UnsraW Live in The Netherlands

The Netherlands had the honour of being the first country in UnsraW's REBORN EU Tour 2010. In Tivoli de Helling the quintet showed us how they are looking forward to the future after a period of hitches and misfortune.

Fans started gathering in front of Tivoli in the morning, waiting in the cold until the doors opened at a quarter to seven. Tickets sold rather well; about more than half of the room was filled with people, which is an accomplishment for a band who has been non-active for a while. Most Japanese rock concerts have the same group of visitors, dressed up in the same fashion. This concert was notably different because of its high number of male visitors, adolescents instead of teenagers and metalheads instead of die hard Visual Kei fans.

When intro End of Final blasted through the speakers, all the band members emerged on stage. Drummer Shou was first, briefly greeting the audience. Second was guitarist Rai who dressed quite fashionably for such a heavy band. Support bassist Jin (ex Black:List) came on stage third, followed by Tetsu, who took his place on the left side of the stage. Finally Yuuki, whose appearance is most extreme, walked on stage.

The roaring rhytms of REBORN are made to stir up your blood, and combined with Yuuki's persona it didn't take long before the crowd felt this too. Not only was he constantly interacting with the crowd; he was glowing with happiness to be able to stand on stage again. He threw water bottles into the audience, spat water on the first rows, dived into the audience every five minutes or so, and asked them to show their “tits”. Too bad for the quintet only a few boys in the back responded to this.

People got the chance to listen to Yuuki's singing abilities during ~tsuioku no kanata~. This melancholic song seemed to hurt the singer himself, so much he couldn't finish singing it as he was crying. Bathing in the green light he held his microphone stand, shaking his head, unable to form words. When the melodic guitar lines faded away, Yuuki turned from the crowd to speak with his band members, who then grouped together and talked a bit.

A louder UnsraW and a louder audience then returned with Social Faker. As the second half of the setlist started, the men on stage got more and more free to the point where comparisons could be made with punk concerts. This might also be when the comparison with Dir en grey comes in. Not only does Yuuki portray acts of self mutilation, but as mentioned earlier he also has a very provocative nature, like Kyo in his Visual days.

When head bangers' song BLACK OUT finished the group left the stage, but only after all the members including Shou -who kept a smile on his face all the time while drumming- had tried crowd surfing at least once. This European tour is not only Rai's first, but also last. Anyone who sees him enjoying himself this much on stage wonders why he is leaving UnsraW.

After short calls for an encore, the five returned in their tour shirts to play four more songs, of which Warai oni was the most memorable. This was the last and most amusing moment of the whole evening. The last riffs were repeated numerous times while Yuuki counted them together with the crowd, so they'd know for how much longer they could go crazy. And so they did. Fans started crowd surfing as well in the direction of the stage, some being pulled onto the platform by Yuuki.

As all good things come to an end, so did the concert. Once the guitars were put down, the band members started throwing items such as water bottles to the fans. Soon they left to get ready for the signing session. Just before the show, polaroids had been made by and of band members, and these were sold as merchandise later. Not only a unique memory of the first overseas live of UnsraW, who knows one day such a photo might be a collectors’ item.

The visitors were overall very pleased with this performance.UnsraW showed the personification of rough and don't seem to care very much about Japanese shyness. Also in terms of music, people were convinced, as by the end of the evening most CDs and live DVDs were sold.



Set list:

Intro: 1. REBORN
2. -9-
3. under the skin
4. IN THE FACT
5. [REW]
6. Karma
7. Gate of Death
8. ~tsuioku no kanata~
9. Social Faker
10. Platonic Bitch
11. DRAIN
12. Dust To Dust
13. Nightmare
14. BLACK OUT<

Encore
1. Sakura no namida
2. SWITCH
3. Maria
4. Warai oni