I worked up a serious sweat… before the live. I legitimately got lost trying to find the right exit out of the Niigata station. I knew which direction I needed to head in, looking at my map, but every exit I tried led in the wrong direction and I was really worried I wouldn’t make it. At one point, I truly thought there wasn’t enough time left before the performance started. But I finally found the right hallway, it led me out in the right direction, and once on the street, it was easy to go the rest of the way.
I was so relieved. A… tiny bit sheepish too.
Of course, later I realized I would likely have been able to get in even after the live started, but that’s not something I would want to do if I could help it.
The livehouse was small and cozy with clear squares marked on the floor in tape for attendees to stand in. I got a square in the back right corner near the door, and stood diagonally so that I could get a clear view of Saga. Definitely a good idea to have worn my platforms, otherwise I would have been a shorty struggling to see past the people in front of me. I had a clear view of everyone on the stage, though.
I know I’m probably going to say this every time, but… the setlist was excellent.
I’m such a nerd, I had to actually hold my glasses in my hand while headbanging to prevent them from flying off into the crowd やばかったよw
(’twas crazy lol)
The classical SE they began using earlier this year (Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony) is so epic, and is right on par with how elated I feel when they do a live. Everyone clapped as they took to the stage to the triumphant swell of the music, and then… they began to play.
Opening with organ music and dramatic lighting, Living Dead feels as emotionally heavy as the weight of the steady march that characterizes the song. I could hardly believe my eyes, that my favourite band was right there living, breathing, playing right in front of me. As I watched, swaying to the music in a daze, elated, following along with some of the dances, they transitioned into playing Answer. The venue started to heat up along with the tempo of the song and reality was starting to hit. I was really, truly there.
The next song, Show explained, was for all of us — WHITE PRAYER! I thought I was going to lose my mind, I was so excited. I love the live arrangement of this one, along with Saga’s flowy bass line in it. 懐かしいいいいしか言えない！Again, with this song, the whole room was thrumming with movement, dancing together to a song that is such a classic in their discography. Then they started playing the opening notes of 百花繚乱, and things got really wild! As an older song, it also had a very well-established dance, and the whole room was moving together furiously excited… I was one happy, nostalgic 九組! It was so much fun!
As Moondance began, Show definitely showed us how the くねくね dance was supposed to be done… this was something Saga explained in his GRACE Commentary livestream before the start of the tour — that everyone should move their hips and sway to the song in a sexy way. It sounded so good live, and was indeed a pleasure to dance to. I love Saga’s bass line in this song, and that was what I was following as I moved and reveled in the sound. When the song ended, Saga took up position, bracing himself in order to play BABYLON‘s opening bass line and slap… this was my first time experiencing the song live, and it was utterly cool to fall into and be immersed in the music for this one.
In the echoing ending notes of BABYLON, the mood shifted.
The stage went dark, and after a long, low tone, 界‘s sutra began, booming through the room, transforming it with sound. Saga had explained how the song was meant to evoke the sense of coming to worship in the temple of ALICE NINE. in an interview… and that description is bang-on for how I felt, listening to it. While Saga’s deep voice rang out, repeating the sutra, I put my hands together in prayer and felt like I was being put into a trance. The livehouse was our place of worship. Music, the deity we were supplicating. Sound from vibration that conveys scenery, emotion, memory…
When that powerhouse of a song finished, Saga set down his red bass, Homura, and picked up his blue acoustic guitar. So began Envy. The song felt so beautiful live, with slow, deliberate plucking of the acoustic guitar’s strings, and slow, intentional singing from Show. The sound was so full in the room and I just swayed with the flow of the song, carried away, hand over my heart.
Saga put his red bass back on and after a quiet pause to accommodate the switch, 昴 began. Not only was it absolutely beautiful, the fact that we as the audience could actually sing with them made it even more meaningful. 幸せだった。The song really unfolds fully live, with Saga singing backup and the audience joining in too. I’ll never forget the intense sense of beauty and of longing that I felt when I watched the live footage from Untitled VANDALISM. And how beautiful it was when I heard it the first time during the FC trip I took, in a planetarium live. But after all the restrictions, after all the waiting… being able to sing it together this time in particular was a singular experience that I won’t soon forget.
Be as one…
Some piano began to play as all the members aside from Nao left the stage. He got up as well, but in order to come to the front podium. First, he got us all clapping, then he got us all shouting in unison, and then we combined the two actions. Nao returned to his drum set and started srumming to the beat he’d gotten us started on, and from there he whipped us all up into a frenzy of shouting, clapping, and hand-waving along to the Drum Solo… the drumming throughout the live was crisp and on point too!
Finally, the other four members of the band came back onstage in order to start playing Roar which is a total powerhouse of a song, and incredibly melodic to boot. The drum-rap-bass solo section is crisp, sharp, and then velvety-soft. Which brings us to ヴェルヴェット itself. When this song started playing, I was ridiculously excited. The energy in the room for this song was just awesome. Everyone fist-pumping together and getting wild for this classic… this might even have been my first time hearing it in person! But even if it weren’t, something about this performance really put it at the top of the list in my memory.
As if that hadn’t been enough nostalgia for one 九組 to take, they started playing RAINBOWS, and I was elated. Elated! The stage lights cutting through the darkness of the room in every colour imaginable gives the song an incredible air, and there’s no question that we were partying out hearts out. Saga gave the middle finger when everyone was doing the A-jump. Badass. Show hit the high note at the end and it was awesome. That song always takes me back and is one hell of a good time at lives.
In a change of pace, they played Funeral next, and its forward momentum and many layers of detail and sound texture sounded amazing. This was followed by Exodus:, which took us further into the depths that Funeral had pulled us into. Next came 開戦前夜, which I was experiencing live for the first time; it was epic. An incredible release of tension in the room. Made me wish I wore contacts so I could headbang with even more wild abandon! To finish their main set, they played Farewell Flowers, which Show described as a song filled with the utmost amount of love. After serenading us with it, they put down their instruments and left the stage to to sound of our applause.
It wasn’t long before, in the dim light of the stage, we all began clapping and then chanting ‘encore!’ in waves. This was only the third live since early 2020 where concertgoers had been able to raise their voices during performances, so it must have been a huge relief (and pleasure) for the band members to hear fans actually calling out ‘encore!’ again instead of just clapping. I was certainly happy to say it. I sure as hell meant it! We kept up our call for a while, and then the stage lights brightened for the Encore, the members returning to the stage to even more of our delighted applause.
I was so happy when they began playing Ray… I love that song, both in terms of its sound and of its gorgeous lyrics. It was so pretty live. They followed this with Daybreak, which is such an uplifting song, and I was totally mouthing the words behind my mask, so grateful to be there in the moment! Finally, to end their set on an even higher note, they began to play Grace. I was completely in the zone for this song, in my bliss, following the furi most of the time, but also waving my hands and fingers in my own way along to the beautiful complexities of this song’s sound. It’s amazing live, a true beauty in their discography.
I felt at peace when the song ended, clapping as the members again set down their instruments, and made their own exits off the stage.
Saga gave 焔ちゃん’s neck a kiss of appreciation before putting his bass down in its stand, and then blew a kiss to the crowd as well, waving and leaving with a quiet smile.
癒された♡♪︎
I felt a bit dazed, but so happy as I left the room as well to go outside and line up for the after-live Talk Event. I decided to use my ticket on this particular night in order to attend Saga and Show’s talk, and after a short wait, the staff ushered us back inside, checked our tickets, and then directed us to go back inside the event space and sit on the floor.
Here are a few highlights:
Show prompted Saga to talk about his job-quitting amnesia excuse story (originally told during an Alice9Channel episode), which was a preface to them discussing the fact that Saga actually has an extremely good memory… for instance, he remembered everyone else’s lines from NUMBER SIX. when they were filming that movie. Meanwhile, Show’s memory isn’t quite as good and he really has to work hard to remember lyrics and things, but has found that sometimes writing them down in full helps.
They brought up the fact that they noticed someone dancing during Grace as if conducting an orchestra. Show had apparently discussed with Saga that it would be good to make a song with that sort of air, but they were surprised someone had actually danced to it that way.
They discussed the Love-Love Hate-Hate call section of Roar, both agreeing that, so far, it hadn’t had the oomph they’d been imagining. They suggested that for future lives, we should put emphasis on the echoes of Love! and Hate! by raising our fists with the repetition of each word, to give the pairs a strong finish. (Edit: In subsequent lives, we actually began jumping up with hands raised to emphasize the echoed words!)
Saga explained that something about the initial bass phrases in BABYLON were tricky and frustrating, but in the moment, I didn’t understand the specifics… afterward, I came to the realization that BABYLON was tricky for this tour because Saga’s stage outfit includes arm restraints. So given that Saga decides the setlists, he was kind of poking fun at himself for including a song that would be extra-difficult for him.
That’s our hard-mode loving bassist for ya! ♡
The crew were packing away the stage behind them, and eventually someone on their staff called out from around the corner to advise them to wrap up the talk and make their exit, which they did, seeming slightly miffed at the staff rushing them along.
The entire live, the subsequent talk event, that moment of sitting and listening to them chat — all of it felt surreal to me. It had been years since I’d been in the same room with them… it felt so damn good to be back.
I didn’t originally buy a ticket to this performance because I had worried my flight might get delayed and I wouldn’t get to Japan in time (anxious thoughts are so often far-fetched that way), and I also worried I might get terrible jet-lag and not feel up to going anywhere the day after arriving. Well, I’m happy to say that that definitely wasn’t the case, and I was incredibly excited to head out to attend this live, meaning I’d be attending all four remaining performances on the tour.
This also turned out to be my first time buying a same-day ticket (当日券), and I’m strangely happy that I now have that sort of ticket to add to my collection! It was certainly an experience (read: a stressful albeit somewhat comical one) to get so lost and turned around in the station but to still make it in time anyway.
I’m glad I did. What an amazing performance to kick off this trip with.
I love アリス九號.
They really fucking rock.
.
No longer in a rush, I walked back the way I had come, my body still filled with the trailing notes of the live, warm at the memory of feeling Saga’s bass line fill the room firsthand… at experiencing all of those songs in concert.
Knowing I would get to do it three more times before the end of the month…
幸せだった。
P.S. When checking Google Maps just to make sure I could take the exact same route in reverse to get home (since it was late), I accidentally pressed the walking route option, and apparently it would take nearly three days. I almost burst out laughing in public.
Yeeeeah, I skipped that route… riding the shinkansen was more than scenic enough an adventure for me that evening, thank you very much.