HITT Holds His Head Up High

Just like the previous concert of Belgian event organizer Ramen Events in Amstelveen, the concert started with an European opening act. Retsugo, Engrish for “Let’s go,” is a French band led by a Japanese singer. They offered a decent metal sound supplemented by Masaki’s clear and powerful, yet still gentle voice. Only two days earlier, the band had released their first album, Hope and Despair.

The songs varied in style but still maintained unity. The same couldn’t be said about the stage presentation though. While Masaki looked very stylish in a black suit, his band members failed to match him with their wild hair and wide t-shirts. The audience didn’t seem to care less. All eyes were focused on the somewhat stiff, humoristic singer who managed to win over many hearts with his comments.

After 45 minutes, the attendees were warmed up for headliner HITT. He wasn’t having a very good day; he had a cold and had fallen down a staircase and hurt his knee. One could say the poor singer could use a warm reception from the audience after his bad fortune, but the apathetic reaction he received could only be called saddening.

The similarities with his peer MIYAVI are numerous, but the lack of fans made one wonder why MIYAVI is so popular while HITT was performing for pretty much an empty venue. Perhaps he’s just too eccentric, singing to his own mirror image and extending the narcissism even more by using a QUEEN song to glorify his own name. The location of the concert also seemed to be a rather unfortunate choice — not many J-rock fans lived in the Holland area and Dutch fans that lived further away from Amstelveen would be less encouraged to check out a rather unknown artist.

Despite the cold reaction of the audience and the low number of attendees, HITT performed well and made the best of it, even touching the visitors to get a reaction. The soloist showed all his tricks on stage and demonstrated his skills on piano, drums, bass, vocals and dance; there’s obviously no need for a band. With his diverse talents, HITT had no problem entertaining an audience for a few hours.

After fourteen songs, the multi-talent came back for an encore. After receiving lovely white panties from a member in the audience and putting them on while begging the audience not to make any photos, he played another two songs. For the last song, opening act Retsugo also re-appeared on stage to play LUNA SEA’s Tonight together with HITT and the evening ended with a signing session.


Set list:

01. Sexy Galaxy
02. Kakkotsuke Man
03. Piero no Kidoairaku
04. Shiawasenara heart ni MEGAHITT
05. Kaizokusen
06. Luliiro no sora
07. Sakura Romance
08. RENDEZ-VOUS
09. Hitters Boogie 2
10. Lalilalulalola
11. Yuurei Castle
12. Hitters Boogie 3
13. face
14. I'm crazy

Encore:

01. REMEMBER
02. Shall we rock?
03. Tonight (cover)