a couple months back i listened to a bunch of japanese bands online as a sample so that i could match a sound with the names. i used to have a lot of friends in japan and we would do tape exchanges. it's just been so long since i've paid attention to japanese bands that i only know a few current names. i've seen the names but it's just too expensive to buy cds so that you know what a band sounds like. plus, it's likely that i won't like the band or the album. true enough, i only liked a couple songs per album or band. not enough to buy anything, unless they put out a greatest hits album that contained a higher percentage of songs i liked compared to the studio albums. there were even a couple bands where i only liked 1 song. maybe it's just that i didn't get to sample enough but i'm not going to listen to every song just to find another song i like. "wow, i like two songs by this band!"

dir en grey is a big name in japan. they're one of the bands that i only liked 1 song. ("child prey") there was another song i thought was ok but the intro was just too damn annoying that i cut it off from my list. however, i heard they were going to play a few shows in america. it's very rare that a japanese band plays outside of japan so as soon as i heard they were playing, i searched the net to find out more about it, got the pre-sale information, and bought tickets during the pre-sale. i just have to support japanese bands playing in america so that one day buck-tick will play here. i know it will never happen but i hold on to that hope. fuck, it sucks to realize that it's been over 9 years since i've seen them in concert. but they carry on and as long as they carry on, there is hope.

i got a later start than i wanted to today to head out to the dir en grey show at the wiltern. i like the wiltern because it reminds of me of the warfield in san francisco. when we got there, i was pretty surprised to see how long the line was. i haven't seen a line to get into a show that long in quite awhile. also, there weren't too many japanese there. the majority of the concert goers were white people. must be people in japanese cartoons and that kind of stuff. sorry, i know fingers can be pointed at me but most days i don't quite get the white people into japanese things. i just tend to see it as an erotization of the other. a fetish.

i was hoping i would like dir en grey's songs live more than i had when i listened to whatever albums it may have been a few months ago. unfortunately it didn't work out that way for me. i still am not into them. in fact, i have an even lower opinion of them now because i definitely know they are not for me. i still like the "child prey" song (it was the very last song of the evening) but none of the other songs did anything for me. i preferred the slower songs to the faster songs but overall, i don't see anything special about them. the singer puts a lot of energy into some of his performances but i didn't realize he was psychotic. i think he was using his sharpened fingernails to cut his chest and his mouth (the mouth blood he used to paint half of his face with). sorry, but that is so old and unnecessary. only teenagers think that's cool and you're too old for that shit. i call 'em like i see 'em.

during the show, i tried to take a picture with my cell phone from work. i know pics from most cell phones are the crappiest things but i just wanted to have a visual souvenir, if you will. no dice. the phone is a razr and every picture was washed out by the stage lights. even when the stage lights were dim and not overwhelming, the damn pics were washed out. guess you know how i feel about that phone now. on my way out, i did swing by the merchandise booth to see what was for sale. for cds, i think they were only selling the singles and that was just perfect for me. i bought the "child prey" single.