CLUB PSYENCE 2011 Summer Festival YACHATTE

The fact that the venue was O-East should have been a hint as to the nature of the event. Upon entering the venue, eyes were instantly drawn by the festival lanterns hanging overhead before drifting to the DJ platform set up in the middle of the stage complete with straw facing to make it more festive. It was rather like looking upon the setting of a Bon Festival. The crowd either echoed that statement, decked out in yukata ranging from the traditional, to distinctive hide themed patterns, or they defied it completely, barely dressed at all with skimpy outfits and large fuzzy legwarmers. One eye-catching outfit was a dark, flowing dress trimmed in gold with a large feather-fan to complete the ensemble. Of course, the remainder of the crowd were decked out in various hide cosplay with the odd X JAPAN shirt to be seen. Little CLUB PSYENCE fans handed out upon entry were getting plenty of use throughout the crowd while screens to either side of the house heated things further, either with footage of hide or live feeds of the DJs.

DJ FUKUSUKE。

Keeping up a steady beat of good dance music as the crowd filtered in, the vocalist of Adapter。 spun a great set, starting the event off with a true club atmosphere. He was decked out in a yellow hide collaboration yukata with pink swirls. Occasionally, he lifted his fingers, dancing cutely to the music under his black fedora. The cover remix of EYES LOVE YOU was a hit among the early-comers, scantily clad clubbers dancing on extensions leading down from the stage.

“Hey, I’m FUKUSUKE。. It’s chop and change, but please enjoy,” he said, in spite of the smooth transitions between his tracks. Sometimes the only giveaway to the hide numbers scattered throughout his set was the guitarist’s distinctive voice. As he wound it down, all too soon, the crowd cheered. “This is my last, so step it up!” the DJ cried, playing a funky remix of 50% & 50% with violin mixed in. “This was FUKUSUKE。!” he said proudly before handing over the turntables.

DJ MAGUMI

“I’m sure you’ll get a lot of this dude from the other DJs but I’m gonna focus on something a little different,” the DJ announced.

Nevertheless, the crowd seemed to shake off their afternoon naps with the opening track, BEAUTY & STUPID. DJ MAGUMI played a very entertaining set with some prominent 80’s/90’s American rock, flavored of course with some music of the event’s eternal benefactor.

Following MAGUMI’s set, a video rolled to announce the stars of the evening:
DJ INA
DJ DIENOJI
TLJ crew
DJ MAGUMI
DJ FUKUSUKE。
DJ HIROAKI ASAI
VJ-SHRIMP
“Wildness you can’t experience at a live here at this club event. Experience hide’s rock spirit,” pronounced the screens.

TLJ crew

Amid the everyday sounds of a space station, Tomuro of Rock Musical Pink Spider appeared on the side stage, greeted by the crowd’s cheers. He led the break-dancing, more of the crew, all clad in CLUB PSYENCE shirts, stepping out on stage for a performance set to intriguing spy music, all five hitting off a scissor kick at once.

DJ HIROAKI ASAI

The crowd cheered for the popular DJ and radio host, instantly clapping along with his specialty… the music of X JAPAN. He was attired splendidly in the ‘Yellow Hearts’ yukata, an expanse of yellow material decorated with pink hearts with the occasional black thrown in.

“Welcome to CLUB PSYENCE! Today is the summer festival so have a great time! Hey, how do I look in the ‘Yellow Hearts?’ Since I’m all dressed up, I thought I’d play lots of this sort of artist... The crowd freaked out as TOSHI’s voice continued to wash over them. Throughout the set, the DJ sunk into head-banging along with the crowd, occasionally riling them up with alternatively polite phrases such as, “Excuse me, could you please go a little more nuts?” When he complained, “Hey. No-one’s dancing,” the extensions were soon crowded with the brightest dressed and the cosplayers. As one, the whole crowd raised their hands simultaneously with a cheer to finish.

“Today’s the summer festival and it’s only just begun so look forward to it!” the DJ finished, introducing his successor.

DJ INA

Drinking his way onstage in a cool black yukata patterned in dark green, DJ INA freely greeted the crowd. “Hey how’s it going? Are you all drinking? It’s a summer festival so you can go for it. CLUB PSYENCE, wait is this CLUB PSYENCE? CLUB PSYENCE 2011 Summer Festival Yachatte! Welcome!”

Right off the bat, a heavily remixed Pink Spider led into the number itself, the DJ wandering the stage with his mic, holding it out to the crowd when he wasn’t singing himself. He continued with a run of hide favorites such as POSE, BACTERIA and SCANNER, filming the crowd on his phone and dragging children up onstage to sing and yell. He even rampaged with a water gun, soaking the delighted hide fans.

When he failed a transition by hitting the wrong button, the tipsy DJ laughed. “I was wearing geta but I fell on the stairs so they made me wear sandals. Oh, thanks!” he cried, as he received some refreshment from the staff. “I ordered water but she brought me beer!” he cried, pleased. “What day is it today?” he prompted suddenly. Someone yelled out that it was a marriage anniversary. “Oh Congrats! Well, hide has a ‘happyou song’ (Announcement Song) which you can’t have heard but he has one. Who came to his birthday live last time? I played it there. Who wants to hear it? Who wants to? Who wants to? Who wants to? Who doesn’t want to?” The crowd were not so easily caught out and thus were treated to the rarely heard, un-released number.

For his last song, HI-HO, DJ INA pulled up a troupe of children to sing, giving them free reign with the water gun while the crowd “hi ho”ed along. “Okay, I’m done. See you later,” he wrapped up, tossing some water and the bottle itself to excited shrieks.

“Time for a break now,” declared the video screens, showing a stand-by screen of some festival dancing accompanied by traditional music which the crowd clapped along until sirens blared. “Ready?” asked the screens.

TLJ crew

The dancers returned, clad in industrial fleuro yellow-trimmed purple outfits for POSE. It was a great performance, topped off with leader Tomuro pulling out his mobile phone prop and snapping it. Then came a pair of bright yellow hazard suits shining bright spotlights into the crowd’s faces. The dancers vanished, replaced by a mystery guest in a top-hat. The saxophone he blasted on, however, gave away his identity as Shinji Takeda, leading man from Rock Musical Pink Spider. Before long, his companion, Tomuro, joined in to break dance to the sax session, enhancing the music with radical facial expressions and movements both smooth and sharp at once. DJ ASAI stepped up to the turntables to add a digital beat to the collaboration, leading into his following set.

DJ HIROAKI ASAI

ASAI continued with a set full of X JAPAN, obviously loving it as much as the crowd if not more, alternatively cruising along and then flinging himself forward to head-bang. Every so often, he wandered down to the stage-front to toss some goodies to the loyal fans. At one point, the DJ sported a childish grin... and a fire extinguisher which he loosed over the crowd, his live recordings and onstage antics adding an extra dimension to the so-called DJ event. The crowd went nuts as X JAPAN was abandoned just the once for a heavily edited but very cool DOUBT, DJ ASAI tossing his head with the best of them.

“Was it fun?” ASAI greeted prior his last number. “The second half has just begun so enjoy the rest! After this I’m gonna head down there and go nuts with you all, so… please let me join in.”

DJ DIENOJI

Not one DJ, but a pair of comedians and their tag-along dancers, DIENOIJI were highly energetic and entertaining throughout the set of hide music mixed with some nostalgic 80’s rock. The DJ then introduced his partner in crime as “Super air-guitarist”, who jammed his air guitar to the next track singing “You look so fine that I really wanna make you mine!” at the crowd while the dancers brought out a “Woo-fu” sign for the next famous track. In the instrumental, the DJ repeated a chorus of “Oh yeah! Sing that song!” Then came a Japanese 80’s number featuring a “Washoi!” sign.

All of that fun meant nothing though, in contrast to the screams as Rusty Nail began. However, the music came to an abrupt halt right at the cuff of the wild opening instrumental. “Is this really CLUB PSYENCE? What did you come here for? Let’s hear your big voices!” cried the DJ, starting over. Then, during the intro to Kurenai, a stool was set between the dancers, and out walked a vision from the past. “I’m Are from the duo Up Down,” said the old-school TOSHI cosplayer. He kept talking until the very moment the vocal line came in, cutting off expertly mid-sentence to blast out a scarily accurate impression of the X JAPAN vocalist. Meanwhile, a large-bellied older man sauntered out in a hideous, curly blond wig and a “neck brace” that took up half his face, sitting upon the stool and blasting out some air-drums while the crowd screamed for “YOSHIKI!” The live version of the song included the formidable line, “On guitar… hide!” to which the fans let out a unified shriek.

The short set of live covers came to a head with none other than X, DIENOJI making the signal along with everyone else until the recording ran on with the traditional call and response… “We are…!?” Then the DJ spoke up. “You’ve had fun, you’ve rampaged, you’ve made noise! Now let’s finish this properly!” The crowd screamed almost as loudly as for hide with the cosplayers cry of “On bass… TAIJI!” More shouting led into more music, DJ INA dancing along and making violin motions in the wings. At last, “YOSHIKI” collapsed and “TOSHI” began a chorus of Forever Love from the heart as he and the drummer stumbled forward to embrace, and then helped each other offstage.

The moment they were gone, “Fore-” was cut off with some hardcore hide. The “air guitar champion” of earlier returned, hardly looking rested at all. “Hey, ojisan, when you weren’t here YOSHIKI showed up!” the DJ cried, the crowd laughing as it all became clear. Then it was time to wrap things up. “Let's all sing this one last song together… TELL ME.”

Following the familiar old number, the final DJ was announced to be “-can’t see him as anything but drunk… DJ INA!”

DJ INA

Upon his return, one of INA’s first deeds was to entice out the boss, he and the crowd screaming HIROSHI!!!! “Heat it up and please yachatte!” Hiroshi requested rather shyly.

The set began with the appropriate, CELEBRATION, the DJ dragging up onstage a strange creature in a massive manga-style mask, skirted in tartan like a school-girl. The guests for Pink Spider, however, were easily recognizable, TAKA and CUTT appearing out of nowhere to sing the number in their heavy style.

When asked to greet the crowd, TAKA hummed. “Hey. I used to be from transtic nerve. Now I’m doing a band called defspiral. That’s aaalll.” A moment later, though, he gave the crowd their due:
YAY! SHIBUYA! YACHIMAEYO!!!!
YACHIMAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Next, the infamous Fish Scratch Fever had the crowd flocking up onstage, INA holding the mic out to random clubbers, but not long enough for any to finish a call of “Gold Fish Boy!”, although his first victims were two little girls he’d targeted in his earlier set. “From today on, I’ll be raising them,” he joked. “Hey, Souchou’s not here today,” he commented, referring to a CLUB PSYENCE and hide event regular famous for skimpy YOSHIKI cosplay and for leading the crowd’s onstage sorties. “Hoshiko! Hoshiko! Visual Oyaji!” he cried, dragging out the famous producer from backstage. However, the number ended soon after, the DJ, drunk as a duck, apologizing as he sidled up to extend the number.

BEAUTY&STUPID gave INA the run of the stage once more before he dragged them all up again for ever free. It was like Halloween in summer up on the stage, skimpy outfits, traditional and hide themed yukata and weirdness everywhere with pink and red wigs scattered throughout. There was even one older Western fellow in an X JAPAN shirt. Then the DJ herded them all off again during the final number of MISERY, DJ ASAI re-appearing to sing along while defspiral’s TAKA could be seen in the wings, taking photos on his i-phone with its ‘yellow hearts’ cover.

In order to finish things up properly, ASAI called out all the guests and DJs, and TAKA wasted not a moment, crying “SHIBUYA! Lets sing!” Throughout the finale of ROCKET DIVE, he, fellow defspiral member, bassist RYO and Shinji Takeda wandered with mics in hand, singing out the number. The stage was almost as chaotic as when the crowd were up there, DJs singing at random, DIENOJI’s dancers displaying an “Oi!” sign to get the crowd to shout. Meanwhile, up on the screens, hide’s music video commanded attention even as Shinji blasted on sax until the end.

DJ ASAI then introduced the DJs and guests one last time:
TLJ Crew!
DJ FUKUSUKE。!
DJ MAGUMI!
DJ DIENOJI!
DJ INA!
Takeda Shinji!
defspiral’s TAKA! (“And for some reason defpiral’s RYO is here, too!”)
CUTT!
“Oh, and DJ HIROAKI ASAI.”

“Lets clap for hide! And for TAIJI!” he concluded, nicely closing the fun, summer event.

Before the crowd ever budged, the screens lit up with some exciting information:
-CLUB PSYENCE Halloween Party
DJ JUN (from SPIV STATES）
DJ Yatsuiichiro (from Elekicomick)
DJ HIROAKI ASAI
VJ SHRIMP

-hide birthday party 2011
-2012 hide comic Pink Spider
-hide renaissance now in production

With those prospects to look forward to, the crowd applauded one final time, raising calls to hide before calling it a night at last.