Akatsuki no sekai Live report

The Akatsuki no sekai event took place at Shibuya AX on October 25th. Even before entering the hall, you could see fans lined up waiting for their favorite band to play. Inside the venue the lights were still on and some people had already found their place to stand or their seats on the second floor. The theme color for this event was red so some fans were wearing that color, while others were dressed in Lolita, punk and casual clothing. Before the bands entered the stage, a video of all three bands was shown through a projector on the stage curtain. First up was Billy, then Doremidan and last was Plastic Tree who got a response so loud that it was already then obvious who people came to see.

After the introduction video ended the screen slowly moved up, revealing the stage. While the fans were applauding, a digital intro started which had English lyrics. The band members of Billy made their entrance one by one, supported by a red light show. Takuma entered the stage by doing a cartwheel. Tsubuku, Mi-ne, Takuma, BAKU and Hiroshi were all wearing red shirts to match with today's color theme.

The band members cheered on the crowd by clapping their hand above their heads before the first song, Rockin' Princess, started. This is one of their newer songs, released as a single earlier this year. BAKU was singing enthusiastically and very energetic, and halfway during the song he was also playing the tambourine. The fans in the front rows were clapping along the upbeat song. It ended with a fast drumbeat by Hiroshi.

Takuma started a long MC and managed to make the audience laugh a lot. The band did their best to entertain the audience.

Billy mostly played their newer songs this evening. The third song on the set list is a new song. It's a rock ballad and BAKU's voice sounded very powerful. The music sounded a little bit chaotic every now and then, but the strong vocals held everything together. The audience was quietly listening to this long, beautiful ballad and after it ended they applauded with appreciation.

"Wa ga tousou" show opened with a powerful scream of BAKU. During the song, Takuma gave a big flag to the vocalist, who was jumping up and down energetically. BAKU walked around with the flag while singing, pumping it in the air every now and then. Both the fans and band members got really enthusiastic during this song.

They played one more song before leaving the stage, thanking the audience.

Set list Billy

01. Rockin' Princess
02. Rebecca
03. Blame all
04. "wa ga tousou" show
05. Butterfly United

After Billy's performance, the screen came down again and a video showing short pieces of PVs and a live performance of Doremidan was shown. The video was repeated a few times, before a new video came on, where the band members of Doremidan held a short talk about today's event. The screen moved up and it was time for the second performance of the evening.

An intro of drums and trumpets began and the band entered the stage, which was now covered in blue and red lights. Makoto appeared with both his hands in his pockets, looking relaxed. They opened with 13gatsu no marii and the fans responded with cheers. During the first few tunes, four torches were lit on the stage and this created an amazing atmosphere. The vocalist was dancing around while he sang, but his voice still sounded powerful. Bassist Shinji and the guitarists Ryu and Ken were also moving, jumping on their spot, while their fans did furitsuke to the upbeat song.

During The Faust, Ken danced around a little, while the vocalist was sitting down on a small step. The guitarist was doing the background vocals and his high voice created a nice contrast with Makoto's deeper vocals.

An MC by the vocalist followed. He talked about the color theme of today. They all wore casual outfits, but no obvious red items, like Billy was wearing. Makoto pointed out the red things they had, like red clips, red drumsticks and a red microphone stand.

While Billy had mostly played their newer songs, Doremidan had choosen a more mixed set list. Wakaba no kioku got the fans enthusiastic. Makoto would do furitsuke and a big part of the crowd copied all of his moves. During the next song, Seishun Roll Over which was released this summer, the vocalist waved a towel around above his head and the fans also got out their own towels. Doremidan played a total of seven songs. They bowed to their fans, taking the time to say goodbye and thanking the audience.

Set list Doremidan

01. 13gatsu no marii
02. Haamerun
03. The Faust
04. Higanbana
05. Wakaba no kioku
06. Seishun Roll Over
07. Rensou game

Before Plastic Tree came on stage, the fans were treated to a video from their recent European tour. The video showed backstage clips, studio clips and concert clips from their live in London. Then suddenly the lights were turned off and a baby blue spotlight lighted up the stage and one by one they came in with Ryutaro trailing behind. The stage was covered with smoke and once the band started playing, the smoke moved from the stage to the audience, which made it look like a sea with the blue lights shining on it.

They opened their set with Irogoto and although the song was a slow one, it got the audience moving around, obviously waiting for something faster to be played. As the second song started, the band started moving more freely and the audience willingly followed. After five minutes, the song ended and the lights dimmed while the band slowly withdrew from the stage, all except Ryutaro who stood there acting like he didn’t know what was about to happen. After he was done scratching his head, he held a short MC where he thanked people for coming. While he was putting away his shiny red Gibson guitar, the other members of the band started getting ready for their next song that was Alone Again, Wonderful World.

During the chorus parts, Ryutaro was stretching out his hands towards the audience but when he wasn’t doing this, it seemed like he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Now and then he even had a few hip-hop moves in his attempt to dance. It was very strange, but interesting to watch. The vocalist was pretty much the only member of the band that kept moving even during the slow songs. During the faster parts of Himitsu no carnival, the bassist Tadashi would shake his head while the guitarist still stood in his position and the drummer focused on the hard beats on this song.

Ryutaro couldn’t stop moving though, and he would sit as a frog on the monitor when he wasn’t jumping up and down and making the crowd do the same. Sometimes the audience jumped so much that you could feel it in the whole venue. It was great to see how dedicated fans of Plastic Tree are and even those who were much older than the other fans jumped and screamed their lungs out to songs they knew by heart.

Another MC followed and then it was time for Hate red, dip it. This song had a much faster tempo so even guitarist Akira was head banging to the hard riffs he was playing. Ryutaro once again couldn’t stop moving and sometimes it looked like he was about to fall off the stage and he couldn’t decide on whether to sit or to jump and dance around the stage. For the ninth song, Ruisen kairo, the lights changed which were up to now in warm purple and blue colors. This time the stage was lit up with white circles and one could see that the vocalist had taken his shoes off at some point. Akira stepped away from where he spent all his time during the set and moved to stand at the end off the stage, interacting with the fans during the whole song.

As Melancholic started, they shot confetti out to the crowd and people grabbed them and used them together with furitsuke for the whole song. One could see the glitter from the confetti sparkle all over the venue. This song seemed to be the audience favorite so far but all things must come to and end and as soon as the song finished, Plastic Tree left the stage bowing and thanking everyone for their support. It didn’t take even 10 seconds before they were called back for an encore and the longer it took, the louder the clapping and shouting became.

The fans didn’t wait for too long though and suddenly the stage was bright again and the band came back one by one, this time wearing t-shirts. Since Plastic Tree didn’t exactly follow the dress code that evening, which was red, they brought instead items that were in the color red. Ryutaro was carrying a red plate, which he eventually gave to Tadashi while he was summarizing what they had brought. Some of these things were a red pen, a chocolate wrapped in red paper, a cup, and of course the plate that was in the color red.

They played two encores but the most surprising one was Ghost. As soon as they started the song, everyone went wild and there was hair and pounding fists all over the venue. Ryutaro was by this time sweaty, no wonder when you consider all his action during their set, so he was wiping off sweat with his shirt when he wasn’t head banging or jumping around. The song had a pause though which was used for throwing plectra’s and drumsticks to the audience. When the song ended, the members left the stage, all except for the vocalist who didn’t look like he wanted to leave. He stood there for another two minutes before he said goodbye.

While people were still sitting down, they were treated to a surprise, which was that this kind of event wouldn’t be the last. A second event will be held sometime next year in LIQUIDROOM ebisu with another theme and a different lineup. Even though this event only had three artists compared to the many other events that have up to seven, it was a great live with three very unique and different bands. It was fascinating to see how well fans of every single band work together and how easy they got along even though their favorite bands were very different from one another.

Setlist Plastic Tree

01. Irogoto
02. Replay
MC
03. Alone Again, Wonderful World
04. Kuuchuu buranko
05. Balloon
06. Himitsu no carnival
MC
07. Hate red, dip it
08. GEKKO OVERHEAD
09. Ruisen kairo
10. Melancholic

Encore
01. Makka na ito
02. Ghost