Dark Schneider Live Report

The pretty young visual kei band Dark Schneider released their second maxi-single Blood sucker on October 22nd. The day before the release they organised an event at the Meguro Rockmaykan (Tokyo) and JaME was able to attend their first organised event.

The event, which was part of Dark Schneider's ~Blood sucker TOUR~ 「A ruler of the blood」 tour started at 17:00. However, the band didn't start playing until around 20:30. When finally it was their turn to perform, the venue became dark and the curtains opened. The band made up of vocalist LAER, guitarist KOЯO & Kano, bassist Yamato and drummer Regia, were already standing on stage and they immediately started to play their first song See you again. The first song was mainly centered around the vocals. The chorus was a bit heavier than the rest of the song and that worked very well with LAER's deep voice.

The bandmembers wore outfits of the same colour and style, namely black and red, which seemed to be the colour theme of the band. Their outfits were embellished with alot of detail and overall they had a typical visual kei look but with a just a touch of gothic elements mixed in. Drummer Regia wore headphones throughout the performance.

Most of the fans were standing and doing furitsuke to the music. The guitarists and bassist performed the background vocals, which were mainly shouts. KOЯO was headbanging every now and then and the audience would then follow and do the same. Towards the end LAER made the crowd jump. After a MC followed where the band introduced themselves and talked a bit about the single that was going to be released the next day. Some fans in the audience held up a banner with "Happy Birthday LAER" on it and he thanked them.

Song number two started with a steady drumbeat. All the bandmembers were headbanging. Dark Schneider music is pretty heavy rock, but it has a positive touch to it. LAER moved gracefully whilst singing and the fans did more furitsuke. Kano went to the front and played a solo and after KOЯO took his turn.

During the third song, both the band and fans got even more enthusiastic and everyone started to jump. While the guitarist were spinning around, bassist Yamato went to the front of the stage for a while.

After Mysterious, all band members except for Regia went to the front. The vocalist announced that the next song would be the last one of the night. They started to play and LAER told the crowd to shake their heads. The fans responded enthusiastically and during the song the vocalist picked up a drumstick hit the drummer's cymbal every now and then. The band and audience were at this point all headbanging together. The song ended wildly. Dark Schneider bowed to their fans and left the stage.

The curtains stayed open and the crowd started to shout for an encore, a few of the audience members had already left by this point. Three minutes later the band returned, but the vocalist decided to make his fans wait and took a little longer to reappear. When he finally came back he held a short MC and was cheering on the audience. He tried to get the people in the back, to move to the front and they did.

They played one more song, cry. It was a heavy song with lots of headbanging opportunities. Even the people sitting were shaking their heads to the beat. When they finally brought the show to an end, LAER thanked their fans and as the band left the curtains closed.

The first event Dark Schneider organised by was a definite success. Unfortunately their set was a bit short, but it was very powerful. They are a new band, but they seem very promising and they are all talented musicians. So keep an eye on Dark Schneider!


Set list

1. See you again
2. Cord No.「I II III IV」
3. Blood sucker
4. Mysterious
5. maverick gate

-ENCORE-
6. cry