D'espairsRay Live Report

D'espairsRay's Tour Final took place at Club Citta in Kawasaki, a rather small but modern and nice venue with tall tables in the back and ceiling lights shaped like decorative stars. The hall quickly filled up with mostly black-clad young girls but surprisingly few cosplayers; people were dressed very casually in band t-shirts and such. The stage was quite wide considering the small size of the venue and the view was great regardless of position, something that helped create a feeling of being close to the band. The drums were also positioned above the rest of the stage so all the members were unobstructed throughout the concert.

When the lights went off the audience erupted in screams and applause, and the band entered the stage one by one. They were wearing casual but stylish clothing and the stage was bare except for the instruments and the D'espairsRay backdrop, which looked like it was inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci's famous study of proportions "vitruvian man", only their version was partly a skeleton and had insect-wings.

They started their set with BORN and flamethrowers at the front of the stage pumped out fire in sync with the music. The audience was in immediate ecstasy. They continued with TRICKSTeR, and the audience threw their fists in the air to the music. When Dears came on, everyone was singing along and the mood was great.

During the quiet Kaleidoscope, the audience went completely still, but the mood changed quickly again once the band started playing DAMNED, where the flames returned and red lights began blinking along with the music. During SIXTyNINe, it looked like a small mosh-pit had appeared close to the stage and Hizumi encouraged the audience even more.

During Squall, the audience reached their arms towards the stage in longing, while Reddish, PIG and Hollow had them back to headbanging and dancing along. The band continuously ran around the stage and egged the audience on. ZERO and Karyu whirled around like spinning-tops and Hizumi climbed around the stage. As they played Forbidden, the audience seemed to have specific moves to do to different parts of the song in between the normal headbanging.

The last song on the set-list was Mirror, and Hizumi danced around crazily while strips of glitter flew out over a happy audience. The band left the stage for the first time and threw drumsticks, water bottles and plectrums to the audience. People were immediately screaming for more D'espairsRay, and after a while the band returned to the stage, wearing tour t-shirts. Hizumi talked a bit about how this was the last concert on the tour. Someone in the audience waved a Brazilian flag and Hizumi commented, "Brazil, eh, international," and laughed a little. They played four more songs before they exited the stage again. Karyu spat plectrums out at the audience while Hizumi shook people's hands and ZERO splashed people with water.

Again the audience chanted "D'espairsRay, D'espairsRay, D'espairsRay," until the band took the stage again. Hizumi made everyone sit down on the floor while he whispered the first part of the song, and then had them jump up at a specific point.

The band left the stage for the third time with the same ritual as before and after a while returned for the last time to play MIRROR once again. There was still plenty of energy in both the audience and the band and everyone danced and sang along.

D'espairsRay kept it going for two and a half hours and came back for three encores. They kept the audience pumped to the last song and during any small break everyone was screaming for more. With short MCs and about twenty five songs altogether, the focus was obviously on the music, but there was nothing wrong with that! The sound quality and light-show were both top notch. The band was really energetic on stage and looked like they were having lots of fun during the entire concert, much to the joy of the audience. A pleasant surprise was how great Hizumi's voice was live; he almost sounded better than on CDs. All of this put together makes D'espairsRay live an amazing experience one shouldn't miss out on.


Playlist:

1. BORN
2. TRICKSTeR
3.「Fuyuu Shita Risou」
4. Dears
5. in vain
6. Kaleidoscope
7. DAMNED
8. SIXty∞NINe
9. DESERT
10. New song 1 -Get Soul-
11. New song 2
12. Squall
13. Reddish
14. PIG
15. Hollow
16. Forbidden
17. MIRROR

Encore:
1. Garnet
2. Subliminal
3. MaVERiCK
4. Angeldust
5. Facism
6. murder freaks
7.「Tatoeba」kimi...ga...shinda...ra
8. MIRROR