One of the main reasons for my trip was to attend my favourite band's summer tour. I mean, I would've gone ofcourse even if they didn't have any gigs, but since they announced fanclub only tours for the whole year and one of them was during the summer, I waited for the dates and booked my flights according to those.

Once the tour dates were announced, I decided to get tickets for three of them (all in Tokyo, because I didn't wanna travel too far and get lost lol) and luckily I got tickets to all gigs I wanted to! Here's a little summary of each concert:

SETLIST 1 ART DRAWN BY VOMIT 2 agony 3 COCKROACH 4 LEECH 5 MOB 136 BARS 6 A MOTH UNDER THE SKIN 7 GENTLE LIE 8 [子宮] 9 紅蓮 10 千鶴 11 13STAIRS[-]1 12 BURIAL APPLICANT 13 CIRCLE OF SWINDLER 14 HEADACHE MAN 15 OGRE 16 LINDA～candydive pinky heaven～ 17 関東土下座組合 encore 18 Ride with the ROCKERS 19 ワイフ 20 DISCHARGE 21 Filth in the beauty

Okay, so! The first of the three gigs I was about to attend, was on my second day in Tokyo. I had just spent my first night in my rented room and woke up feeling kinda like "woah, where the hell am I?". Anyway, I got up, went to grab some breakfast from 7Eleven and started getting ready for the gig in the evening (I tried to curl my hair but wow, it didn't work at all because of the heat and humidity). Luckily I had an idea where the concert venue would be, since I had been to Odaiba on my previous trip to Japan. I got to the venue early enough, so I had time to look for the office box where I was supposed to pick up my ticket from. Found it, got my ticket, did some merch shopping (I bought the keychain and mini pouch) and started waiting for the gig. At this point I was all by myself, because Anna, who was about to join me for this gig, had some trouble getting her ticket (which she had bought from another fan), so she didn't arrived to the venue until later. After she arrived, I met up with her and her friends and we went to put our stuff into a coin locker at the train station so it would be easy to get them back after the gig. This was btw my first ever gig in Japan, so I was all new to the live culture in there. Unlike in Finland, you don't have to wait in line to get in to the venue, because you have a number on your ticket which tells you when you can go in. Mine was 1221, so I got in when they called people between 1200 and 1299 or something like that. After that you paid the drink fee (¥500) and got coin you could change into a drink at any point of the concert you wanted to.

After getting the drinks, we ran to the concert hall and took the spots we liked/could and waited for other friends with bigger numbers to get in and join us.

Finally the gig started and woooow it was something else. Now, I've seen the GazettE live twice before, but only in Finland and the atmosphere was totally different. When in Finland, the only thing you do during the lives is raise your fist (and then maybe changing to the other hand because your arm gets tired) and mosh, in Japan, each song has different furis (furi = things you do with your hands during the song, kind of a coreography) or other things literally everyone does during each song. I knew this was how it was going to be, because I had heard about it, but it was still so cool to actually experience it.

I was a little afraid I wouldn't know all the furis, but it was easy to catch up by watching what other fans were doing. So instead of just staring at the band, doing things and having fun together as an audience, is a much better way to spend a gig and just having your eyes glued to the band.

The songs I liked the most were probably 13STAIRS[-]1 because I reeeeally wanted to hear it live (it's one of my favourite gaze songs), ワイフ (waifu) because it's one of their first songs and it was really cool live, AND 関東土下座組合 (kantō dogeza kumiai) because they never play it outside Japan and it has a really specific feeling to it. It was great.

There was two weeks between the first and second gig I attended. At first I was prepared to go alone to this one, but I got to know that Domi, whom I follow on Twitter, was also coming to this one. I messaged her and decided to meet her and her friends once before the live! When the day came, I first went to just pick up my ticket from the venue and then had dinner with Anna and Rena (who weren't coming to this live) quickly before the live. The time went by really quickly and I had to run back to the venue after eating to get there in time lol. Because of the tight schedule, I had to leave my stuff with Anna and ask her to put them into a locker at Shibuya station, but luckily that was okay and she was able to just text me the locker code so I could get them out after the gig came to an end. After getting in, I spotted Domi and the others in the audience and joined them for the live! The spots we got were reeeally good because even though we we're on the "back", the venue was quite small and we were standing on a platform (and because japanese people are short haha) we had a clear view to the stage! In one of the pics I snapped, you can see a girl wearing a t-shirt that says "green moral" on the back. I thought that was funny since the GazettE's merch brand is called "black moral", so what the hell was that.... The best songs during this live were probably Sugar Pain and obviously [DIS], because I did not expect to hear that one live at all!!

SETLIST 1 ART DRAWN BY VOMIT 2 agony 3 HEADACHE MAN 4 Hyena 5 MOB 136 BARS 6 Sugar Pain 7 CALM ENVY 8 紅蓮 9 千鶴 10 13STAIRS[-]1 11 BURIAL APPLICANT 12 A MOTH UNDER THE SKIN 13 CIRCLE OF SWINDLER 14 COCKROACH 15 OGRE 16 LINDA～candydive pinky heaven～ 17 関東土下座組合 encore 18 Ride with the ROCKERS 19 [DIS] 20 DISCHARGE 21 Filth in the beauty

SETLIST 1 「剥離」 2 THE INVISIBLE WALL 3 LEECH 4 COCKROACH 5 MOB 136 BARS 6 BEFORE I DECAY 7 ガンジスに赤い薔薇 8 白き憂鬱 9 泣ヶ原 10 DIM SCENE 11 13STAIRS[-]1 12 A MOTH UNDER THE SKIN 13 IN THE MIDDLE OF CHAOS 14 HEADACHE MAN 15 OGRE 16 LINDA～candydive pinky heaven～ 17 関東土下座組合 encore 18 Ride with the ROCKERS 19 Rich Excrement 20 DISCHARGE 21 Filth in the beauty

...aaand the final gig! Me and Rena had decided to do some outfit shopping and get our hair done before the live, because it was also the tour final! We met in front of Shinjuku Alta and continued our way to the top floor to buy red dresses from Fernopaa (also ended up being snapped for Fernopaa staff blog hehe). The idea behind the red dresses was because the GazettE has a song called 赤いワンピース (akai onepiece = red onepiece = red dress) and we were hoping they would play it for the final :D After we were done shopping for the dresses, we went to book a time for hair-dos. While waiting for our turn, we had lunch at Saizeriya. While eating, I tried to find a pic from Tumblr of the kind of hairset I wanted, so it would be easier to explain it to the hairdresser, because my japanese isn't that good yet. When it was time to get our hair done, we explained the kind of hair we wanted and the hairdressers started working right away. The salon we went to was Loove in Kabukicho. The hairset cost something like ¥1600 and it took 15minutes when I had 2 girls curling my hair, haha. Getting my hair done in Japan was something I've wanted to do for a long time and it was really fun and cheap too! If you ever visit Japan, please try it! After we were done, we met up with Anna and went to take some purikura before the gig. Shortly after we had to take a train to Shinkiba where the venue was located.

In the front of the venue we ran into Domi and the others and decided to join them for the live. The spots we got were kinda in the middle of the venue, a bit more on Uruha's side, but the venue was quite big so there was still a lot of people in front of us.

This live, being the tour final, started a bit different than the previous ones. The coolest songs were probably ガンジスに赤い薔薇 (ganges ni akai bara) because it had the cool flames and Uruha seemed to have some problems during the song because some staff members were fixing his things almost during the whole song lol. DIM SCENE had an amazing light show and it was extremely emotional, not to mention they played 白き憂鬱 (shiroki yuutsu) and 泣ヶ原 (nakigahara) just before it...

The audience got a bit too crazy during LINDA～candydive pinky heaven～ and people, me included, started falling over eachother. But luckily everyone was super nice and started pulling us back up right after we fell and everyone could continue dancing to their hearts content. Rich Excrement was also really nice to hear live.

Even though they didn't end up playing 赤いワンピース that me and Rena had hoped for, the live was amazing nevertheless. And I must say I have never sweated so much during a live! It was so hot that all of my lashes fell off and my hairset was totally destroyed (see the last pic, haha).

After the gig I decided to head home because I was sooo tired. I actually fell asleep in the train and drove past my stop and had to change it so I could get back, haha.

Going to lives in Japan was a great experience that I hope to redo sometime in the future! I would definitely like to see the GazettE again and also attend to my other favourite band's lives as well!