MUCC EUROPE TOUR 2005 (Hamburg/Germany)

Disclaimer - Please note that the following review is a personal account by an attendee at the recent MUCC concert in Hamburg and contains personal opinions.

"We arrived at the hall about half an hour before the concert hall doors opened and the area around the entry area was already busy with about 250 people eagerly waiting for the concert. Most of the waiting fans were German but there were also fans from Poland and Finland. I think that the concert organisers had learnt some valuable lessons from their problems with entry to the concert hall at previous concerts. But tonight everything ran smoothly.

The inside of the hall was smaller than I expected, but easily held the 500 people who were gathered inside. The composition of the audience was surprising mixed, there were many more male concert attendees than I expected to see. It was a little disappointing that there had actually been less fans than anticipated, and it was almost as if the concert organisers had expected more people to come.

The warm up act was called Saeko who played a set of traditional power metal. In my opinion, not really a fitting style of music for a MUCC concert. But none the less some fans enjoyed their spirited performance. The band consisted of an all-female lineup except for the drummer played a technically flawless set. It must be mentioned that Saeko has enormously improved her voice since the days when she was with Fairy Mirror. The majority of the audience, a number of them who had enjoyed Saeko's performance were now excitedly waiting for the main act to appear.

After an unusually long break, the lights went off and MUCC entered the stage to raging applause. From the moment they walked on the stage they put all their strength into their performance. Tatsuro cried out his heart and soul. I have rarely seen a power like that onstage, even though on the previous night they performed a concert to 3000 people at Wacken.

By the end of the third song Zetsubou, even the last few audience members who were previously able to resist the urge to rhythmically (or not…) jump around anymore, to pogo or just to head bang were now doing so. Wait a minute. Pogo? Yes, exactly. Surprisingly a huge moshpit had gathered in front of the stage. And what was even more unbelievable was that nearly half of the moshers were girls!! The moshpit was full of wild energetic movement for the remainder of the 90 minute concert.

During the MC segment Tatsuro announced that the band wanted to come back next year, but the news seemed to go unheard in the first few rows, which was a pity. He generally seemed to have fun at presenting his knowledge of the German language, and unlike most of his colleagues' efforts it was possible to understand what he wanted to say. Comments he shouted to the crowd like "Auf geht's!" ("Let's go!") caused the audience to go wild!

Throughout the entire concert the interaction between the band and the fans worked out perfectly. You couldn't even criticize the member's stage acting. None of the band members posed excessively and there was no fan service at all. (although some fans might of wished for this). It was a relief because the whole performance was then saved from sinking down to the cliché that has existed since Connichi 2004.


Throughout the concert MUCC performed wholeheartedly and constantly showed their playfulness during their performance. Their set list was mostly made up of songs from Kuchiki no tou. However the set also included evergreen songs like Daikirai, Zetsubou, Suimin and other "bombs". Sadly there was only one encore which was performed with great energy, the audience too gave their all as they headbanged along with the bands' enthusiastic playing. After the encore the stage lights switched off completely and the PA's rendition of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" signalled the end of the show

Even though the band only performed one encore it cannot blur the extremely positive overall impression that the concert made on me. In my opinion on August 7th 2005, MUCC played one of the best j-rock concerts ever performed on German soil. To sum up the most important quote of that evening "Deutschland….fantastisch!!" (Germany… fantastic!!)"

The Set List

01. ranchuu
02. dare mo inai ie
03. zetsubou
04. rojiura
05. dakukuu
06. gentou sanka
-----mc-----
07. garo
08. ero
09. akatsuki yami
10. zutazuta
-----mc-----
11. monokuro no keshiki
12. namonaki yume
13. bouzenjishitsu
14. suimin
15. daikirai

Encore 9gatsu 3kka no kokuin


The winner of the MUCC Cosplay Contest is Magdalena Post. Congratulations!

Additional CD prizes go to:

Mira Sisourath
Julie Clerc
Marie Schmiedchen
Outi Klang

We have been informed that Neo Tokyo will be sending those prizes to you as fast as possible.