#fromdepressionto

[harunamizeniikura]

Finally! o// #DIRENGREY #TheWorldofMercy #fromdepressionto https://www.instagram.com/p/B3WmlhrCWZG/?igshid=fjdmb6l48rnw

[yridenergyridenergy]

History of Dir en grey’s tours

The title may sound presumptuous as this post is nowhere near complete, however I just studied Dir en grey’s whole timeline section and made some interesting discoveries. Some of them might already be common knowledge, especially among Japanese fans, but I doubt the full scale of the connections between older tours and the recent Tour 2016-2017 FROM DEPRESSION TO ___ [mode of X] shows has ever been highlighted. 

My curiosity was piqued when the host of the guesthouse I stayed at in Kouchi this summer mentioned that he had remembered that the local newspaper had covered Dir en grey’s concert many, many years ago and that that was why the name rang a bell. I had found Kouchi to be quite a weird place for Dir en grey to tour, not to mention that the tour started there of all places. And then, that MC Die did at the last show in Iga apparently, a place that was very isolated, it seemed; the weird seated venues Dir en grey was playing at in the [mode of MACABRE] tour; those perfect 8月3日木曜日  and 8月5日土曜日 shows; the random locations Dir en grey would visit besides the regular cities; etc. It seemed like too many coincidences. 

It turns out that someone among Dir en grey’s team might be doing their best to drop easter eggs from the past within these tribute tours, because: 

[mode of MACABRE]

August 26th 1999 - Kouchi Caravan Sarai    →     July 15th 2017 - Kouchi Prefectural Hall, Orange Hall

Not the perfect example, but Kouchi was first visited around GAUZE - MACABRE, and Dir en grey missed the opportunity to go there again during Tour 2014 PSYCHONNECT -mode of GAUZE?-. The island of Shikoku in general was visited a few times back then, but more rarely in the recent years, if my memory serves right. 

January 14th 2001 - Ueno Municipal Hall     →    August 5th 2017 - Iga City Cultural Center

Thanks to Die for that precision that they came 16 years ago to Iga (and kyotakumrau for reporting his words), otherwise somehow I had not found this hah. The one time Dir en grey went that far, in that remote location, was in 2001 for the tour  00>>01　MACABRE　brain gain(er) brain drain(er). Again, too weird a location to end a tour, if there are so few people who travel there that the train only has two wagons. This show was affected by a transfer, in the past. 

August 17th 2001 - Grand Cube Osaka    →    July 17th 2017 - Grand Cube Osaka

August 18th 2001 - Grand Cube Osaka    →    July 18th 2017 - Grand Cube Osaka

Immediately following the release of  改-KAI-, which contains remixes of MACABRE songs, Dir en grey played twice literally at Grand Cube Osaka. Sixteen years later, they play twice at that venue too, and on the same days one month earlier. Osaka is a very common Dir en grey stop, so I was not expecting to find such a glaring evidence of the connections here. Wow. This was one of the venues I found weird for Dir en grey to be playing at. 

[mode of  鬼葬]

Chinese tour 2002       →    October 28th 2016 - KITEC Rotunda Hall 3

From what I recall, Hong Kong fans remembered in 2016 that Dir en grey had visited them for 鬼葬 too. On top of that, it was literally in the same venue: Kowloonbay International Exhibition Trading Center. They went out of their way to emulate the  列島激震行脚 2002　-亜細亜- (Archipelago Fierce Episode Gang 2002 - Asia-) The Japanese Fxxker Family tour in at least one venue. 

March 6th 2002 - Club Citta Kawasaki -a knot only-       →    

March 7th 2002 - Club Citta Kawasaki     →     November 7th 2016 -  CLUB CITTA’ [MALE LIMITED] -｢a knot｣ & ONLINE only-

October 29th 2002 - Club Citta Kawasaki -a knot only-      →    November 8th 2016 -  CLUB CITTA’ [FEMALE LIMITED] -｢a knot｣ & ONLINE only-

October 30th 2002 - Club Citta Kawasaki -a knot only-      →    

The abundance of CLUB CITTA shows following the release of the  鬼葬 album (for tours 列島激震行脚 2002 The Japanese Fxxker Family and 列島激震行脚 2002 5 UGLY KINGDOM) has translated into at least two concerts at that venue again for the [mode of  鬼葬] tour, following the tradition of having them be a knot only for the most and going one step further by dividing fans into male and female groups. It was not the first time Dir e grey did this, back in 2002, but they missed the opportunity to replicate that during Tour 2014 PSYCHONNECT -mode of GAUZE?-.

[mode of VULGAR]

October 21st 2003 - Kurashiki City Art Tribe Museum      →    June 19th 2016 - Kurashiki City Art Tribe Museum

Dir en grey staff is good at publishing banal messages like: “It’s been x years since we played in this venue, wow! Hope to see you all rock out with us again!”, but they do not make you realise exactly when and for what occasion Dir en grey played there. In this case, this is no coincidence: if I remember correctly, this was the only time they went there at all, and it was the first time they had gone to Okayama at all, back in Tour03 OVER THE VULGAR SHUDDER. So, you connect the dots and it makes so much sense that they would return to that location exactly during the tribute tour to the same album. 

[mode of THE MARROW OF A BONE]

September 18th 2008 - Miyazaki WEATHERKING       →    April 29th 2017 - Okinawa Music Town Sound Market

Not that Dir en grey had never before traveled that down south in Japan, but during the tour THE ROSE TRIMS AGAIN in 2008, Dir en grey visited Miyazaki for the first time. As if wanting to push even farther, they went further south in 2017 and played in Okinawa for the first time. 

Overall, it really looks like they realised that they missed some occasions during Tour2014 PSYCHONNECT -mode of GAUZE?- and that they tried their best to catch up on that in the tours for albums released close to GAUZE anyway. It makes you wonder if they had planned for the tribute tours back then or if they thought the GAUZE tribute tour would be all and quickly done with. 

I know that some of those things are a stretch sometimes, but you do have to take into consideration that booking venues is not easy, and this could be why some regions were ignored or they had to improvise and go with the closest alternative, like in that Miyazaki - Okinawa case. People definitely sat down at a table and agreed to do their best to revisit areas they had ignored for many years, and to reproduce what had been iconic about some of the old tours. 

Hopefully not too much of what I mentioned is already written and announced in the Dir en grey fan club magazines, which I have not had the opportunity to translate for myself yet...

Key points for Dir en grey’s tour history globally: 

We are so lucky that Kyo has stopped having medical issues. Years 1997 to 2004 or so are punctuated by frequent tonsillitis, hearing loss and other similar illnesses, and Dir en grey had to postpone so many concerts back then. Kyo’s surgery also dates back to so many years, wow. 

It was in 2007 that Dir en grey started playing a lot less across Japan. Before that year, the majority of their tours had easily double the number of shows as their current tours do. In 2007, it was due to committing to play across the world, in Europe and in North America, but I do not know what is stopping them from playing in all of Tokyo’s surrounding regions again like in the old days... Hopefully not age hah. 

What a journey. 

Let me know if you find other parallels!

[yridenergyridenergy]

Dir en grey [mode of Withering to death] Kyoto Day 1 live report

First of all, this show at least started very colourful. It took until Kodou for the lights to be less of a rainbow. Kyo's hair is now dyed pink: I was just telling myself how that would be the next logical step to surprise us, and he did hah. I also had a feeling that he would wear Adidas track pants and he damn did! Even though it was more around Vinushka PV era. What the hell. These ones were more fitted than the previous ones though, and he either rolled the legs or stuck them in high top shoes that had FLUORESCENT green laces. Also what the hell. Kyo came out wearing a tuxedo with two tails behind, so you can imagine the 'colourful' and weird character that portrayed altogether. Kaoru's hair is also silver! Of course we should have guessed that that platinum blond would just be the base for another colour hah. Die wore a white blouse shirt, so Shinya was not the only one wearing white tonight. Technically, Kyo also had a white dress shirt with either a drooping collar or some of the buttons unattached at the top, with only half of it tucked in his pants again. Most of the songs sounded exactly like what I remember of the Withering to death DVDs. Kyo still danced sensually (?) to Itoshisa and some other songs, but Kaoru added a melody on top of some of the last segments of that song, unless I am just not remembering the song right. The live started with Merciless Cult, and it seemed obvious that both band and fans were delighted to begin with this one. Both ballads used the same picture of a back being grabbed from the front by multiple hands. Kodou did not have the second scream, as far as I remember, and another thing that disappointed me slightly was that Kodoku ni shisu, yueni kodoku's chorus was almost exclusively high-pitched, way more than in the recorded song and I would have prefered some growling instead. It is really one of my favourite songs though hah. I really liked that new Magayasou backdrop video with the exploding, cybernetic liquid thing - at least, I cannot remember seeing that video in the 2015 lives. The songs that had PVs (real, not live collages, e.g. Saku, dead tree) had mostly just that used as backdrop. C was good but Kyo barely sung it. At least he did sing the part, at the end, where he speaks of singing until his voice dies. There were two instances, one that was in the middle of a song and, the other, at the very end, where they let Kyo scream in a prolonged way. At the end of dead tree, he dropped to his knees, and that was very dramatic on the moment. Everybody was silent and immobile until the next song. Machiavellism's video showed a lot of stuff about war hypocrites. He had us sing a lot of the "Jesus Christ R'nR" chorus. G.D.S. came on right at the beginning of the encore! I had been upset that it had not been used as SE at the beginning, but this was awesome too. All the members seemed hyped. The video of the burning scepter made it even more awesome somehow as well. Kyo insisted more, it seems, for us to sing most of Un deux, right after they had done The Final (Unraveling version), and I cannot help but see it as a very positive message towards us, that you can think you are at the lowest bottom BUT, 'keep looking forward and I want to hear you say it like you mean it!' At the end, Kyo made us clap along with him, but then he stopped. Seeing as we had not followed that break, he started clapping and then suddenly stopped again and we just barely caught on too, laughing, so he left with a small wave of the ha d as if saying: 'Yeah, I'm done fooling with you, bye!' Amazing show, but damn, a knot members have seat tickets that require binoculars, really? By the way, the GARBAGE box is made of tin, very cool. Hopefullt I am not forgetting too much...

[yridenergyridenergy]

Dir en grey Tour Mode of MACABRE Osaka Day 1 live report

Well most of it was the same as in Kochi and apparently the prohibition was a misunderstanding, so let me repost this live report with a few precisions:

- Of course they began with Deity.

- Then came Macabre right after, if I remember correctly. Two great songs, but you could tell that the energy had really not been stirred yet.

- In Kochi, sadly for Macabre, the audience definitely became more awake after the first four or five songs, when Dir en grey played Hydra 666 followed by Uroko. In Osaka, thankfully Kyo was really more into the songs this time, so the fact that he danced a lot during egnirys cimredopyh +) an injection really helped hype everyone.

- As I mentioned in the preliminary thoughts, Kyo’s hair is now dyed turquoise, still somewhat bowl cut, definitely in the back. It is not just blue, definitely a little green. Kaoru is blond and it fits him so well, especially with the eyeshadow.

- Drawings coming up, but here were the outfits: * Kyo: A trenchcoat with a harness on top, and really ample clean pants. Overall a bit too much like a slim Kim Jong Un. Underneath the trenchcoat with studs like on a leatuer biker jacket, he seemed to have a shirt with two cute animal blobs on it. People who were closer may know better. In Osaka, he wore the skinny black jeans with torn knees, and he had a long large coat with a big hoodie, tied around his neck. He used the floating sides to create the illusion of a winged creature when, during Macabre, each member gets illuminated by a huge spotlight behind them, creating odd shadows on the veil in front of the whole stage. Underneath, he had some shirt with a triangular pattern on the shoulders and top. * Kaoru: A very nice top with naked shoulders, the sleeves were attached to the sides of the abdomen. He had either very ample and low sarouel pants or a sort of long skirt, but what is more interesting is the leggings he had underneath that were like bandages, with some black showing under. * Shinya: white blouse or whatever, as usual essentially. * Toshiya: sort of marshall jacket, similar to what the singer of Lost On You is known to wear, with tight black pants. At Osaka day 1, his jacket seemed blander and he definitely wore a white shirt with a thin black tie. * Die: some long coat with a fur scarf even though it’s a heat wave? With tight pants that resembled the relief you would get if you were to wrap bandage around your legs, with skin actually looking like it showed through in some places. ! -- The back of his left leg actually shows a lot of skin. The coat might actually be short and the part below was definitely some sort of long skirt cut on the sides, at Osaka. For the encore, Kyo wore the same pink and black blouse as in the sukekiyo niconico interview, with tight black pants and a sort of bow with two ribbons dropping from it. In Osaka, they were white, rather than black. Die and Shinya wore the cat shirt from the tour goods. In Osaka, Die wore the jam shirt instead. Kaoru had a black long-sleeve long shirt and you could really see the leggings then. Toshiya removed his jacket to reveal a white dress shirt, I believe. - Berry was fun, in the sense that Kaoru and Die took this opportunity to come on the side ramps closer to the audience. All the members seemed to have fun in this song too. The English dialogue in the middle of the song was either cut entirely or way too low to be heard. In Osaka Grand Cube, of course there are no ramps, but Kaoru and Die still exchanged their side of the stage. Overall less fun for the other members, in Osaka, during Berry.

- Overall again the only songs that brought everything out if the audience were more recent ones, but they ended the main setlist with Wake and then Zakuro, which was very emotional. They left and we did not know what to do at all, what was happening. It was silent. After a minute, the chants for the encore began. You could feel that Kyo was not bored at all during those two songs, whereas in others, he would move less, sing just the same rythm as in the album recordings, like in the Psychoconnect Gauze tour. In Osaka, there was less silence, so members left to fans clapping, at least.

- The encore was packed with energy, having notably Kr Cube (Kyo loves this one, he danced and came to the side ramps in Kochi, while he danced a lot but mostly teased the audience with the original arm moves for this song), un deux and Utafumi, ending with Rassetsukoku. In Osaka, un deux was replaced with SUSTAIN THE UNTRUTH and he had us sing along a lot.

- Kyo left early, but Kaoru threw a lot of picks.

- During Ain't afraid to die, a video of a man getting burnt alive was played, and it was very emotional. It seemed like it might have been refering to some Tibetan cause. Apparently self-immolation is commonly used to protest things. In this and another song, in Kochi, all members except Shinya turned and faces the back, the screen. In Osaka, Kyo was clearly crying at some points.

- A huge disco bell came down near the climax of Zakuro and somehow it felt just right.

- In Osaka, there was almost a back collision between Kyo and Die.

- Also in Osaka, Kyo wanted to walk to the right side of the stage but his mic cord got stuck in the central cage. A staff member came put to help but he tugged it out while singing like a pro, as if it was nothing.

Do not hesitate to ask any questions or tell me what to focus on more, as this is literally my first live report.

Overall, a great show of course, but it did not necessarily make me like my ‘least favourite’ songs more: I loved what I knew I would love.

I cannot say this enough: I do not understand how anyone, but especially the Japanese audience, can simply remain immobile during Dir en grey's 'slower' but so emotional songs. Know that, friend or stranger, I will never remain unmoved and not stretch a hand in your direction if you display sadness. You are deserving of my shoulder muscles cramping progressively.

[yridenergyridenergy]

Dir en grey Tour From depression to ___ [mode of MACABRE] Tokyo day 2 live report

This was the last show I could attend this tour, and wow was it the best one. I want to start by warning that the following could be considered spoilers, since this concert will also appear on the DVD. Usually nobody minds knowing, but just in case. After reading reports of yesterday's show and how bland the audience was, I was determined to at least punctuate that sea of people with my legendary raised arm, as well as at least clapping. There were still some songs that ended with silence, but overall it was a lot livelier than what it looks like yesterday was. They used a new opening sequence that I had apparently not seen yet, since Nagoya day 2 hah. It has a sort of horror carnavalesque music and the video shows medieval scenes, like a freaky bride, a castle, etc. It was a powerful moment to experience out of nowhere, in my case. Then, deity starts and the members are already on stage except Kyo, and due to the video being projected on the veil and the loud music, I think nobody at all screamed for their arrival, unlike every other time. Tonight, Kyo had the long cloak he has had since Osaka, but he let some strands of the harness around it stand straight outward somehow, which really gave the impression of antennas or other insect parts during the shadow projection, when he bent. I am so glad I was able to hear Tousei finally in this tour. It had not been part of the setlists for the shows I attended ever since they played it in Osaka day 2. And I had a good seat in the front area (not that close to the stage but literally the best seat I have had in this tour yet), the person who had the seat in front of me never showed up so that somewhat singled me out in a way and gave me a good view, and I kept my arm up to connect with the band and show support, while mouthing the lyrics and almost crying, and I swear Kyo looked at me a few times during Tousei and the rest of the concert and nodded slightly, like we knew what the whole thing was about. I think he had noticed that I was moving a lot, along with what the band was actually doing too, in Wake. I know every fan must be saying that at least once, but I swear it is true hah. Anyway, there were a few cool times where both Kyo and Toshiya bent down during hard moments, at the same time. It really made the moment more powerful, and that was not done on purpose at all. During perhaps Berry, Kaoru and Die faced each other on the right side and played guitar like that, grinning. Kyo barely spoke this time. I think he barely even said 'Nakano' or 'Tokyo'. Instead, right before the last song, he pointed to sections of the crowd and when they shouted, he pounded the mic on his chest, over his heart. He also did that pounding at the beginning of Tousei, by the way. Kaoru was wearing similar pants to before, buf the bandage-like parts were red and black instead of white and black. At the end, he bent down, sideward, offering his ear to the crowd, as if saying: "I'll only throw more picks if I hear what I want." Kyo again wiped some of his makeup on a towel before throwing it. Instead of spitting water on the fans, he let most of his bottle's content pour on the stage while he made his way to the edge and then threw it away. I think I am really forgetting something (I am certain that something happened during KR Cube), but man, this show was so awesome. Great way to finish my personal tour. I so wish I could for sure attend September's. It was so great following Dir en grey across Japan, in those four cities. Dir en grey certainly makes tourism blossom. It was great seeing them, but especially Kyo, grow more and more into the songs, of course making me tag along even if I had not wanted to. It was great seeing the lighting used in this tour vary slightly at each venue depending on their limitations. I can totally understand why they would want to film the shows in Nakano Sun Plaza: it was grandiose, especially with that theatrical curtain all around the stage. It was so cute watching Die stay on the stage the longest every single time. He seems so timid, like he clearly wants to grab all the attention to himself, and it warms him up inside, but he doesn't know how to deal with it either so he bows his head and turns his gaze away shyly sometimes. Expect a drawing of at least the encore outfits, probably.

[yridenergyridenergy]

This one MAY have been better than the two From depression to ___ [mode of THE MARROW OF A BONE] shows I attended in Tokyo? Damn I never really expected this from MACABRE. What a good run I had. #Direngrey #fromdepressionto #MACABRE #ModeOfMACABRE #nakanosunplaza #tour #soremuscles (à 中野サンプラザ)

[thedespicableblog]

Official Dir en grey Official Tour 16-17 From Depression To __________ tee.. Whoever got this shirt we can be BFF (big fat friends).. Managed to get this a few years ago with the help of a friend in Japan.. Used to listen to them a lot.. 🤘🔥☠️🇯🇵 #DirEnGrey #Tour1617 #FromDepressionTo #Japan #JapaneseVisualKei #GothicMetal #MetalUpYourAss #KeepMetalAlive #KeepItLoudAndHeavy #MetalForLife #MetalTillIDie #InMetalWeBlast #ExtremeMusicForExtremePeople #SpreadLoveThroughMusic (at House of Metal) https://www.instagram.com/p/CRRTwDupP4P/?utm_medium=tumblr

[godofrapture]

Look what arrived today. ♡♡ My memoca pia cards of VULGAR tour! (The picture is pretty bad, but I'm not motivated in the least today.) #direngrey #diru #dir #fromdepressionto #modeofvulgar #vulgar #mylife #mylove