X JAPAN Live in London Unofficial Report

It's quite impossible to go to an X JAPAN live without having any expectations. Considered THE legendary band of JRock in Japan, one of the first to bring ROCK into the consciousness of Japanese society, X JAPAN have, over the almost 30 years of their existence, set very high standards for themselves. As far as I’m concerned, during their approximately 2 hours live at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London, on June 28th 2011, they totally delivered.

Attending an X JAPAN live is more than just going to a concert hall, getting inside, settling in comfortably somewhere, perhaps with a drink in your hand to enjoy some nice music. Attending an X JAPAN live is an experience in itself. Especially for fans who have been waiting for this for so long. And even for those who have seen them before, but want to see them as often as possible, like the many Japanese fans who flew over to London for the concert and some of whom will follow the band throughout Europe.

For once, I, too, attended the live as a fan, for the full experience. And this full experience included the 9 hours wait in front of the venue, despite thunderstorms, periods of heavy rain and a surprisingly chilly weather following two pretty hot days. The wait was actually really fun, though. X JAPAN fans are, as I expected, very friendly, they help each other, talk to each other, relate to one another and generally have fun together.

The doors opened on time, at 7pm and most people headed straight inside to find the best possible places for themselves. Some of them, though – most likely those with seats at levels 1, 2 and 3 – did brave a trip to the merchandise desk. At 8pm, also on time, the opening band, Japanese Voyeurs, started playing. While it can't be said X JAPAN's fans really got into their performance, they did cheer and applaud at the end of each song, supporting the band who did its best for an audience that was probably not even a little bit familiar with them.

After their performance, stage crew hurried to remove the instruments and make way for X JAPAN. Fans started the "WE ARE X" shouts soon after and would cheer loudly as staff tested the instruments and settings of each member. It was quite amazing that even just the members’ instruments got such loud cheers... I guess this, too, speaks of just how much intense X fans are about the band.

Not long after 9pm – the official start time – the lights went off and the long awaited moment was there: the start of X JAPAN's 2011 World Tour and first European live, in London. Fans started screaming and the venue was quickly filled by that intense energy that seems characteristic for X lives. (Something one can even feel watching their old DVD released performances.) Then, one by one, the members appeared, as their new SE played in the background and the audience was welcomed to their show by the voice over that surely every X fan knows by heart by now.

After the repeated X Japan Japan Japan... the show was truly underway.

It started with JADE, loudly, aggressively, with ToshI whose voice is even more amazing in real life than I could have imagined, with YOSHIKI pounding away on his drums, as crazily as expected – or perhaps even more – with a very lively PATA, who smiled a lot throughout the whole live and who – yes – still had his beard, with SUGIZO in a surprising all white outfit that drew the eye and his usual super cool performance that kept one's eyes trained on him and with a HEATH wearing all black, who didn't smile much – well, he doesn't smile much generally – but who also delivered a very cool and occasionally aggressive performance, completely in tune with his image and his bass playing.

In fact, SUGIZO's all white and HEATH's all black choices of outfits were really interesting. It showed them as complementing each other, one bright, dazzlingly cool "look AT me" SUGIZO, the other dark, mysteriously cool "look FOR me" HEATH.

Next in the set was Rusty Nail and people got even more excited – perhaps despite the fact that most of the audience had never seen X live before, they too still felt like Rusty Nail was the REAL concert opener – singing along, especially to the "Oh, Rusty Nail" part before the chorus and jumping along. SUGIZO played the guitar solo this time, something that surely many fans will be happy to hear.

YOSHIKI then moved to the piano and started playing the intro to Silent Jealousy, to ToshI singing along. If anyone ever doubts what an amazing vocalist ToshI is, they should listen to this, preferably live. It almost seems unbelievable that anyone can sing like that and hold a note like that... Fans openly showed their appreciation and then the song was in full swing, everyone singing along happily.

As soon as that was over, YOSHIKI and SUGIZO left the stage and it was clear Drain would be next. For anyone less familiar with X JAPAN, Drain has always been a "X JAPAN without YOSHIKI" (to quote ToshI during the Yokohama lives last year, though he used in a different context) song, written by hide and ToshI and always performed with pre-recorded, sampled drums. After the reunion, they continued performing the song, usually part of "hide no heya" as a PATA-ToshI-HEATH song. Since it was followed by a SUGIZO violin solo and a brief YOSHIKI piano solo that then combined into a piano & violin intro to Kurenai, it seemed perfectly appropriate and balanced. Usually willing to let others take the spotlight, PATA and HEATH each claimed a side of the stage – PATA to ToshI's right, HEATH to his left – and showed that they too can totally own the stage with their performance, while in between them, ToshI continued to amaze.

That was followed by SUGIZO's violin solo, the first more 'quiet' moment of the live, though SUGIZO didn't really let fans take a break as he constantly prompted them for reactions to his playing – which they happily delivered; after all they weren’t there to rest. A combination of fun – like SUGIZO shaking his hips to the rhythm of the music, while lowering himself a bit – and super cool, the solo proved, once more, what a great performer SUGIZO is.

YOSHIKI joined him on stage a little bit later and took over for a brief piano solo, before, as I said, they did the Kurenai intro (without the vocal part). Then it was "Kurenai da!!!" and everyone started jumping again. Fans effortlessly sang along to the Japanese chorus and ToshI again sounded amazing throughout the whole song, but especially during the vocals only part – though fans continued providing background vocals, then, too.

After Kurenai, YOSHIKI moved to the piano and ToshI, after making the audience scream a few times, asked them if they wanted to hear YOSHIKI's voice. As the answer was a unanimous and enthusiastic YES, YOSHIKI then took the microphone for a brief MC, getting the crowd even more pumped up. As ToshI had gone to sit behind the drums during this time, and was occasionally hitting them, YOSHIKI told him at one point: "You should play the drums!" which prompted ToshI into giving us a taste of his drumming skills. This was followed by YOSHIKI thanking the fans for coming and saying it'd been "too fucking long" (something fans did agree with) before shouting: “WE ARE,” with the fans enthusiastically replying “X”, then the same with “YOU ARE” and ended with a rather softly spoken, but in such a matter of fact tone that everyone had to laugh, “That’s right.” by YOSHIKI.

Then he started playing the piano intro of Born to be free and soon after it was jumping time again. Born to be free is really a great song to jump along to and everyone happily sang along to the lyrics. It is perhaps the catchiest of X JAPAN's new, post-reunion songs and it's really fun live.

When that was over, ToshI started screaming: "On drums, YOSHIKI!" and it was time for a brief drum solo – or rather drums-piano-drums-piano solo – that reminded anyone who had managed to forget how crazy YOSHIKI is. The last piano part then became the intro to I.V. and the crowd immediately started singing "In the rain, Find a way". But ToshI tricked them, instead of asking them to sing, he asked them to scream, before finally getting to the singing along. The intro was really brief this time, though and within a minute or so, ToshI sang "I will give it straight from my vein" and the calmness of the singing along was shattered.

I.V. actually didn’t even really end, they continued to play their instruments, prolonging it, until it picked up again and became X. If possible, the crowd grew even more excited, then. After all, this was X, the band's anthem and in a way the most important song for fans to experience live. And experience they did, as all 2000 people sang at the top of their lungs and did the X jump, always perfectly on time, as if they'd been doing it forever.

As an aside, this is perhaps the most amazing thing about X: how their fans, younger or older, more recent or since many years ago, who may or may not have seen them live before, all seem to know what to do, what to sing, what to scream. Regardless of what corner of the world they come from. For myself, by now, I kind of take this for granted... I consider it a sign of respect and love towards the band to know these things if one really calls oneself a fan. But thinking about it, for the band it might still be surprising and rather hard to grasp. To hear 2000 people, out of which surely less than half know any Japanese, sing along lyrics in Japanese without any effort, must be quite amazing for them, still. Seeing the same 2000 people doing the X jump might be, too. (Though to be fair, it's hardly the first time overseas fans have done the X jump and they should know that.) Rather than taking it for granted, now I realize it shows just how much fans really are into X. It's quite amazing, really. Though on the other hand, while there, it felt normal. Like, this is how it should be.

X went through all the way – not exactly as planned, though I’m sure nobody minded – and was followed by YOSHIKI coming down and diving into the audience. It took staff some time to extract him from there, though ToshI made sure to keep fans occupied with more shouts of “WE ARE” and “YOU ARE” – always answered enthusiastically “X” by the fans. As soon as YOSHIKI was back on stage, he went to HEATH and PATA, then ToshI and SUGIZO as well, telling them something, though of course nobody from the audience could hear what. It would soon become clear what it was, though, as they launched into the final part of X again – this time without any more problems – and PATA, HEATH and SUGIZO took center stage, with ToshI joining YOSHIKI behind the drums. 

They then left the stage, with the usual 'bye bye'. However, as I said before, X fans know everything and included in that is the fact that X always have encores. Plus, the setlist had been identical to the North American tour one, and it was unlikely it wouldn't be so until the end, which meant two more songs: Endless Rain and Art of Life.

While waiting, fans shouted "WE ARE X" many many many more times, clapped, stomped their feet, called out members' names and proved – if anyone doubted it – that they most definitely were not ready to go home.

It was some time later that YOSHIKI, wearing a blue kimono returned to stage – ToshI closely following – and sat behind the piano. He addressed the audience again, telling them it was an honor for them to perform there, thanking everyone for coming again. He got teary eyed and at the same time, fans started chanting hide's name, which led to YOSHIKI saying that he had been playing with them that night and that he will always be a member of X. He couldn't say much more after that, seemingly overcome with emotion – which prompted fans to start chanting his name, to which he eventually reacted with a "You guys made us fucking cry!" – so instead he shouted "WE ARE" – with fans quick to respond "X" – several more times.

After that, he passed the microphone on to ToshI, who used it to get the crowd pumped up again, before asking them to sing with him. And thus, Endless Rain started. Of course, everyone happily sang along, again as if they had been doing it forever. Endless Rain was not endless, it was in fact, again, cut more shortly than usual, skipping the second verse and going straight into the guitar solo, and the 'fans only singing' part not really very long.

As soon as that was over, everyone except SUGIZO walked off stage and we were treated to another violin performance, this time a new opening for the second half of Art of Life, as when SUGIZO was done, the start of the piano solo took over – the part not usually played by YOSHIKI on stage – until YOSHIKI himself came back and started playing the memorable and somewhat controversial piece. Of course, there was key pounding and there was YOSHIKI falling off of his seat, towards the end of it, as he got completely carried away. He also seemed reluctant to leave the piano, staying there and playing for longer than usual, before finally retreating behind the drums and launching into the full band part.

Art of Life live was one of the things I was most looking forward to and it truly was amazing. The energy was insane and it was impossible not to sing along with everything you had. It was everything I expected and more and perhaps that was when it really hit me that that was X JAPAN on that stage in front of me and not a TV screen. It was a perfect end of the live, truly.

Of course, the true end was the curtain call, with Forever Love as SE, the band took pictures (well, YOSHIKI, SUGIZO and ToshI did), did their usual bowing to the fans and threw bottles of water into the audience. SUGIZO definitely deserves a special mention for managing to throw two bottles to the 2nd level, and two more on the 1st level. A third might have made it to second level, but instead hit a light, which made everyone laugh and SUGIZO have a somewhat "Oops!" reaction. (In fact there was another such reaction, for the first one that reached 2nd level as it actually hit a girl who did not expect that bottle to reach her. I'm sure she didn't mind, though.)

X didn't linger long on stage after that, but fans didn't really move until Forever Love ended, having sung along to it from the beginning till the end. Then they slowly made it out and those who had skipped on merchandise buying now lined up to get their goods.

All in all, it was a shorter live than some of their older ones, but even so it didn’t feel like 2 hours... I guess it shows just how great performers they are, being able to draw you in so much that you don’t even notice time passing. Like those very intense dreams that when you wake up it feels like you went to sleep just five minutes earlier, when in fact the whole night passed. This was the same... like a really great, really intense dream. Surreal in a way. Perfectly normal in another, because almost everything felt so right. Exactly as it should at an X live. Even though for many – myself included – it was the first time seeing X live, it felt like a long awaited reunion of old friends, getting together to have some fun.

As with everything there will be many opinions, people very happy, people less happy... though personally I doubt any of those 2000 people at O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire on June 28th 2011 is truly unhappy... except, I guess, those who felt ill or fainted and probably had to miss big parts of the live.

Of course, this was not a perfect live – is there even such a thing as a perfect live? – however, that didn’t matter. It was X, it was X music and it was fun.

I do have two objections, but they have nothing to do with the performance, really. They’re both related to the “X JAPAN fans know everything” fact, actually. I said there were two exceptions on singing along and those were Rusty Nail and Kurenai. Why? Because nobody except the band themselves knew the lyrics, as both songs were performed in their English versions. Well, actually, Kurenai did keep its Japanese chorus and that perhaps made it very clear that the people at this live had absolutely no problem singing in Japanese.

I understand that in order to make themselves accessible to western music fans beyond their already existing fan base they have to have lyrics in English. However this tour – like the North American tour last year, like the Latin American tour in Autumn – are mostly for already existing fans, who have no problems with the Japanese and I’m sure that as they sang along to everything else, they would have to those two songs, as well. If these had taken place after their new album, with English lyrics had been released, then it would be just fine and I’m sure fans would have quickly learned the new lyrics. But as it is, it was just a little awkward.

The other thing is something that also happened in North America as well, which is ToshI calling YOSHIKI “Yosheekee”. I do understand that as well... I, too, when traveling use an anglicized pronunciation of my name because it’s a lot easier than trying to correct it all the time and try to explain the correct way to pronounce it. So, for the sake of people not familiar with X, pronouncing it like that outside of Japan is understandable. But, like I said, probably over 95% of the people there were X fans and any self-respecting X fan knows how to pronounce YOSHIKI’s name correctly.

There might be a little bias there, though, as I will never complain about people calling HEATH “HEATH” instead of “Hiisu” as they do in Japan, but at least as far as I’m concerned, that’s a completely different thing.

Both of these things, however, are rather small issues, nothing big enough to really affect the overall feeling of the live. It was a truly great live and I am very happy to have been one of those 2000 attendants.

Now, I'm already hoping for another European tour soon!