Buck-Tick Zone

1989

I'm not sure exactly when this occured but during the month of January, (possibly it started in December 1988), there were a series of "Buck-Tick Special" video concerts AKA "Captagon Vol. 31". The Captagon company held these video concerts for various bands and Buck-Tick was the main band for this edition. Vol. 31 featured footage of Buck-Tick recording in London, live footage, as well as messages from the members. Due to the death of the emperor on January 7th, some venues cancelled airing this program.

On January 18, Buck-Tick's third major label album was released. It was entitled Taboo. However, the tour for their previous album Seventh Heaven was still underway. The tour finally came to an end with two shows that began the following day at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo on. The first show was on January 19 and broadcast on national radio. The second show was on January 20 and was recorded for video release. Hisashi was so nervous he felt like his body was stiff and couldn't move. Atsushi accidentally started to sing the set list for the second day on the first day. Atsushi also put his hair up on the first day and like he had announced the previous year, put his hair down the next day because he felt like it and also to give those who came both days something different to see.

Video footage was shot at the Budoukan was edited on January 26th-28th and January 30th-February 5th. It was released in two parts as Sabbat I and Sabbat II on April 21.

Another party was thrown by Victor on February 8. Starting the next day the members had their first long break since rigorous assembly line like touring and recording had begun in 1987. Atsushi visited Hong Kong while Hisashi and U-ta visited India.

On March 7 a book entitled Hyper was released. It was published by the makers of the magazine "Pati Pati" and is comprised of many photos of the band. If you like this period of Buck-Tick, you will love this book. On April 4 another book entitled Love Me was released. It is a biography of the band and each member and contains historical photographs. This is a must read for anyone interested in the early days of the band.

The "Taboo" tour began on March 22 at Tachikawa Shimin Kaikan and was set to go through May 30 and 31 in Gunma. Visually the tour was like the "Seventh Heaven Tour Final" in January at Budokan that was taped and released as Sabbat, except that Atsushi had reverted to black hair. The tour was cut short, (only 13 out of the 30 gigs were completed), on April 21 when Hisashi was caught with LSD. An appearance in the summer at the Hokkaido Rock Circuit also had to be cancelled. It was pretty big (shocking) news at the time because drugs are such a scandalous thing in Japan. There was a long absence of news of the band. I am still not sure what exactly became of Hisashi in those months. Was he required to do jail time? Sent to rehab? I really do not know. (I think something did happen to him on July 17 though. In a chronological history I have of the band they list that day as the day the rest of the four were removed from Hisashi but do not say exactly what that means.) Also, Wikipedia Japan states that Hisashi was convicted but his sentence reprieved while the rest of the members served 6 months probation. All in all, this is a subject the band does not like to discuss though they have written songs with drug references since then.

In June I was flipping the channels on televsion and managed to catch something. I was quick enough with the VCR that I have a minute of it. It was a press conference or court hearing concerning Hisashi. There were many Buck-Tick fans who wanted to get in to this event, (1300 girls waiting outside), but only a lucky few (509) won a seat inside the building. There were 22 rows for people to sit in and 19 were filled with fans! They showed footage of the many girls and Hisashi being escorted to the building by the band's manager and some other men. In July, Hisashi released a statement apologizing to those who were unable to see the shows that got cancelled. He also said that his days lately were relaxing ones spent mainly writing songs.

Though there was scare news of the band during this time, I have reserached that there was some info going around the mainstream Japanese rock media. On July 17, the band minus Hisashi interviewed with "B Pass" magazine and it was published in their September issue. In October, the whole band appeared for a photoshoot with "B Pass" magazine. On November 9, Hisashi was interviewed by himself and it was published in "Rock It!" magazine number 5.

On October 1, Buck-Tick again entered the studio to record a long awaited album. The silence was broken around this time when ads in many major rock magazines declared Buck-Tick would be playing a show in December with subsequent releases of a single and album. It was a very exciting time indeed. In order to warm up for the main event, they first played at home on December 20 at the Gunma Ongaku Center.

On December 29 the band delivered by playing "Buck-Tick Genshou" at Tokyo Dome. Hisashi was understandably nervous about this show and remembered thinking when the venue was booked, if 50,000 people would really show up. Show up they did--it sold out! (One of those thousands was me. I just had to be there no matter what because at that point who could know whether or not I would ever get the chance to see them again or even if the band would continue to exist.) At the concert Buck-Tick previewed two songs from their upcoming album: "Aku No Hana" and "The World is Yours". The venue was so large (it is an indoor baseball stadium that was built for the Tokyo Olympics) there were screens on the side to help those (like me) who were too far away to see what was going on. Buck-Tick made it a point to let everyone know that the concert was not being filmed and would not be sold or broadcast.

Walking into the venue was exciting enough, but seeing the stage covered with a giagantic red curtain with "Buck-Tick" in black and "BT" in white behind it was breathtaking. (The design of the curtain was also utilized as a flag in the promotional music video "National Media Boys".) Hearing the "Theme of B-T" being played over the speakers built up the excitement even more. Then, the concert began. It was at this concert that the new Buck-Tick model guitars were revealed and used on stage. It was also at this concert that Hisashi bowed his guitar live for the first time. (It has been a long time since Hisashi has used the bow and says that it is something you can only achieve with practice. Since he is out of practice he can no longer do it.)

[Further description of Tokyo Dome's show and large concert venues are seated in Japan versus the way they are in other countries: In Japan, at large indoor venues such as Tokyo Dome and Budoukan, they don't crowd as many as they possibly can to a floor. The floor is divided into squares and is quite orderly. The row closest to the stage is not close at all. There is no chance of managing your way onto the stage. Shows start almost on the dot to when printed on the ticket without an opening act and are incredibly tame: no stage-diving, no pushing. Of course, the tiny packed "live house" could be much different.]

[this page was last updated on Friday, 15-Feb-2008 15:02:17 PST]