12012, live in Paris

12012, a band from the Undercode label, caused a bit of a surprise with their first concert in Paris, France. Despite the fact that they’re an indie band, and that they aren’t that popular in France, about 400 people were present for their concert at La Locomotive in Paris.

The first thing that struck us once we were inside the concert hall was the fact that only a few people had made any attempt at cosplaying compared to other JRock concerts in the past few months.
Despite some people who were wearing clothes that could arguably be for special occasions, most of the clothing was “normal.” Perhaps the trend of cosplaying at concerts is slowly being toned down in response to the more subtle image that the band is now adopting?

As usual, the venue doors opened at six, and people immediately rushed to the front of the hall to get the best view of the band. However, it was still an hour and a half wait before the concert finally started.

For this concert, the band adopted some rather sober outfits compared to what we’ve become used to over the years. The sound quality throughout the live was excellent; it is good to know that every once in a while the sound engineers actually know what they are doing!

“And then the accident happened…”

Well, not exactly, nothing dramatic. One factor of the concert that one could say was negative is that just after the audience had reached a fever pitch, the band brought us back down to Earth with some ballads. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the songs themselves, but with half of a set composed of ballads, it just seemed too much for both the band and the audience.
However, the audience appeared to have no problem with it and continued to enjoy themselves. People were singing, screaming, and head-banging with joy and happiness! The band interacted with the audience in a friendly manner while still being professional, with Yuusuke being harassed by a plushie and Wataru going crazy onstage. Only the bassist seemed to remain quiet and concentrated solely on his playing.

Surprisingly, the band members provided some “fan service.” Some people might consider it a way to tease the girls in the audience, others as a way to make the show even “hotter.” Wataru seemed to master the technique perfectly and showed us how easily he can make the audience his.

12012 gave us a spectacular show, with some very exciting moments mixed with some much calmer ones. The encore came as a perfect summary of the concert: on one hand, we had Want Want Want, which is a calm and slow song, and on the other we had Venom, a fast song that gave us a final bout of adrenaline at the end of the night.

This band definitely passed the test, although we were a little disappointed with the set list. Let’s hope that next time they will play some of their more powerful songs, such as Icy ~Cold City~, a song that we wanted to hear badly, though unfortunately, they didn’t play it.



Set list

Queer Passion
Vomit
My room agony
Heart
6 Party
Ms Vampire
With Shallow
Shower
CALL ME
Deep Forest
PISTOL
News Paper
.hai furu karada
See-Saw
THE Swim
Shinjiki

- encore
Want Want Want
Venom


Photos by Niok- and Ayou