WE ARE X!! WE ARE X!! WE ARE X!! WE ARE X!!

Stay tuned. I've got more stuff to put up in the next few days. Backlog desu.




Let's start this awesome day off with my quick raid of Natural's place. I rocketed through all his stuff, but found no porn. I did find lots of cool manga though.


Most of his manga is in Taiwanese, his first language, so I couldn't really read any of it. He's also got lots of light novels. From what I saw, he's got lots of Zero no Tsukaima, two volumes of Index...and that's pretty much all I recognized.

His collection of one of his favourite manga, Ichigo 100%. He's read it from start to finish about as many times as I've failed a math test. Which is a lot.

His miko Kagami figure. He got it at Anime Evolution; $100 coupled with her twin, Tsukasa, who was still in her box on top of another shelf.

This is probably one of his oldest posters. I remember seeing this one in his old place too. I'm quite fond of Saber too.


His other posters. Can you recognize all the series? How about that small gunpla in the rightmost photo?

Let's get moving right along to the main event: X JAPAN.

After rocketing through Natural's place, getting a really bad stomach ache and watching awesome videos on Youtube, like this, which features the recipe for the mapo tofu that Kanade (Angel Beats!) was so fond of; and this, though I think this and this are better, we headed off to Metro to grab food before the show. Ended up getting Burger King and meeting Natural's friend, Weber.

From Metro we headed downtown via the Expo line, and began the quest of finding Queen Elizabeth Theatre...with me doing the system voice. ミシオンスタト！！ On the skytrain we joked about how it would be bad if we ended up walking the wrong way...and well, we did. Had to ask for directions when Natural use the washroom at a community center. Quest Updated!

Anywho, as you can see by the photo, we made it to the theater on time and in one piece.

There was quite a crowd inside...this mob was a line up for the merchandise tables. The crowd was comprised primarily of East Asians, that being Japanese, Korean and Chinese people. A handful of caucasians, or as my mom would say 'westerners'.

Photo taken from two floors up. The interior of the lobby is quite nice.

Inside the theater. Those little lights really look like little stars twinkling up in the dark night sky when the lights go out. Quite pretty.

That's a lot of buttons, whistles and doohickeys. Not sure how I'd react if I was behind the control panel.




The opening act, Vampires Everywhere!, weren't all that great. They weren't bad, but scream-hard rock...let's just say it's loud. They're from Hollywood, California. I liked how they had the keyboardist and one of the guitarists as vocalists too. Keyboardist provides most of the non-scream lyrics.

Anywho, this is during the intermission while we waited for the crew to clear the stage for the main show. Had a bit of fun with the camera. LET'S ALL HEAR YOU SCREAM! WE ARE X!!

On the photo to the left is me, in the red shirt. Middle image has Weber in the foreground, and I'm in the back. Natural's on the rightmost image.

Clearing the stage. The equalization didn't seem all that great for Vampire. Lots of feedback from the mic, and sometimes the instruments would drown out the vocals...and this is scream, so that really says something.






X JAPAN was awesome, no, more than awesome; they were, as Alvin might say, epic, complete with the italics. They played songs Kurenai, Rusty Nail, Jade, I.V., X, Endless Rain, Silent Jealousy, and probably a few other songs that I didn't catch the titles of.



When they played I.V., many many people sang the back vocals.

(In the rain) I'm calling you, dear
(To find the way) Can't you see me standing right here?
(Feel my pain) Life's bleeding from fear
(To find its way) I will give it straight from my vein

Parts in italics were sung by the audience.



We even sang with Toshi during Endless Rain, to the point where he could stop singing and we'd just keep carrying it along.

I should also note that the videos I uploaded have made it pretty much everywhere on the net. Found it on The Straight.com.







When they played X, many, many people got up, formed the X and screamed whenever the X came up.

I recorded bits and pieces of other songs, but my camera battery was draining faster than a 3 year old iPod Classic, so I really had to pick and choose. That being said, I have to say that the video and sound quality was a whole thousand yards better than I thought it would be.



Yoshiki also blessed the fans with a brief speech before rocketing into another song. Paid tribute to the late Hide as fans screamed his name as if to project their voices into the next world.

Sugizo did a violin solo or two, along with a duet of...what I think was Kurenai with Yoshiki on the piano.  I've got a video or two of that, but it's not really that great, so I don't want to waste time uploading a crappy video.


The crowd was pretty vocal before the encore. WE WANT X! or simply X! was chanted for at least 5-10 minutes while the crew cleaned up the stage and the guys rested up back stage.

After the concert, I went to see how long the line was. NOT BAD AT ALL. We rocketed down the stairs, leaping like gazelles on the Savannah, clearing whole flights of stairs in a single bound. Okay, that might be pushing it a wee bit, but we jumped, ran and jumped until we were at the front of the line. Me and Natural got these hoodies. They pretty much were a combination of the two T shirt designs sold there. One was what you see there, the X and everything, while the other one was just the red X. Weber, unfortunately, couldn't get anything due to a lack of funding. I couldn't help him out because I wouldn't be seeing Natural or Weber anytime soon.

Anywho, it was an amazing time, and as Natural said, most likely a once in a life time experience.

WE LOVE YOU GUYS X JAPAN! IF YOU EVER DO ANOTHER NORTH AMERICAN TOUR, DON'T FORGET ABOUT US!