ギルガメッシュ Live - A New Experience

Alright, this post might be a little bit surprising for some of you, but here goes.

This afternoon/evening I went to see ギルガメッシュ here in Takamatsu. Actually, I wanted to go last year when they came, but there was a school event that day, so I couldn't make it. But this time I could, and it was a lot of fun!

I guess I should give a little bit of background information so you have some more context first. ギルガメッシュ (girugamesh) is a Japanese visual-kei metal band. I started listening to their music when I was in university. I know it's kind of surprising that I listen to metal but a lot of their earlier music wasn't necessarily screamy and that was the music that made me like them.

Anyway, I was a little bit uncertain about going as it was my first time going to a live of this particular genre of music and I didn't know what to expect, and I was going by myself.

When I got there it was fairly straightforward. You know, give your ticket and go in. The venue was bigger than some of the other lives I've been to, but was actually smaller than what I was expecting. For this particular live it was standing only, so basically you could go wherever you want. 

When the live started, the sound was super intense. It was extremely loud and you could literally feel the vibrations! There was no intro band or anything like that, once they got on stage each member did their own thing really quickly and then went straight into their lead song. And that was when I realized exactly how out of place I was. Pretty much the entire audience started banging their heads and swinging their hair around. (No, I did not do this). Then they had various hand motions to go with the song as well. I was really surprised! I don't know why though because I was well aware what kind of music it was.... Anyway, after the first song, Satoshi, the vocalist did some growling about welcome to the Takamatsu venue and then did some MC stuff, and then there was lots more music! During some of the songs they got the audience jumping and during one song a group of girls started running around in a circle, and of course more head banging and hair swinging ensued. I recognized some of the songs they played, whereas others were new to me. 

*Borrowed from Twitter...*

Also, you know how I mentioned you could feel the vibrations, well I was also kind of fascinated because if you lifted a foot up a bit (to move or shift positions), you could feel the vibrations coming up through the floor and going to your shoe, and it kind of felt like magnets pulling at each other. Interesting.

The one problem I'm going to say I had with this live was the volume. It was SO loud! After a few songs, anytime Satoshi went to just talk or when people were clapping, it sounded really muffled because the level of sound was so different.  As a matter of fact, I'm curious to know how long it will take for my ears to stop ringing.

Anyway, it was definitely an interesting new experience for me. I don't know that I would ever be able to go to something like this anywhere other than Japan -- Japan just gives this sense of security about things. But I definitely enjoyed it and had a fun couple of hours listening to their music!