Ok, no messing around with pointless intros this time - BLOOD tour 2008 review! (Chicago only, cause darn it, I'm poor -.-)

Sunday mid-afternoon I picked up my kitty (known to most as Morrigan), the sun was shining, the day was young, and we set forth on what should ideally be a six hour drive to Chicago. But does anything ever turn out "ideally"? Noooo, that would be too easy. :P

Now, my car has some issue or other that causes it to guzzle oil, so I had to stop just past the Ohio/Indiana border to put a couple fresh quarts in it. We knew this would come up, so I had a whole case of oil in the trunk ready to go... but unfortunately, my trunk lock chose that moment to get thoroughly stuck, and though we fought with that lock for a good 10 minutes, it would not open. >.> So we decided to just buy oil at the next gas station and call AAA for a locksmith when we got to our motel.

But then, minutes after we moved on from that decision, the rain came. Hard rain. BIG rain. Then some snow filtered into the rain. Then the rain went away and left nothing but a wall of snow to drive through and a sheet of ice to drive over. What does this mean? Crawling along at an average of maybe 30 mph for a good half of the trip's distance, and a six hour drive turning out at least twice that long. Thank God for front-wheel drive.

Anyway, finally got through Indiana and hit the Chicago area, where we stopped to meet an old online friend of mine, Adion. So we pretty much just hung out, had pizza, talked and laughed and hid from the cold for an hour or two. He is a very awesome guy and we were long overdue to finally meet up in person. ^__^ Hopefully it won't be the last time.

We left there around midnight and toddled along through the snow some more... slipped on some ice, missed some turns thanks to all the street signs being covered in snow... and finally reached our motel around 1:30 in the morning. First thing I did was call AAA in hopes of getting my trunk open, but of course they didn't have any contracted locksmiths available at that hour, so we couldn't get our luggage out of the car and had to go straight to bed in our clothes and wait until morning to shower and clean up and everything.

I woke up at 7 am to call AAA, and sadly enough, they remembered me and my dilemma from five hours earlier. >.> They still had all my info and a locksmith was finally available, so they sent him our way, and he arrived around 9 am. So what all did he have to do to fix my solidly stuck trunk lock?

WD-40.

THAT'S IT. *dead*

Anyway, the locksmith was a really nice guy and took apart the lock to check it out just in case, and even helped carry our luggage up to the room, and when he finished up the lock opened smooth as silk... and thanks to AAA it didn't cost me a thing, so it was all good. And as ridiculous as it was, the more I think back on it, the more I laugh at the whole ordeal. ^_^;; So at last we were able to shower and get checked out around 10 am - a little later than we'd hoped, since BLOOD's flight was due to arrive at 10:45, but luckily the roads were clear this time around so it didn't take long to get there.

In fact, their flight was also a few minutes late, so we walked into the terminal just minutes before they landed, and along came Roger leading the band and their entourage toward where we were waiting at their luggage carousel. Finally got to see the band again (except Kaede, who sadly had to cancel at the last minute), reunited with the lovely Ai and Miwa ♥, and Roger introduced me to DJ SiSeN and their guest keyboardist Ryo, who graciously came along to fill in for Kaede. And when everyone was together, we headed outside to where a few cars were lined up to load up everyone and their luggage, and we headed off toward the site of the autograph signing event, Mitsuwa Marketplace.

...Seriously. I COULD LIVE IN THAT STORE. T__T We had some time to look around and hang out before the event started, so Kitty and I did a little shopping while we waited. Among my purchases was a package of natto, something I've been meaning to try for a long time even though I'm pretty sure I won't like it. :P The curiosity was killing me, darn it.

Anyway, then we just sat around in the staff room for a while, did some catching up with Roger, learned that SiSeN is adorable >_<, did some random hanging out and chatting, and then the time came to head out into the store to set up for the signing event. I stayed near the end of the booth where CDs and merchandise were being sold, but Ai and Miwa have become perfectly adept at handling the booth on their own, so I don't think I really made much difference there :P;; I thought I heard one of the fans who came for autographs call me by name at one point to ask a question, but I was probably imagining things... O.o

After the signing event, we decided it was a good time to take everyone out to the food court for some lunch. This place had all kinds of awesome stuff... Korean, Chinese, several booths of different Japanese foods from sushi to noodles to donburi... *_* At first Kitty and I walked through the store toward the food with Roger and SiSeN, which was an interesting experience since he was still in costume so dozens of people kept stopping him for pictures and stuff, which he was perfectly cool with. :3 Then we finally got to the food court and looked over all the menus... and ahh. *died and went to heaven* Unfortunately my "normal" human appetite (and budget *cough*) only allowed me to order one thing, so I just went for the shio-ramen. One of those things that seems so simple and common, but doesn't seem to exist anywhere near where I live, and for some reason I've been craving it for months. That was also the first REAL ramen I've ever had, as opposed to the cheap instant stuff. >.> I'm a sad sheltered boondock Ohioan with no nearby access to any Japanese food other than boxed frozen Chinese buffet sushi, ok? *cough*

Anyway, then we found seats. I sat across from SiSeN, which was fun since he commented on my choice of shio-ramen and made random conversation and told me I was good at using chopsticks (practice pays! ♥) and etc. Have I mentioned he's adorable? >__< Kitty and Roger sat beside me fighting like children the whole time :P, and when they weren't fighting it was Kiwamu and Roger throwing insults back and forth. I'm surrounded by toddlers. >.>

Then Carmilla, the owner of Manga Cafe and the one in charge of organizing things for the Chicago live (I know these people have official titles, but don't ask me what they are, cause I suck), announced that we should start packing up and heading for the club, so we packed a few additional bags in our car and took off. We were apparently too slow to follow behind the other cars who knew where they were going, but we did have directions at least, so when we made wrong turns we knew how to straighten ourselves out. Unfortunately we were apparently stuck in rush hour traffic longer than they were, so we got there later and had to park a million miles away from the club... and then we had to make a dozen trips back and forth between the club and the car to unpack one bit of luggage, then another, then another, then one forgotten item, then another, then refill the parking meter every two hours since for some dumb reason that was as long as it would stay effective... and by the time the show started, my feet were in such ridiculous amounts of pain, I just said screw it and kicked off my shoes and spent the whole evening in just socks. It was an interesting experience. :P

Anyway... hmm... not much happened before the live, other than the constant trips back and forth to/from the car and setting up the booth and watching sound check. At one point Miwa asked me to help her hand out order forms to people as they got their tickets and entered the club, and she wanted to find whoever was selling the tickets so we could make sure they were handed out together, but we walked around the whole club and asked a dozen different people but nobody knew where or who to keep nearby to hand them out. >_> Finally we talked to Carmilla and decided to just hand them to people as they came up the stairs into the main room. This somehow led to a long conversation about my translating position and the magazine she runs and stuff, and how she's always looking for another translator (I told her to hire me and she said she would, but I doubt I'll hear from her again XD). She was very nice and helpful and sweet, though. ^__^

Not much else to speak of as preparations continued in the club... the opening DJ started to do his thing, people started to filter in, and I watched over the booth while Ai handed out order forms to the guests. In other words I didn't really do anything, since by this time there were only about 5 CDs and some of SiSeN's postcard sets left to sell. This was fine by me; I got to just sit around for a while with my socky-feet off the ground and let them rest for an hour or so. Continued to sit and watch from the back through most of SiSeN's opening set, which was really very cool. o_o I never took much interest in DJs or that particular style of music before, but I really had fun listening to his set (and watching him dance around the stage like the adorable creature he is). There was one unfortunate moment during his set where some idiot in the audience decided to totally disrespect SiSeN and BLOOD and the hundreds of people trying to enjoy the evening by starting a fight, and as a result they were forced to turn SiSeN's volume down for a minute so Roger could call a bouncer over the mic and get things settled... but it was taken care of fairly quickly and SiSeN didn't seem to miss a beat.

Somewhere near the end of his set, Miwa returned from helping the band get into costume and told Ai and Kitty and me that we could head up to watch the concert while she took over, but we couldn't really get close to the front, so we tried to just stand on the stairway along the edge of the room and take a few pictures from there... but the bouncer kept telling us we weren't allowed to stand there, despite the fact that we clearly showed him our staff bracelets and were sticking right against the banister leaving plenty of room for people to still use the stairway. We were told that we could take pictures from the balcony if we wanted, so we tried that, but... um, no. I won't even bother to describe the pointlessness of the view from up there. >_>

So yeah... taking pictures didn't really work at this concert. ;_; This was pretty much the best I could manage:


Isn't he adorable?? >___< This one also amuses me because of the Gloomy bear waving at him. Those who know SiSeN should get it. XD


Wish I could've gotten a full body shot. His costume just... I don't know, makes me happy. ._.

Seriously, those are the only workable pictures I managed to get from the whole show. :\ But ah well, they're cute, and even I'll admit I have plenty of BLOOD photos in my collection as it is ^^;; I didn't get to take any of Ryo, though... not even when he came onstage with SiSeN toward the end of his set *pout*

Anyway, SiSeN's set ended and the time came for BLOOD to take the stage. I tried to put my shoes back on for at least this part of the show, but nope, my poor feet were still in pain so I threw the things back into the corner and bounced into the crowd in my ugly formerly-white socks. XP The best we could do was hang out at the back of the crowd to watch, but that was fine with me - the club wasn't that big, so the view was perfectly fine and I didn't have to get knocked around and banged up and showered with Fu-ki's sweat all night. :P

And as always, they put on an AMAZING show. Their new concept is perfectly suited to the goth club scene, with more dance-able rhythms and darker, heavier melodies, and I think they were really happy to see people taking advantage of that and actually dancing instead of just screaming and shoving for the closest position they could get. In addition to the latest singles, they played several new songs that haven't been released yet, which sounded very cool... as well as a couple of the 2nd period songs and a few from their previous two concepts, the vampire story and Les Fleurs Du Mal. One of the things I love about BLOOD - they 're awesome about mixing the old with the new. *-*

It also felt really different from their usual shows in a lot of ways - probably largely because Kaede was absent (Ryo looked almost exactly like him in his costume and makeup though :P), but also because of the more dance-able goth feel of the music. But of course, some things never change - Fu-ki dominated the stage with flawless vocals and his patented brand of showmanship, Kiwamu fired up the crowd and rocked out on the guitar, and Ryo filled in the melodies beautifully with his keyboard while taking breaks now and then to run around the stage making the fans squeal. :3

Even the MC breaks between song sets were amusing - Fu-ki apologized for Kaede's absence and explained that he was sick, but fans could rest assured that he'd be all right because he assured them with a smile "Don't worry, he won't die." :p During another break Roger stepped out to make an announcement and got into a fight with Fu-ki instead - Fu-ki kicked him in the butt, so Roger threw him into the audience, then he did something to mess with Roger again and got thrown into the audience again. And I really don't think he minded the chances to crowd surf. :P

Then the main set ended and we ran back to the booth to prepare for selling the last CDs and set up for the autograph signing, but of course they came out to play an encore, which turned out to be DTMH. Just when I was starting to wonder why I didn't hear that song in the main set... lol, you knew they'd work it in somehow, eh? So of course both BLOOD and the crowd enjoyed that song immensely as always... Roger took the stage at one point to throw Kiwamu into the crowd, and I was starting to wonder if he'd drowned or something when I didn't see him get up again for several moments... but then he popped up and bounced back onto the stage and all carried on as normal again. :P And then the concert ended and they were joined on stage by SiSeN for final bows before heading back for the autograph signing.

Since all the CDs they had brought from Japan sold out, they came up with the idea to have fans fill out an order form for one of the three available CDs, and turn it in along with payment in order to get an autograph. This plan seemed to work out pretty well. (Remember to pick up your CDs at Mitsuwa, guys! I think Roger said they'd be mailed to you, but they'll be mailed to Mitsuwa!) So yeah, that went pretty well and the autograph signing went smoothly - a few people started a new trend of having some interesting articles of clothing signed in place of the CDs they weren't able to buy, so it was amusing watching the guys improvise and find space to write on some stuff :P

So again the signing event ended and the club staff cleared out all the guests, leaving the place pretty quiet as we packed up and waited for time to depart again. Not much happened amidst the wait... though it was during this time when Ai and Miwa spoiled me with lots of awesome gifts ;__; Loads of cute little Snoopy goods from Ai and the makings of soba and udon from Miwa... they know my weaknesses, don't they? ホントにありがとう～♥

I even took a picture of the cell phone charm Ai gave me cause it's so darn perfect for my phone...



Why is this perfect? Because when I'm at home, I keep my phone in its own little spot on top of an unburned chocolate-scented candle that I've had for years, which means I have a chocolate-scented phone. And now I'll have a chocolate-scented piece of chocolate cake hanging from it too. AND a Snoopy. >w<

Anyway! Finally it was time to load up and move on to Carmilla's house, where everyone would rest for a few hours until BLOOD had to leave for the airport at 4:00 am. So I brought my car around to park in front of the club in a line with about four others that were waiting to load up people and luggage and take off... we filled up the whole trunk and half of the back seat with as much as we could take, leaving room for one person to sit comfortably in the back, or two uncomfortably ^^;. Ai seemed interested in riding with us, but when she saw that the back looked a little too cramped for two, she and Miwa moved on... so Fu-ki helped himself to the open seat instead. :P Then SiSen walked by and asked if there was room for any more, and Fu-ki insisted that there was, so he hopped in too. Fortunately they're both skinny little things, but it was still a tight squeeze. So we sat for a good while and waited for everyone else to load up and someone to tell us what we were doing... both of the guys had plenty of room to change their minds and find a roomier car if they'd wanted to (I know at least one car hadn't carried any passengers at all), but they didn't... Fu-ki even got out once, but just went to the bathroom and came right back... so uh... I feel loved? XD;

So thanks to those two, even the wait in the car before we left was fun, thanks to lots of random pointless conversation and mutual dissing of Roger's driving. X3 At one point SiSeN tried to ask or say something to me... can't remember what it was, but he was struggling a bit to say it in English, so Fu-ki finally told him that I can understand Japanese pretty well. Guess nobody had told him what my actual staff position was before that... lol *shrug* Anyway, finally everything was settled and our little five-car chain set off for Carmilla's house. I was the last one in the line, of course, but fortunately we hit all the stoplights in time to get everyone through before they turned red (for more than a second or two anyway ¬_¬). We made a stop along the way at a Wendy's to make sure our starving entourage was fed, then hit the road again until we reached the complex where Carmilla lived.

And that's where things got annoying again. There wasn't enough room in front of her place for five cars to park - normally there would've been, but one of the spaces was filled by a pile of snow and ice at least as tall as my car. So I had to drive in circles around the block at least three times until we could settle on a spot, which was of course the furthest one away from her house, so we had to walk bloody block and a half through the cold night and ice-covered sidewalks to get there... then wait for someone to come out and tell us which gate to go in and which door to use... and then make multiple return trips to unload everyone's luggage. But at last everyone got inside and got settled in for the obligatory Last Night of the Tour relaxing and socializing for a few hours before they had to leave for the airport. And as usual, those few hours were among the best times of the whole trip, and one of the few times along with the concert when we could just forget about the previous troubles and annoyances and just relax and enjoy the company.

But of course, most of it was stuff I don't think I'm at liberty to talk about. XD; But I can say that things were actually even more low-key than usual here since Carmilla's son was asleep and making too much noise was off-limits, so mostly the night was dedicated to people taking turns in the shower while everyone else just hung out and talked. There were a couple of girls there who had come along to interview SiSeN with my interpretation, but every time we asked him if he was ready to start he'd just say "OK" and then go right back to doing his own thing... >.> We gave him time to eat, take off his costume and makeup, shower, and whatever else he wanted to do, and meanwhile I plopped myself down on the sofa and closed my eyes to rest for a while. Didn't sleep, of course, but when I opened my eyes Fu-ki was sitting next to me, and since he's so bloody nice and conversational we just randomly talked about a lot of things. I got to rant at him about how long our drive to Chicago had taken, he called Ryo over and sort of re-introduced him to me, and the first thing Ryo did was compliment my Japanese. He's so sweet and cute. T__T

Eventually Fu-ki and Ryo moved off to hang out somewhere else, and Kitty and I sat on the sofa chatting with the girl who had come to interview SiSeN. She was almost ready to give up on the interview though, since he seemed to keep getting distracted by other things, but eventually we just went over and sat ourselves down at the table across from him and declared that we were getting started. I was slightly nervous about this interview since I had no previous experience with DJ-related stuff or with DJ SiSeN himself, but in the end it went pretty smoothly. SiSeN was absolutely adorable answering some of the questions too... he actually asked us to wait a minute on a few of them just so he could sit there and get a few giggles out of his system while he composed an answer XD When it was over he very generously agreed to sign an autograph for a friend of the interviewer's who couldn't come because she'd broken her foot, and then I finally got bold enough to ask him for an autograph for myself too, which I kind of squee-ed over for the rest of the night. ♥

So yeah... not much else to speak of here. After the interview I pretty much spent the rest of the night sprawled in my corner of the sofa watching everyone chat and occasionally being pulled into conversations, but before we knew it 4:00 rolled around and it was time to load up and get everyone to the airport.

This was another slightly annoying experience, since apparently my car was now the only one still parked in that row almost two blocks away; apparently at some point the other four cars had either left or moved closer. Roger kept trying to make me look like some kind of idiot by telling Kiwamu I didn't know where my car was. Thanks, Roger. ¬_¬ I knew exactly where it was, I just didn't know where I was supposed to take it since the direction they were pointing me in led straight into a locked gate. >__> But yeah... finally we (myself, Kitty, and again Fu-ki and SiSeN) headed toward my car, while along the way Fu-ki and I chatted some more about random stuff - impressions of the concert, sadness over Kaede, the awesomeness of Ryo, dissing Roger some more :P, Chicago being nowhere near as cold as he expected >.>, etc... the little brat decided to pick up a snowball which ended up getting chucked at my head, and when I turned around and called him out on it he just pointed to the car and said "Oh, there's the car :D" >___>...

Soooo, yes. Everyone piled into the car and we were off to the airport, which didn't take long... and for once the weather was pretty clear and traffic was light, so it felt like we were there in no time. Even though they were a good 2 hours early, for some reason they all seemed in a big hurry to get inside and get checked in, so there were no big long emotional partings this time - just waving and casual goodbyes and stuff. Fu-ki was pretty much the only one who stopped and actually waved longer and said more than just "byebye" to me... Kiwamu had already gone in but came back outside to give Carmilla a hug, then he just waved at me and ran inside again... and that was pretty much the end of that.

By now it was about 5:00 am and we hadn't slept more than a couple hours out of the past 48 or more, so we went back to the motel we'd stayed in Sunday night just to crash for a few hours before the looooong drive home. When we finally felt somewhat alert again, we showered and loaded up and headed out - and stopped at Mitsuwa again before we left. I'm going to miss that place. ;_; We looked at manga and magazines and bought more snacky stuff and returned to the food court for lunch... and I FINALLY got to eat oyakodon, another one of those things I've been craving that's all over the place in Japan but impossible to find anywhere near where I live... and it was SO GOOD. I was so depressed when I couldn't even finish more than half of it because my stomach was still in travel mode and my appetite was nil. T___T I WANT MOREEEEEE.

But oh well... finally we broke away from the paradise that is Mitsuwa and set off on what should've been the six hour drive back home, but again it turned into more like ten hours - this time because of rush hour. =__= It rained the whole time too, but not so much that I had to slow down drastically or anything. So it was, what, around 2 am when we finally made it back to Kitty's place, so I helped her unload stuff and decided to continue on my way home while I was still awake and alert, and thus finally made it back home a bit after 3:00. And as soon as I took the key out of the ignition, all the adrenaline instantly drained out of me and I was hit by this massive wave of dizziness >.>, so I pretty much crashed as soon as I got all my stuff hauled inside.

And that pretty much does it for my experience with BLOOD USA tour 2008. Very sad that I couldn't make it to the entire tour, but by just driving to Chicago I was able to help the band even more by driving people and luggage around, so it all worked out. The amazing concert and the opportunity to hang out with everyone again made all the annoyances and long road hours worth it. Also, Kiwamu told us later that it was the best tour BLOOD has ever had, which is still incredibly rewarding even though I was barely able to help at all this time. ^__^; Can't wait till next year's tour - and I swear by that time I WILL have enough cash to attend the whole thing. >o< *determined pose*