| GiGS No. 315 January 2010 - A Band's Progress Seen from One Year of Live Performances
The Band's Evolution Seen From this Past Year's Live Performances.
DIR EN GREY, whose released their strongest [most psychotic]2 album, "UROBOROS", last year in November, first displayed this world of theirs in December at the Osaka Jyo Hall (Osaka Castle Hall). Later by overlapping oversea and domestic concerts, the band took "UROBOROS" furthermore into their own bodies, allowing them to produce an even more powerful sound image. In addition, it can be said that their newest work "Hageshisa to, Kono Mune no Naka de Karamitsuita Shakunetsu no Yami" was given birth from the feedback they received. This "UROBOROS" will, for the moment, come to a completion in January next year at the Budoukan concert, however before that, we will follow the footsteps of the band's evolution/transformation via concerts performed throughout this one year.
The monster that finally began moving with "concerts" as its catalyst.
From just holding "UROBOROS", the album in your hands, you the feel the tension run through. It's been about a year and half since release now, yet, we still cannot ignore it. Instead of the feeling of enjoyment towards the sound, there is a feeling of grappling1. As "SA BIR" begins, the growls of double bass shakes our whole body. From there opens up the coming circa 60 minutes. Heavily considered individual phrases intricately entangle to create a rich arrangement; a careful investigation of the voice use and harmony create this vocal arrangement. Heartfelt production and mixing brings surprises and discoveries from each listen. This album serves more than just a concert guide book, a preview, or a review, but is a work that demands one to take time and to look repeatedly at.
gigs03To give this album some raw breath, DIR EN GREY put together "UROBOROS-breathing-" December 29, last year, at the Osaka Castle Hall. Often times passionate fans call going to the concerts "participating in war". However, that day, this type of statement was not appropriate enough. Most of the songs were their first time being performed; from the audience, before the curtain rise was already an air of tension. It has been a month and a half since the album's November 12th release; since then, after heavy listening, everyone each had their own shape of ideal and completion for "UROBOROS". On top of that the lowest bar and the reproduction of the album's quality was already an extraordinarily high hurdle. When the venue went black there was a tremendous acclamation with the thrill to experience "UROBOROS" live finally but also with a threatening "Can you really do this?" mixed in with their expectations.
There was silence. Between "SA BIR" to "VINUSHKA", Kaoru's acoustic guitar phrase plays. This was to be expected from the album's flow, but at that moment every one held their breath. Then from the silence Kyo's lonesome voice sings. Next, Die's distorted riff signals a modulation; Shinya and Toshiya brings in their rhythms and at this time every one in the audience reaches excitement as their ideals take form. The band members continue to face their songs in focused concentration as they drag the audience deeper into their world of "UROBOROS". The moment at the end of the concert, when the other members line up surrounding Kyo, conveyed some sense of achievement. For "UROBOROS"s first performance, DIR EN GREY has shown off a high-level of perfection. Nevertheless with the next tour, they give us another new interpretation of "UROBOROS". A quality this high and yet with a conceptual flow that this work communicates, but on the other hand, this can also mean to reject stepping out of its boundaries. In simpler terms, nothing less than reproduction will be forgiven. However, instead of choosing to reproduce, the band members chose to "express".
By breaking the seal of past numbers, they exhibit a more evolved image.
With January's "Kerrang! Relentless Energy Drink Tour 2009" in between, the "TOUR 09 FEAST OF V SENSES", that began in February, was a tour that included performances at live houses as well. In the first half of the live house tour, the members stood at an almost reachable distance and due to capacity, they performed with minimal equipments. So in other words, these were performances in which you directly felt "UROBOROS". From everything we thought deeply about and demanded from each of the album's composition: the raging waves of the band's groove, the thrilling points, and Kyo's emotion-filled vocal all continues to hit you directly. "Instead of thinking, Feel it", "UROBOROS"s performance continued to preach this to us.gigs06
Furthermore, when it turned to the second half, the standing tour, the album's ending number "INCONVENIENT IDEAL" began opening some of the concerts. What was believed to be the end, was really the new beginning. The etymology of the title "UROBOROS" is a Greek mythical symbol of snakes/dragons that held their tails in their mouths to form a circle, which symbolized infinity and eternity. The album's composition which embodied that very image further indicated the album's depth.
Again when it comes to a tour for an album, often we naturally forget what the format of the sound source was after layering it with live performance. However, it seemed as both the concert's expression and the album's expression was able to coexist in an exquisite form. Even after reaching the end half of the tour, there was always a crisp air of tension still lingering backstage; the members, themselves, could have possibly felt the same way.
After this tour ended, along with June's UK's "DOWNLOAD", they decided to participate in 5 large-scale fests and hold a European tour. On top of that, from August, they started their second domestic tour "TOUR09 ALL VISIBLE THINGS". During March's secret show and male-only show, they played one of their debut song "残ーZANー"; however, surprised us even more after starting their August tour by playing "Akuro no Oka" and "Schwein no Isu", past numbers that were sealed for a long time in their shows.
DIR EN GREY, a band that continues to evolve with a continual greed for new interests. Since this evolution was like a metamorphosis with the cocoon turning into imago, continually changing shape, that there was a sense of discomfort from these past songs being played. However, maybe this isn't so if we think of their evolution, in terms of "UROBOROS", as like a snake shedding its skin. From the beginning to now there was an image that remained present throughout. Within that process there were times when its fangs spewed out poison and times when it coiled up.gigs08
With that in mind, "UROBOROS" showed us a variety of aspects throughout this year's tour. What can be considered as a finale, in January, next year, Budoukan 2 Days "UROBOROS -with the proof in the name of living...-", and with the album's shape consuming all the live expression up until now, we should be able to see, in every term, the strongest [most psychotic]2 form. By all means, I want to fight1.
*With January's Nihon Budoukan 2 Night Performance coming up, at the end of the year, in Osaka and Nagoya, DIR EN GREY's official fan club [a knot] and cell phone site "DIR EN GREY ONLINE" as targets for this restricted performances "DORJE" has been announced! For details, please reference p. 192 Concert Schedule.
Translator's Notes:
1.For both the words grappling and fight, the writer used the word 格闘"kakutou", which means "hand-to-hand fighting; grappling".
2.The writer here used the kanji 最狂, which reads "the strongest" (which is usually spelt 最強). In 最狂, the first character means the most/the extreme of and the second character means someone possessed of mental abnormality, to go mad, disorder. The writer seems to have coined the word 最狂 to describe DIR EN GREY's album.
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