Mucc in Shinkiba

After 14 months of being here, I finally got to see my favorite (current) Japanese band live!! I was so excited I ended up nearly forgetting a couple things on my way to the train...

Left the station at 1PM and arrived in Shinkiba around 4. Made a quick shopping stop in Kashiwa.... Got to Shinkiba and walked to the venue, seeing very few people waiting around. Browsed the band merch a moment, and as I was putting my purchases away, EVERYONE PILED OUT OF THE VENUE. Came to find out there had been a mini concert right before that I wasn't aware of.  Endured the sweltering, claustrophobic conditions to get a locker for my merch and took my purse and satchel with me. This will end up being a minor mistake in judgement.

Found a girl from Germany living in Osaka and chatted with her while we waited for them to start letting people in. Met some of her concert friends, as well, and it turned out 3 of the 5 of us liked Satochi the best (This is rare). Yay!
At first we thought I had a great ticket number but it turned out I was 8 away from being dead last. B92. "A" tickets went all the way to 2400. So one might think I had a crappy location but this venue fed us in from the side of the room, not the back, so I managed to get ridiculously close to the front, just way off to the side which was just fine - good view of Miya and Satochi :D
Unlike at Kashiwa the bar was outside the performance area so I had the choice to drink before or after. I opted for before, got a rum and coke again, but didn't have time to nurse and enjoy it. I chugged and chucked, then made my way inside. I was happy to confirm that I was taller than nearly everyone in front of me... huehuehue Put my ear plugs in and waited.

The lights went down and we cheered. I stood out with my American WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! XD Or at least I think I did. But instead of band members we watched a clip of videos from their European tour and a few back stage things. Then they came on stage! One nice thing I learned about Mucc fans in Japan is they don't opt for high pitched, prepubescent squeals of the member names, but kept their shouts at lower registers.
The music started and we soon rushed the stage, which resulted in me getting even closer! And pushed around but that's ok, I weigh more than all of them! Except I gotta protect my bag... And my glasses. Thank God I got frames that hook behind the ears; my first pair would have flown right off my face.

There was lots of headbanging and pushing to be had, but the third song was when the real moshing actually started... Body surfing had started, and my being taller than everyone turned into a problem as I'd get limbs hooking around my neck, joints and feet hitting the back of my head, and people grabbing my shirt. All well and good but yeah I was dumb to have so much crap with me. I learned for next time, at least. A girl beside me also had glasses and during the more intense moshing songs (LIKE "Utagoe" APPARENTLY) we both were like, "Uuuhhh *takes them off*" XD There was another girl that barely came up to my shoulders and when she'd get pushed and shoved around, especially backwards, I'd grab her and pull her forward, even if just so I could keep an eye on her. For the most part I had a wide-legged stance and elbows poised to block and poke any that dared ^^
At a couple points they had us clear a space in the middle of the floor, filled the room with fog, and started the mosh music again... ^^;;;; So much sweat and body heat everywhere.

As you'd expect, they played mostly new stuff but the classics that got played included, "Utagoe," "Fuzz," "Ryuusei," and I want to say one other but I forget. The set list is out there somewhere. There was some brief MCing and a short break or two, and then they went off and we stomped, clamped, and shouted for the encore ("Oi!"). They came back after about ten minutes and played a few more moshy songs. For the final song, Aki from SID came out to join, and they went all out with the flame jets and silver streamers and and and and Satochi tossed out some drumsticks and augh ;A; Then they said goodbye and left the stage, and we were treated to another set of clips, and an announcement of a tour video, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the music video to "Suiren" which is pretty awesome and moving.

Aaaand then we filtered out and my new German friend (whom I apparently knew on Tumblr, we found out) made the 3 hour trek back to Mito.

Oh, and there was a casualty: my Y100 folding fan got knocked out of my bag and trampled XD I retrieved the corpse for posterity.