Why are Japanese guys so hot? A 15-year-old girl named Pia assured me that I was in good company after a voice from the crowd posed that rhetorical question for the ages. It was last Wednesday, and I was among hundreds of Japanese rock fans, most of them female, who gathered at Slim�fs in San Francisco to see one of Japan�fs biggest stars, a 5-foot-2 androgynous pop icon named HYDE.
Despite his boyish charm, HYDE, whose real name is Hideto Takarai, plays hard rock and metal, fueled by perpetually distorted guitar riffs. He sings in English, but at the concert that night his lyrics were second to his mere presence.
Appreciating his music seemed to be a matter of head-banging or doe-eyed swooning. Some were attracted to the enigmatic personality behind the music. Some just liked his dandy ways. If you asked a fan from the audience, you might have also heard something about emotional depth or onstage intensity.
HYDE has sold more than 34 million recordings in the past 10 years as the lead singer for the wildly popular J-rock group L�fArc~en~Ciel. While more well-known in Japan than in the U.S., L�fArc drew an impressive audience of 12,000 at a 2004 Japanese pop culture convention in Baltimore, Maryland.
For HYDE�fs tour of the U.S. last week, he performed four sold-out shows in California, including appearances at Slim�fs and the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.
At the July 5 Slim�fs concert, filled to capacity at 430, I talked to people from as far as New York, Connecticut and Miami. Pia, who flew in from New Jersey just to see HYDE, met up with Claire, 18, a friend she made on the Internet. Like true die-hards, Claire and Pia jockeyed for position in the front row, and while the group around them grew in size, they wondered why �gHaido,�h as he�fs affectionately called, wasn�ft headlining a bigger venue. �gHe should be playing at a stadium,�h said Pia, smiling, but looking a little hurt.
Å 20-year-old college student named Kei was also in the front row, standing slightly closer to the stage than the others. Unlike Pia, who had arrived early that morning for the 9 p.m. concert, Kei drove from Sacramento the night before and slept on the curb with her friends to secure a spot in line. She was proud to show off her tattoo, a pair of angel wings on her shoulders similar to HYDE�fs.
Out of either boredom or devotion, fans in the crowd drew angel wings on their shoulders with markers and ballpoint pens, as they waited for the show to start.
They were ready for HYDE.
Like a ragged gang of thugs who happened into a supply of designer duds, the musicians filed out from the wings looking stylish yet rugged, in a studied kind of way. HYDE reminded me of a Japanese David Bowie with his stage makeup and teased hair. The keyboardist, a shadowy figure who talked to the audience through a computerized voice scrambler, sported a white mask and blonde dreadlocks.
HYDE played songs from his latest album �gFaith�h (Tofu Records), but not before putting a recording of Beethoven�fs 9th Symphony on the overhead system. It was a Kubrickian touch, something totally unexpected, stirring a giddy sense of anticipation in the air. A bit of the old Ludwig Van to get us in the mood.
It was a night full of binaries: glam and grunge, soft and hard. There were moments of repose, but for the most part the energy in the room was overwhelming, with the crowd at its most feral as HYDE flirted with the audience. �gLet�fs make love,�h he said, in kind of a slow bedroom voice. �gWill you sing along with me?�h
While my shirt and pants were soaked and smelling of sweat, there was also a whiff of religion in the corporeal stink. With �gJesus Christ,�h the fourth song of the night, HYDE played iconoclast-in-training to the crowd�fs devotional chanting. Keep in mind that his last album was called �gFaith,�h featuring an artist�fs rendering of HYDE, with downcast eyes, wearing a crown of thorns like Jesus. If the religious overtones weren�ft clear enough from the Christian-themed lyrics and iconography, the clutching and screaming and gasping for air brought out a palpable religious fervor from the crowd.
Then came the best part.
As if to recreate the screaming hysteria inspired by that most popular of boy bands, HYDE played a hard-rock cover of the Beatles classic �gLucy in the Sky with Diamonds�h halfway into his set. A different crowd might have crucified him for Beatles sacrilege. But HYDE�fs performance was a smash, with hundreds of jumping fans turning solid ground into a trampoline.
Closing with �gCountdown�h and �gMidnight Celebration,�h fans screamed �gan-ko-re�h as they awaited the band�fs return to the stage for two more songs.
At this point, I was subsumed by the power of the crowd. Moving to the beat was no longer in my control. The crowd moved for me, pushing my body in different directions like a rip current. There was no use fighting it. If you fell, said Pia, there would be 100 people standing behind you to hold you up.
just reminding that japanese artists don't play live on TV shows ^__~
only the vocal is live~
but it was discussed many times ^^
i probably misunderstood you ne~
and OMG why should i think you're stupid XD; _________________
Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 347 Location: Indiana Country:
Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:32 am Post subject:
Ri:ka wrote:
just reminding that japanese artists don't play live on TV shows ^__~
only the vocal is live~
but it was discussed many times ^^
i probably misunderstood you ne~
Wow, I must admit I've never heard that. I believe it though, because I definitely always thought the music was just a little too perfect in all cases. Yet it's always been obvious that at least with hyde he is actually singing.
Yet when they play live, they always play a shortened version of the song. So, do they just take the original recording and chop it up and piece it back together or do they actually re-record the shortened version?
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:40 am Post subject:
shadowthrone wrote:
Wow, I must admit I've never heard that. I believe it though, because I definitely always thought the music was just a little too perfect in all cases. Yet it's always been obvious that at least with hyde he is actually singing.
Yet when they play live, they always play a shortened version of the song. So, do they just take the original recording and chop it up and piece it back together or do they actually re-record the shortened version?
This all depends on the artist as well, we must remember this.
From my analyzation, It looks as though too real to be a recording (the pressure on the finger and fret, and what about Yukihiro?), but I will check again.
I suggest you do the same, if it is a big bother. (Which probably shouldn't be, since we all know l'Arc-en-ciel is so great anyway.) ^^
Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 347 Location: Indiana Country:
Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 3:55 am Post subject:
Tu_triky wrote:
do they lipsync like milli vinilli?
Whatever it is, it's not like milli vinilli. With milli vinilli it wasn't even them singing on the recordings, and it was completely lip synched during all concerts.
Yet with all of the performaces with hyde on Japanese TV, it is apparent that it is actually him singing live. We're talking about whether or not the rest of the band is actually playing live on Japanese music shows.
In my opinion it's obviously them playing live during recordings I've seen of their real live concerts, though.
This all depends on the artist as well, we must remember this.
From my analyzation, It looks as though too real to be a recording (the pressure on the finger and fret, and what about Yukihiro?), but I will check again.
I suggest you do the same, if it is a big bother. (Which probably shouldn't be, since we all know l'Arc-en-ciel is so great anyway.) ^^
Hydeistx<3
it was discussed already many times, believe me. They don't play live. No artist does. ^^ They fake it very well, but they also know that we know it. it's not a sicret or something. The fingers - yeah. But what they are "playing" is exactly the same as the recording. yuki really hits the drums, but the sound which you hear on TV is recorded.
They all do it, because it's difficult to built the stage for all artists and care for the good sound. For a simple TV show it's impossible ^__~
L'Arc~en~Ciel is great indeed. And that's why the concert DVDs are so pressious - it's the only way to hear them all playing live.
TV shows are just eye candies with only vocalist singing ^^ This is a fact ;-) _________________
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They don't play live. No artist does. ^^ They fake it very well, but they also know that we know it. it's not a sicret or something. The fingers - yeah. But what they are "playing" is exactly the same as the recording. yuki really hits the drums, but the sound which you hear on TV is recorded. 
