A funny thing happened while waiting outside Shibuya O-Crest. Some two hours before the live was set to begin, what must have been Tokyo’s most unassuming taxi came to a stop at the nearby intersection. Out from the back popped a somewhat petite woman in her early 30’s – almost assuredly the managerial type – followed by a significantly less petite
HIDEKI. He was immediately both the same and different man from his
SIAM SHADE persona: gone was his straight, oft clean-cut hair in favor of a stylish “straight poof,” yet his 6’0 frame-supported posture remained wholly intact.
Whether it was his stylish poof or his neon pink vest no one can say for sure, but the moment
HIDEKI stepped out of the cab, shy of a dozen women, most paralleling the manager’s age, some wearing the newest
DETROX shirts, left their planter seats and approached him with praise and presents. The vocalist looked perplexed at first, torn between accepting their attentions with grace and precision or scuttling off in the hurry he was all but assuredly in. His experience in the music industry paid off, however, as
HIDEKI easily conversed with the fans while heading towards a back elevator, an anxious smile effortlessly satiating his fans.
This same bevy of women found themselves at the front of the line thirty minutes prior to the opening, leading the trickle of fans occupying step after step of the five-story stairwell. Plastered on the black walls leading to O-Crest’s main stage were dozens of CD release posters, some signed, some by bands still active today. The upward cruise through memory lane soon devolved to a rush hour escalator ride as an increasing number of people climbed the several dozen stairs.
Those who reached the crest of the stairwell were treated to a compact goods table and a friendly reception desk. The fans paid little attention to said friendliness, instead rushing through the drink bar to O-Crest’s intimate standing room. A ¥500 drink ticket lay unused on the ground, optimistically a testament to the
DETROX fans’ hasty enthusiasm. Inside the standing room, the lack of color was somewhat overwhelming. The darkness of the stairwell walls matched the clothing of almost everyone in the room. The stage only added to the dark décor. The atmosphere, bleak at first glance, would ultimately serve as the best possible backdrop for what was about to come.
The live, itself, began at 5:10pm. The band’s intro SE
Hypnotized the already cheering fans as the support members crept onto the stage: drummer
Youth-K, followed by bassist
wu-chy, likely the most heavily tattooed bassist in Tokyo. The just-as-heavily dread-haired
K-A-Z came up next, much to the fans’ adoration. Last was
HIDEKI, who had ditched his colorful vest in favor of a darker, more reserved jacket. The crowd was ready.
The music began with
Music, and with each call of “Motion! Motion!” the fans jumped closer and closer to the stage. Anyone not in the first few rows of fans may have found it difficult to see anything other than those jumping in front. The solution for most? Jump even higher. Those in the far back were likely immune, however; those standing behind the support pillar two meters from stage right found comfort in the 20” screen attached to the pillar.
The band’s first and only real MC break was a definite blast, as
HIDEKI and
K-A-Z bantered about the efficiency of — perhaps even the need for — policemen. When asked if anyone’s father was a cop, the crowd understandably went silent. The silence was broken by
Shun-Kan, one of many loud, hard fan favorites, and was followed by several more. Here, the distance between
SIAM SHADE and
DETROX was the most palpable. Long gone were the days of
Glacial Love and
Dear…, yet the emotion behind
HIDEKI’s voice had thus far remained intact.
One thing that impressed about
DETROX’s live was that there weren’t any one or two major fan favorites. Pretty much every song elicited the same powerful response from fans, the same jumping and fist-pumping that represented the genre
HIDEKI and his cohorts have ventured into. With
HIDEKI having come from the slightly softer
SIAM SHADE, and with
K-A-Z’s experience mostly with more unconventional bands like
The Mad Capsule Markets or
SADS, the two have found a common ground, off which their fans are more than happy to jump.
The hard rock continued, with every fan pumping at least twenty fists per minute as the live neared its end.
Dark and Light and
1-4-0 rounded out the main set, though the audience didn’t have to wait very long for the two-song encore. As the last notes of
Long Way Round played and the band left the stage, the “show’s over” venue announcement rang to the Japanese rock crowd equivalent of “you’ve got to be kidding me.” Some fans assumed that was that, and promptly left. Those 95% that waited, including those who joined in on the “ONE MORE SONG” chants despite the venue announcement, were in luck; the band returned for one last song, despite
HIDEKI’s insisting that they had already run out for the evening.
With one more performance of
Dark and Light, the band gave their fans the last farewell of the evening. The band is set to return to O-Crest in early 2011, along with several other one-man lives later in the year. For more information, visit their
official website.
Set list
01. Music
02. No Mercy
- MC -
03. Shun-Kan
04. Black Box
05. Kill the Light
- MC -
06. Stand My Ground
07. Doughty
08. Hooligan
- Anten (Blackout) –
09. Flashback
- SE -
10. Inspired
11. Wash Away
12. Let Our Souls Survive
13. Death-tech
- MC -
14. Ride an Angel
15. Muddy
16. Fight ‘til the Death
- MC -
17. Dark and Light
18. 1-4-0
EN 1. Lonely
EN 2. Long Way Round
(EN 3. Dark and Light)
