[REVIEW/NARRATIVE] Dir en grey: LIVE at the Warfield July 2, 2007

[sexysaucestar]

I just now wrote this out while the material was all still fresh in my mind; excuse any grammatical errors, as I am still quite hyped up from the concert. If I sound a little insulting/blunt in some parts, I don't mean to be. ^^; Oh, and for those of you wondering--I actually did not stay for the Deftones part of the concert (the main part) because I had to wake up early for work today.

Anyway, enjoy, and let me know what you think.

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Dir en grey at the Warfield—San Francisco, CA July 2, 2007

On July 2, 2007, part of my dream had come true; even though Dir en grey was only one of the opening bands for the Deftones, I felt that they had really captured most of the audience. The performance was at the Warfield Theatre in downtown San Francisco. There was a considerable amount of people on the floor, but surprisingly not many had reserved seats up in the balcony where I was. I was not sure if the empty seats were for Deftones fans who did not want to sit through the opening bands, or if the concert did not sell out.

I attended the concert alone, so I showed up a little early to buy merchandise and explore the concert hall a bit. Doors opened at 6:30, and the concert began at seven. The concert hall was a decent size; a lot bigger than Rams Head in Baltimore, but not nearly as big as, say, Yoyogi Stadium in Tokyo. The crowd seemed somewhat eclectic; a lot of people who looked around my age, and then a few younger-looking fans. I assumed most of the “older” people were there for the Deftones, while later on I realized that a lot of younger fans were actually Dir fans. There was not a huge selection of Dir merchandise, but I expected that; there were three shirts with different designs, a sticker, and a wristband.

My seat was in the front row of the balcony, closer to the right part of the stage. I was pretty excited to be at that spot, since I knew Die always played on that part of the stage. The people sitting around me were definitely all Deftones fans—during the opening bands portions (including Dir), the couples were really not into the music. It kind of annoyed me, but then again, it WAS a concert featuring Deftones as the main event.

Fall of Troy came out as the first band; they were one person short from February, which kind of surprised me. I did not pay much attention to their portion of the concert, since I was not impressed with their previous performance. I had earplugs in at this point, too, so I really only watched the guys and their stage acts. The skinny, curly-haired guitarist was entertaining at times, but he did not seem too into the concert. Their portion of the concert was only around 30 minutes long, which seemed incredibly short to me. No matter, though…as soon as they announced that they were finished with their set, I grew very excited. Even though it was to be the third time for me to see Dir in concert, I still felt a rush of excitement.

As soon as Dir walked out on stage, I was so tempted to jump out of my seat...but, since the people surrounding me did not appear to be Dir fans, I just stayed in my seat and screamed for the band from my seat. Their “opening processional” was accompanied by G.D.S., which pumped up the crowd like in the previous times. Once G.D.S. was finished, Dir performed a total of ten songs, making their portion of the concert last almost an hour. During their performance, I kind of felt that the concert was half-run by Dir, since they played for so long (and there seemed to be a good amount of Dir-only fans there).

Dir performed mainly tracks from Marrow of the Bone, but of course threw in a few “oldies” from withering to death. and VULGAR. Some of the songs they performed during the INWARD SCREAM tour, which I did not mind at all! Kyo danced a bit during a couple of songs, which made me crack up. The whole band seemed a bit more relaxed for this concert than for INWARD SCREAM, probably because they weren’t the headlining band! Kyo appeared to be in good spirits, too, so I was glad to see that. My view of Die was slightly obstructed by spotlights, though; I was kind of annoyed about that. Overall, I enjoyed the concert (setlist and notes follow).

And I received a nice surprise to end the night—while I was in line to buy merchandise before the show, I noticed a small handwritten note posted up by the merchandise table saying: “A member of Dir en grey will be signing autographs after their set.” I asked the merchandise guy to explain the note and he said that they were going to have a table set up in the lobby with one of the Dir members signing autographs! I was excited to hear about this, but I also felt a little wary about the offer, since at Family Values Tour last year, they lied about the fact that Dir would be signing autographs. So, I kept my excitement in, trying to not let myself feel too disappointed if the same thing were to happen again.

Well, after Dir’s set I rushed out of the concert hall into the lobby; noticed a slew of fans also thinking the same thing I was. Yes, it appeared that I was probably one of the older Dir fans at the concert—the people who were in line behind me all looked like they were in high school or younger. We all formed a long, winding line out in the lobby, waiting for whoever was going to sign for us. I chatted a little with some fans, but we were all mostly preoccupied with who was going to do the autographs. During the waiting period, I also wrote a small, simple note on the inside of my notebook saying “Please sign here, Dir en grey; Thank you very much!” in Japanese. It was kind of cheesy, but I figured it would help whoever was signing.

Once the line started moving, it moved relatively fast; I did not even get to see who was signing the autographs until I was around five people away from the table—when I saw a glimpse of the auburn hair, I knew it was Die. I think at this point in time, I went into a small bit of shock since I had been hoping to meet Die since I first started listening to Dir’s music five years ago (I only managed to shake hands and speak rusty Japanese lines with Shinya and Kaoru at Family Values last year). When I was only one person away from being in front of Die, the security guys told me to get my notebook ready for Die to sign, so I opened it up, not even fully realizing I was going to be standing in front of one of my idols in a moment.

My turn came, and I approached the table, feeling a little shaky and apprehensive. I placed the notebook in front of Die and noticed he smirked a little while reading my note and signing his name in big letters on the notebook page. I did not even think to say anything to him since I was so speechless; after he signed, he looked up at me and smiled a little, I smiled widely, and we both bowed our heads at each other (we were so Japanese to each other, haha!). Then, I had to be shuffled out of the line since the security guards were trying to move us along quickly. I was in shock and had to let the moment sink in a little more...did I really meet Die so quickly? I stood around in the lobby for a few minutes, watching Die finish signing autographs (and I was also waiting for my ride to arrive, too, so I was not being a total weirdo). Once the line was finished, the guards ran Die downstairs back to the backstage area…he left so quickly, but I guess moreso because security was afraid of rabid fans mobbing Die.

Well, that was a great surprise ending to my long day. I really hope to see Dir en grey again in concert (and I have a feeling I will). I hope one day I can maybe help them out in some way, whether through being their translator or helping them market their music in the US. I know probably all fans wish for something like this to happen to them, but hey, it does not hurt to dream a little. At least I am not saying I hope to be Die’s wife, although that would be nice, too.

Setlist and Notes:

1. Repetition of Hatred: Great opening song with Kyo screaming his signature scream. I really love opening guitar parts; Die and Kaoru really played this part well. At the end of the song, Kyo started dancing kind of like an Egyptian (when Die/Kaoru are playing the final guitar chords).

2. GRIEF: I do not think Kyo even really sang the chorus, since it sounded all like gibberish, but I did not care that much. He looked like he was enjoying himself, and I loved when the other guys sang the “Headless bodies” line.

3. Lie Buried with a Vengeance: When I first listened to the album back in February/March, I did not really like this song much. However, with the live performance last night, the song really grew on me, especially with the last bit of the song. For some reason, I really like Kyo’s screaming in MARROW, which seemed to turn off a lot of fans. Maybe I am just a little odd.

4. Disabled Complexes: Kyo danced during the beginning of this song, too; at this point, he had taken off his shirt, so he was showing off his chest and singing out his heart. Listening to the guitar melodies live really gave me goosebumps.

5. 朔－ｓａｋｕ－: Right after Disabled Complexes, Dir jumped into saku with full force; Shinya was banging those drums like crazy! I have always been amazed at his drumming skills; he seems to have a much more advanced/professional drum set than any other band I have seen.

6. THE FINAL: One of my all-time favorite Dir songs; I was glad that Kyo sang the full chorus the second time through, since he usually drops out of the chorus the second time to let fans sing it. I think he sang the song all the way through because the crowd kind of bored (well, the Deftones fans seemed bored anyway). I always sing along with this song when they perform it in concert.

7. dead tree: Right before this song, Kyo performed one of his accapella solos, but I could not really hear much of it since people were screaming. He sang slightly different lyrics for the first part of “dead tree,” but overall the song was performed very nicely.

8. Merciless Cult: Another one of my favorite songs; this was the second time for me to hear the song live in concert. I kind of wish Kaoru/Die would yell louder at the chorus parts, but they only manage to sing the part weirdly (hard to explain).

9. THE DEEPER VILENESS: Hoho, I was hoping for this song to be performed! When I first read the lyrics for this song, I started laughing out of pure amusement. Kyo’s lyrics are deep and emotional, but the lyrics for this one somehow just made me laugh because they sounded so angry. All the guys screamed very well during this song.

10. The IIID Empire: Closing song; Toshiya and Die went a little nuts during this performance. I completely missed what the impetus was, but one moment I saw Toshiya on stage, the next, he was out in the crowd and it looked like the fans were about to drop him, so the security guards had to push him back up on the stage. I am not sure if Toshiya meant to jump out like that, but he seemed a little disoriented after the incident; he looked like he got his foot all caught up on some cords and some of his helpers had to loosen his foot from the cords. Die did something similar, except he was smart to stay on the little ledge that was left. I had a really good view of Die at this point, so I was quite happy. This was a great song to close with.

I was hoping for “Ryoujoku no ame” or “OBSCURE” to be performed again, but oh well. Overall, I still felt Dir’s performance was just as strong as before, and this time I actually wrote down the setlist, which will help me remember the concert a lot better.

EDIT [07/04/07 10:07 AM PDT]: Here are a couple of pics Enjoy!!


Autograph from Die; he wrote it nice and big on my page If you can read my sloppy handwriting up top, haha, that's my note in Japanese.


The sticker I bought from the concert; my laptop is now Deg-a-fied.