October 7th, 2010, one of my favourite bands from Japan came to Massey Hall and wowed the crowds. They definitely made me want to cry after the concert was over, because this may be the first and last time they ever come here. But who knows? Perhaps X Japan will cross the Pacific Ocean again one day to grace our shores :) For now, I'll just regale you with stories of my experience last Thursday.
The opening act was called Vampires Everywhere and they were forgettable. No offense. If Yoshiki's drumming skills weren't so awesome, I might be tempted to say that the drummer from Vampires Everywhere was pretty good, but under the circumstances, playing the opening act for X Japan was just asking for major memory obliteration from the crowd. After the opening act, I'm not sure if the sound engineers at Massey Hall were having technical difficulties because we waited about half an hour before X Japan finally came on. Not that I minded. It was pretty cool soaking up the energy of the crowd. Every couple of minutes, the crowd would start chanting "we are X". I loved it. I've never been to a concert where the air was charged with such electric potential energy.
After waiting for about half an hour, I decided to take a walk because my legs were cramping up. It's just my luck that halfway down the steps from the balcony, X Japan came on and I was missing their grand entrance. Nooo!!! I rushed back up the stairs in the dark and weaved my way through the crowd to get back to my seat just in time to see X Japan come out in all their glory! Har har! Totally made the run worth it.The picture below shows all five of them together: Yoshiki on drums, and then from left to right, Pata, Heath, Toshi and finally Sugizo.
In terms of stage costumes, I loved Pata's technicolor yawn pants, 
Sugizo's black dramatic, gothic-type clothes -- there was some sort of black wired fairy wing or fish fin floating behind him which was cool to look at, 
and of course, Yoshiki's awesome jackets (whenever he put them on, that is, as he usually drummed bare-chested and then played the piano wearing his lovely, classical, long white trench jackets). Unfortunately, I couldn't get a nice enough shot of Yoshiki because he was always moving around throwing bottles into the crowd @_@ On second thought, I think they all dressed pretty well. Heath embodied simplicity with his open white shirt and leather pants -- all classic rock gear.
And Toshi Toshi Toshi! Endlessly wearing those sunglasses...heh heh! 
They started their set with one of their newer songs, Jade. For a first listen, it was pretty good. Of course I like some of their other stuff better, which I did get to hear during the concert. They played Kurenai and Silent Jealousy :) Love love love!! And then I got a wonderful surprise because I honestly didn't know that Sugizo was a part of the group until that day, so when he pulled out his electric violin and started playing, with the spotlight solely on him, I was enthralled. When he would stop playing the violin, he would wave his bow around like a devil on the hilltop, orchestrating magnificent chaos below him. Sigh...And then another spotlight came on to reveal Yoshiki at the piano. I always love his piano solos, but their duet together is just crazy! Have I mentioned how much I love them yet :P
They ended the concert a little early-ish, I thought, but I was anticipating that they were going to come back and do an encore piece. When they left the stage, I think we all clapped, stood up, stomped our feet and chanted "we are X" for a good ten to fifteen minutes before they came back on to do, not just one more song, but another couple of songs. Boy was I thrilled or what! They played "Endless Rain", one of my all-time favourite ballads, and afterward, I wanted them to do more and more and more ballads. Oh how I wished the night would go on, but of course, no matter the stature of these rock legends, they are but human and must also retire for the night (or party it up in the big TO!) They bid us adieu, took pictures with the crowd, bowed out together, and then threw water bottles into the crowd. Holy Sugizo's arm strength! He threw some as far and high as the third balcony! At the end of the night, we were left to contemplate ways to get them to come back to our city and re-live the magic again. I really, really hope they do!
