So I got to Kyoto at about 4:10 ish and headed over to the live house. When I got there, Grey hadn't come yet, so I checked the area out a bit and then waited for him to come out front. When he came, we went and got in line, which just turned out to be line for buying goods before the show...they stopped the presales right before we got to it.

While there, we saw pillows shirts of olden times, and even a bunch that we didn't even know existed. Funny Bunny, CARNIVAL, Swanky Street, sonna fuu ni, an old Hybrid Rainbow shirt, Sick Vibration...pretty much everybody was a hardcore fan decked out in Busters apparel. Most of the people I talked with said that the pillows was their favorite band.

When it finally opened, we went in and made our way up to about the fifth row of people pretty much straight out from Jun's place. The hall was medium-small, only about 400 people. While waiting, the opening music was a slew of unreleased noodles songs.

When the pillows finally came out, the awesomeness began. They immediately busted out with Wake up! dodo. After about six or seven songs, Sawao commented on the two Americans in the crowd, and that "that guy over there has even been singing along the whole time!" pointing at me. Then he looked at Grey and exclaimed "Seattle!" And he pointed it out to Manabe and Shinchan who both waved/thumbs-upped at Grey. Total badassery.

Very soon, when Sawao busted out the Taylor, I called out "Are you going to play Tonight?" He laughed, "play tonight, huh." ...AND BUSTED OUT ON THE SPOT. They weren't planning to play it, so they only did half of it, but it pretty much was the most godly thing ever. It was even better than the studio recording, Sawao's vocals have gotten REALLY good recently.

After that finished, all the Japanese girls nearby started calling me things like "champion," "good boy," and "tall boy." Yamanaka liked "tall boy" and laughed at that one, and those girls started referring to me as "tall boy" and Grey was "seattle."

Anyway, Sawao was all "I was actually going to play Boat House," and commented on me knowing such an old song. He proceeded to kick ass with Boat House.

After that, he said "the next song is pretty old, from our album 10 years ago..." I turned and said "GIRLS DON'T CRY," and a second later, Sawao confirmed it, and they played another flawless tune. Sawao laughed again and commented at the end of the song "Look, he knew all the words to that one too, even though it's old."

They also did Kim Deal, Like a Lovesong, Terminal Heaven's Rock, The Third Eye, and Walkin' on the Spiral during the main set, along with all of Wake up!x3 and the Scarecrow b-sides. I didn't recognize Kim Deal at first because they cut out the intro, but it was absolutely amazing, and brought tears to my eyes.

Century Creepers and Scarecrow were both wonderful. Sawao's unbridled emotion shone through and the whole audience was singing along. When he did Tsuyogari, he said he thought it was the best of the songs they've recorded lately.

Before the encore, Sawao came out and played with one of the yo-yos to advertise that tour good. When he took it off, seeing all the people in the front clamoring for him to give it to them, he grinned and said "A souveneir for Seattle," and threw it to Grey. Fucking, Win.

The encore was Sad Sad Kiddie, ROSS, and Little Busters. Pretty awesome. After the last song, Sawao told everyone to enjoy the rest of the summer, play a lot, and look forward to the new single in August.

After the pillows went offstage, they played Youngster on the speakers, and everybody sang along together, which was totally sweet. After that, a bunch of the random Japanese people kept coming up to chat with us and several of the girls wanted pictures with us, ekekkee. They were impressed with my pera-pera, Sawao granting my request, and the band recognizing Grey. Also, two people recognized Grey from youtube.

I bought the skinny blues shirt, the wristband, and a cloudy busterkun keychain. We went to a convini to get water, and then got back there right when the pillows were coming out. Sawao and I exchanged thumbs-ups, I asked Manabe to come back to America sometime, and they drove off in their van.

I thought that would be the end of the night, but when I went to get my bag from the coin locker in the nearby station, I met two of the girls from the live, and they started talking to me. After chatting a bit, one of them took off this wristband from her wrist and said "They don't sell these anymore, I got it at one of the lives a long while back. Have it as my gift to you." She thinks it was from around the Penalty Life tour or something (edit, it's from the Thank you, my twilight tour: http://www.pillows.jp/p/goods/2002thankyou.html), it's a black with white edging leather wristband with BUSTERS imprinted into the leather. I was shocked, and asked if it was really okay, but she really gave it to me. I talked for a bit, then bid them farewell, saying maybe I'd see them next year if there was a live in Kyoto during the summer.

I got my bag and ran into ANOTHER pair of pillows fans who wanted to talk with me for a bit after that.

All in all, it was pretty much the best night of my life. Having Sawao play my request when the song wasn't on the list, the band recognizing Grey, being impressed with us knowing the songs, and a random amazing gift from a fellow buster pretty much made my year.

Interestingly, despite people's bitching about the pillows, this live just made me into more of a fangirl. They performed every song flawlessly; nobody missed a note at any part on any song, even on the hardest parts. The energy, the emotion; everything that makes the pillows great was there, plain to see.

So in summary, I don't remember the order, but I don't think I forgot any songs:

Wake up! x3 (11 songs)
Scarecrow b-sides (2 songs)
Walkin' on the Spiral
My Foot
Rock'n'Roll Sinners
Kuuchuu Resister
Kim Deal
Girls Don't Cry
Like a Lovesong
Third Eye
Terminal Heaven's Rock
Tonight

Encore:
Sad Sad Kiddie
ROSS
Little Busters

Total: 26 songs of godliness

oh man, Grey is dead? I mean, something that awesome would have sent him into shock.
How did they recognize him? the Pillows go on youtube?
That story sounds awesome,
you video recorded it right?

edit- if I were you two I would have wet myself, no doubt.

Holy shit, that's just amazing! I don't think much can top your experience there. I just can't beleive he played Tonight, right THERE! Did he do the whistling too? Girls Don't Cry must've been kick ass, I'm sure. How was Boat House and Century Creepers live?

Utsuseru, let's try this again: the pillows recognized Grey from the Seattle shows, seeing as they played there, and he was there.

Boat House was fan-fucking-tastic, and I was shouting/screaming/singing Century Creepers with everything I had. Every song kicked ass, even Serious Plan, the most boring song on the album.

Oh, Jun and Sawao went to a Sambomaster live together, I think he said.

[color=red]EDIT: Reading Japanese blogs, I found it it's some band called Summers or something. lol D:
EDIT AGAIN: Summers (SAMA~ZU) is a comedy routine thing. D:[/color]

They talked the two guys after the show and all of a sudden Jun busts out a DVD to have them sign it. He was teasing him about that.

Also, teh girls kept yelling out that Sawao was cute today, and he jokingly said "Manabe knows best how cute I am." and Manabe laughed and gave a mock-serious thumbs up.

Sawao called Serious Plan the "neginuki" song or something, because apparently the other guys snuck some onions into his food recently, and he hates onions. This pretty much confirms our idea of what sort of song it is.

Perhaps "Seattle" would be a good custom title for Grey, then?

A rather nice playlist, tarnished by the bile laced shit songs from Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake Up!.

I would have figured Sawao hates Amerikans because of that guy who hugged him during the LA show.

Also, what shirts did they have on sale?

Actually, I'm gonna disregard your post until I see some pictures. Because if there are no pictures, then you never really went to the show.

[quote="Marekenshin"]Oh, Jun and Sawao went to a Sambomaster live together, I think he said. Nobody in the crowd recognized them, but two of the band members did and were talking with them, and all of a sudden Jun busts out a DVD to have them sign it. He was teasing him about that.[/quote]

Heh, nice. Never knew Jun was such a big fan of theirs.

But damn, I'd love to hear Boat House live. If they come back, that's one thing I'm looking forward too.

this is rather farfetched.

Sounds like you had an amazing time. Now give us some pics of those Japanese fangirls!

Grey can confirm every word of this when he gets online.

I didn't bring my camera, but Grey has a few pics on his.

Much of this is a retreading of Mare's post, but yeah:
[url]http://meguro.tumblr.com[/url]

Complete with pics.

And here's a picture of the Or Glory shirt for those who were curious:
[img]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/stormysoup/Kyoto/Photo15.jpg[/img]

It's a nice black polo shirt with a "BUSTERS" patch in a cool font. Nothing crazy, but it's still sharp.

Ah, and as a sidenote: The music that played before the show started was ALL new noodles material, definitely an album's worth. I wouldn't be surprised if they were even playing a finished version of the new album.

As for the sound...all of the stuff could easily have fit on Cover Me, Shakespeare. The sound hasn't changed at all, so your enjoyment of the new album will likely hinge on whether you've enjoyed their latest work or not. It's clear noodles can put out some good rock...Yoko's voice is fine. But again, it's sort of in that same ...tame and just "pleasant" area. There was definitely a song in there that got me doing a little air-drumming...one of the more upbeat tracks. Otherwise, yeah. It was good. But it's no She, Her, Tomorrow & Yesterday, or Lemon Grass Foo Foo.

Holy crap, I log in to see if you posted yet and BOOM, just this minute.



Kick. Ass.

Nice! Sounds like it was a great show... it would've been awesome to hear Tonight and Girls Don't Cry live. I've never heard of them playing the second one live, so that was pretty sweet.

Quite a tale. Also, fuck you guys. Seriously. You should have paid my way over to Japan. And found a replacement for work. BECAUSE. If I were there, the wristband wouldn't have been the only souvenir those girls gave you.

Japan in the Spring, anyone?

Effing WIN.