bottle of Champagne we bought in the afternoon. The day was too long, and with all the excitement and health troubles all we want is a hot shower and our beds. Covered by splendid duvets we drift off into a dreamless and exhausted sleep.

Despite us being rather far away from the stage it was an emotional and intense live experience for us. At one point when it was very quiet I took my heart into my hands or rather mouth and shouted as loud as I could ‘Kazu’.

We felt relaxed and happy during the live and still feel those emotions when we think of f the show now more than two weeks later. And so every live we went to leaves specific memories - the almost orgiastic finale in Kawasaki, the draining experience of acid android nonstop in Shibuya AX, five lives in one week in Fukuoka etc - there is always at least one Perfect Moment… We won’t see Team Vamps in a long time with L’Arcs anniversary coming up. But we love them all equally and looking so much forward to next year with all its activities around L’Arcs 20th Birthday. Nevertheless we will miss K.A.Z., Ju-ken, Arimatsu and Jin-chan and Vamps Hyde. As so often in life there is one laughing and one crying eye. 笑いながら泣いている。

VAMPS LIVE 2010 BEAST

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And as always some pics for the ones who read until here:

Espace Grande Arche short after we arrived