Who would've thought I'd end up flying all the way to Mexico to see BLOOD? Weighing the pros and cons and debating over the sanity of such a decision took a couple months for myself and Calla, but finally it was decided, and we were making plans and reservations. By that time we only had one month to wait before taking off to see BLOOD live in Mexico City and follow their [VENGEANCE for BLOOD 3] tour at the anime/mange expo TNT9. And that means I actually have another (quite long) report to post here. o.o

First, I should mention that I typed up notes for this report day-by-day in our hotel on my laptop, so I'll be smashing 6 days' worth of detailed reports into one here. So settle in for a looooooong read if you want to hear it all. ^^; Also, I know I usually include teaser pictures in my reviews, but... well, you try selecting just a handful of representative images from a total of 147 photos. ^^;; So instead, here's the link to my BLOOD at TNT photo gallery (check out the Misc Photos gallery for a few interesting non-BLOOD pictures).

Let the review begin...

~Day 1: Wednesday, May 4~

To begin with... Wednesday = exhaustion. x.x

So after much debating with my parents as to whether I would drive myself and my kitty to the airport, or they'd sacrifice two nights of sleep to leave us there and pick us up... late Tuesday evening I departed for Calla's. Our night was spent channel surfing and doing whatever last minute packing needed to be done; we didn't bother going to bed since we knew we'd have to head for the airport at 6 am. But we survived... got to the airport without incident, reached the monstrous Chicago O'Hare for our transfer and didn't even have to walk that far to get to our next gate (it was actually in the same concourse o.o)... but things kinda started going downhill from there. After a brief second wind (or third or fourth wind >>), our lack of sleep started to catch up with us... but sleeping on the 4 hour flight to Mexico was next to impossible. Especially toward the end when we encountered the most vicious turbulence I've ever experienced. Seriously felt like a roller coaster at a few points... or like we'd run over a cow. >> <<

Finally we reached Mexico City and walked for what felt like hours through the huge insane Juarez International Airport, trying to figure out where we were supposed to go and how to get through customs and how to FIND customs and etc etc. The whole process took close to an hour... not because we encountered any problems with customs, but just because we had to walk like, a mile to get to the first checkpoint, then another mile to the next one, then another mile to the exit, etc etc. Evil airport of doom. >.x

Finally we escaped the insanity, and were on our way to hunt down the hotel shuttle hub when we spotted someone holding a sign with my name on it. o.o As it turned out, Karime, owner of BLOOD's Spanish fansite, had come along with a small group of others to pick us up. It was great to be able to meet them and talk and hang out... they were all a lot of fun. ^-^ Not to mention they're all native Spanish speakers so they pretty much saw us through the rest of the day... *huggles to them all*

Finally, after also hooking up with Roxanne when her flight finally arrived and then walking a few more miles to exchange some money for pesos and escape the airport at last, we were off to TNT via taxi.

WE THOUGHT WE WERE GOING TO DIE. x_x

And Americans think traffic in New York is insane... *twitch* aaack... Anyway, other things we noticed about the roadways in Mexico City were that they all seem to be one-way, and randomly vary between just one lane and, like, eight lanes. And that was just in the few miles we had to ride. Also noticed that, just as I'd heard in high school Spanish class, taxis are ALL OVER the place in Mexico City... and so is traffic in general. It's like New York rush hour on crack, and they all drive like absolute maniacs. x.x

I must also add that Mexico City is... chaos. ._. It's crowded, it's busy, it's insane, it's colorful... and within an hour I was thanking God that I don't live there. x_x Some of the more interesting points I noticed: VW Beetles are extremely popular there (again, as I'd heard in high school Spanish class), people really do walk around in the streets between lanes of traffic trying to sell stuff, and... there are occasionally random giant fountains and statues and... thingies that remind me of the Spanish Steps but smaller scale and newer... in the middle of roadways and intersections. >.o

Yeah, tangented there... but anyway, after that taxi ride of doom, we finally reached the location of TNT, where Karime and company introduced us to Andres. He is... adorable. :D Unfortunately, he was far too busy and we were far too wiped out to have much chance to really talk with him... but he did show us the stage BLOOD would be performing on (which looked very promising, by the way) and introduced us to Rafael, another TNT staffer, who escorted us to our hotel and walked us through check-in and even gave us a rundown of peso/dollar equivalents so we'd have some idea of how to use our money.

Then at last, by around 7 pm, we were on our own in our hotel room... Calla crashed for a nap while I set about typing this account of day 1. A couple hours later, I was amazed to find myself still awake and functioning even though I hadn't slept in 2 days and hadn't eaten more than a can of Vienna sausages and a few Cheetos and a couple random cookies and candies since we left for the airport that morning... along with like a bottle and a half of water... x.x Yeeeeeah, had been running on pure adrenaline all day. So eventually I gave up and tried to nap for a couple hours, but it wasn't a very successful venture, as I'd guessed. >> So by about 11 pm Calla and I were both wide awake and decided to wander about our hotel to figure out where everything of interest was... and mainly in search of a nonexistant ice machine. We had to call room service later just for a bucket of ice. >> Anyway, in our travels we ran into some other BLOOD fans we'd been looking forward to meeting, who seemed to have the same wanderlust we had as we kept running into them bouncing around in the hallways and joyriding on the elevators. :P Didn't get to talk much, so eventually we returned to our own room and idly hung out for a few hours, listening to BLOOD and generally being dorks and FINALLY starting to feel hungry but having nothing but Vienna sausages and chips and candy to satiate ourselves... so yeeeeeah, it was not a very nutritious or restful day for either of us. >.>

~Day 2: Thursday, May 5~

After waiting a few hours for a ride from some of Andres' staff, we figured they'd forgotten about us, so we got a taxi ourselves to the convention center... only to find out a couple hours later when we met Andres that he had just sent someone after us. Oops. e_e Anyway, after we managed to actually be admitted into the con, we first met Shelly, Leslie, and Roger with the rest of the band's staff at the BLOOD booth, then randomly ran around exploring the con. I don't think I've ever seen so many people concentrated in one place like that in my life. The crowds were shoulder to shoulder in every room and aisle, walking was almost impossible, and there was either loud music or a live band blasting full volume everywhere we went. We spent most of the afternoon sitting around in the concert hall, which was by far the least crowded for most of the day. Then, around 4:00, we decided to stake out a spot for BLOOD's live... so being 2 hours early, we ended up in about the 3rd standing row of people, almost directly in front of center stage. Notice also that I never mentioned anything about going anywhere for food here... that's because, again, we didn't. Other than a few Doritos and a couple waters, anyway.

There had been local bands playing on that stage all day, but we didn't really pay any attention to them until the 4:00 band, Tenshi no Yume, started their set. They were a Mexican visual band who played covers of J-rock songs, the only one I recognized being Brise by Malice Mizer. And heh... their look was... intriguing. :p I used half of my first roll of film on them... especially on the bassist, who somehow managed to look like a cross between 2nd period BLOOD's Taichi and Kaede. Needless to say, he intrigued me. >> << I'd swear he kept looking straight at me too, which was special...

The next band to take the stage for a one-hour set was LARKSPUR, a Korean non-visual rock band who I guess was supposed to serve as BLOOD's opening act. They played a pretty good set, consisting of some original songs and some J-rock covers... but again, I only recognized one of them, which was Endless Rain by X Japan. Not as intriguing as Tenshi no Yume or as entertaining as BLOOD, but still a good band... and the vocal/guitarist was all cute and the keyboardist was all bouncy and hyper and smiley. :P So yeah... used the rest of my first film roll on them.

Finally their set ended... but before BLOOD took the stage, the TNT staff decided to make the already horribly crowded conditions in the audience worse by spending about half an hour throwing about a dozen T-shirts, a couple magazine things featuring BLOOD, and a couple dozen bottles of water into the audience. Now, again, already the place was so packed we could barely move or breathe... and their throwing stuff just led to more pushing and shoving and fighting and knocking each other over and even more potential for injury than the concert itself. Ouch. >_<

FINALLY, shortly after 6:00, BLOOD took the stage. And my first impression was that their costumes look considerably better on stage than they do in photographs. o_o Probably because they leave out all the clunky accessories for performances... also, Fu-ki wore pants instead of that drapey skirt thing, and Kiwamu did not wear the eyepatch or the red wig. Instead he had a dot between his eyes. *amused* Anyway... as usual, Kiwamu led the charge, wasting no time in pointing and gesturing at the audience trying to get everyone as revved up as possible. He was all smiley and happy too, which was... entertaining. :P Kaede came out around the same time, but he kept his back to the audience until their set actually started. Finally, Fu-ki took his center stage position and did his usual "I AM GAAAAAAAAAWD" routine (^_~) for a minute before turning his back to the crowd as well. Kiwamu eventually joined them in facing the other direction, but it never lasted long before he had to turn around and pump up the crowd some more. :P

So at last, after several minutes of all this, the show began. Set list was as follows:

Byakuya
Oboro
Sweetest Disease
Sakura
Morphine (TRANS mix)
I Remember You
Gothic
Awake
Maria
The Funeral for Humanity
Blind
Unforgiven
Under the Sensual Moon
D.T.M.H.
new song (maybe Nevermore...? sorry, I missed the title ><)
~encore~
member introductions
Morphine (TRANS mix)

First point of interest music-wise was that they played a new version of Oboro, remixed by Fu-ki, which was quite cool. Also, Kiwamu doesn't really lead the "para para" anymore apparently... Fu-ki seems to have taken over that role... and his favorite moves seem to be bouncing up and down, this double-fisted air-punching thing, arm swaying, and... the chicken. XD Fair amount of headbanging and spinning too, of course. And Kaede did his cute swaying thing during Sakura. ;__; Oh, and there was also plenty of that... special... headbanging... bouncing... fist pumping... thing... that Fu-ki demonstrated on the DVD that comes with the VENGEANCE for BLOOD album. I don't know how to describe it... other than "Dude! I ROOOOOOOOCK!" >.> <.<

Ahem, anyway... their new song Gothic is also really cool. Slow and dark and heavy and... really cool. *.* Not too many other notes musicwise, so as for the members themselves... as I said, Kiwamu was his usual crowd-pumping self, Fu-ki was his usual "I am godly, admire my hand gestures" self, and Kaede was his usual quiet-but-bass-rocking self, though he did get into a few of the songs enough to run around on stage and rev up the crowd. He also watered his fans. ^_^ (check out the end of the Glaz Art footage on the Funeral for Humanity DVD, where he sprinkled water on the audience, to appreciate that one >>) Also, the guest members, Yuu and Noa, did a great job. :D Yuu especially was VERY energetic and into the performance. I heard later that they told him he was being a little TOO hyper and should calm down. :P But yeah, they both did a great job, and they fit into BLOOD extremely well. *2 thumbs up*

In other concert notes, there wasn't a whole lot of fanservice this time around. Only a few instances of Fu-ki leaning directly into the other members' faces while singing particular verses of particular songs... and of course, the biting of Fu-ki's neck by Kiwamu during The Funeral for Humanity. The most entertaining, however, was Fu-ki's revenge during Unforgiven - right at the beginning of the song he grabbed Kiwamu by the hair and dragged him to his knees, where he proceeded to... er, basically... make him his bitch for the duration of the song. ^-^;;;

And now let me remind you that not only had neither of us eaten anything all day besides a few chips and a couple waters, but we also hadn't slept in 2 days. So a bit over halfway through the concert, all of that took its toll and we had to break out of the audience to watch the rest of the show from off to the side where few people were standing. I just felt sort of dizzy and short of breath at worst, but my poor kitty nearly passed out completely. T_T So yeah... we needed out of there. No big loss, since we could still see the show quite well from the sidelines, and even got to take some better pictures of the whole stage as opposed to a member at a time. But yeah, that's why I missed the title of that one song near the end of the set list... we were kinda preoccupied with trying not to pass out.

Finally the main set ended, but they returned for a brief encore, in which Fu-ki introduced the members in his own... cute way. :P Namely, first he pointed at Kaede and led the crowd in chanting his name... then he pointed at Kiwamu and asked everyone "What is his name?" which started the chant of Kiwamu's name... then he pointed to himself and asked if we knew who he was... which again started the chant of his name... which, I might add, sounds really amusing in Spanish. :P;; Finally he introduced the guest musicians, Yuu and Noa... and again, they're both really great performers. In particular, some of Yuu's poses and gestures at the crowd rivaled Fu-ki himself. Then they played Morphine again, followed by some tossing of shirts and water and other random objects into the crowd... including Fu-ki teasing the audience with several fake throws before actually releasing the item, and one shirt accidentally being thrown too high and getting stuck in the lighting rig XD... and then the show was over.

That done, we proceeded to the back of the hall where the BLOOD booth was, where they would follow the live with a signing session. We were the first ones there, but we didn't even want autographs... I was just waiting to talk to Kiwamu because he had asked me to. >.> <.< But of course, very quickly a crowd built up behind us clamoring to be first in line, and again we found ourselves trapped between tons of people and nearly being flung over the signing table. Again, we didn't even want anything signed... so the best part was when con staff finally started "organizing" (so to speak) everyone into an actual line and a security guy grabbed me by my backpack to drag me away from the table, telling me to go back to the end of the line. I probably confused the heck out of that guy when I told him "THANK YOU! Graaaaacias!" since we didn't want to be in that line in the first place, but couldn't break out of it on our own. >_<

So then we had no choice but to wait around for a couple hours until the monstrous line for autographs finally reached its end, and then after the band returned backstage to gather their things and return to their hotel, Andres led me backstage to announce my presence to Kiwamu. But it took a couple minutes to get his attention, so Kaede was the first to acknowledge me. So I got a "Ah, Becky? o.o (me: hai!) Ahhh~ ^o^" out of him, which was cute. :3 Then he joined Andres in repeatedly calling "Kiwamu-san! Kiwamu-sa~~~n!" and nudging me into the room from behind until the man finally turned around and associated me with their "Becky is here" introductions. Then suddenly he was all happy and perky and "AAAAAaaaah Becky!! :D" and grabbed me in a random hug (sandwiching me between him and Kaede I might add >>) and planting a huge black-lipsticked kiss on my forehead. Then he looked at the black smudge left behind, said "Ooh, sugoi!" and... did it again. Then giggled about how he'd made my face all dirty. >.> He and Kaede then thanked me for helping them and such, then Karime asked me to take pictures of her with each of the members, so I did that... and somewhere in the middle of that process, Fu-ki realized who I was and gave me this surprised look while saying my name, then stuck out his hand to shake mine with his big characteristic smirk. :P Then he returned to picking on the other members and staffers and headbutting their bouncer guy in the stomach and etc, while Karime took a picture of me and my black forehead smudges with Kiwamu. >>

So after a few minutes of this sort of thing, I returned to the main... concert... room... hall... place... thing >.>... to rejoin Calla and have a taxi called to take us back to our hotel. But not before being waved and smirked at by Kiwamu from the band's van as they were on their way out too. >>

Soooo, back at our hotel, after a quick stop in our room to drop off our stuff, we decided to randomly wander around the hotel for a while, mostly hanging out at the balcony on our floor that overlooks the pool and bar area on the floor below, just sort of watching the world go by. We were amused when the other group of fans and such (the one we had encountered a few members of the night before) kept popping in and out of their rooms, spotting us looking over the balcony at nothing in particular, and then looking over the balcony themselves to see what the big deal was. :P Eventually we joined that whole group in one of their rooms to hang out and eat pizza and other random interesting foreign snacks for the rest of the evening, until around 4 am when everyone was falling over from exhaustion and we decided to call it a day. And thus we retired to our own room to attempt sleep...

Oh, I must also add that at some point during this very insane and entertaining day, Calla gave Kiwamu chocolate. :P There are multiple stories behind that one... first he won a candy bar from a bet with her that he didn't even know about >> <<, then one day a couple months ago he randomly asked me for chocolate. Soooo we gave him a Crunch bar and M&M's (and apparently taught him a new word in the process - "candy" :D). That story will continue in tomorrow's review... :P

~Day 3: Friday, May 6~

Not much to report for Friday. We spent most of the afternoon just hanging around in the hotel trying to rest, until finally our taxi was prepared and we departed for the convention center, arriving around 5:30. The Korean band LARKSPUR was just finishing their set, so we staked out a position on Kiwamu's side of the stage... managed to get even closer to the front, but unfortunately, we were also right in front of a speaker. Our poor ears. x_x The crowding and shoving was just as bad too... but at least it was easier to breathe and find elbow room when we actually managed to reach the barricade between the front row and the stage.

So, after another agonizing round of con staff throwing shirts and water and magazines for what felt like hours, BLOOD finally emerged. Like the previous day, Kiwamu was all crowd-pumping, Fu-ki was all godly, and Kaede was all stoic and cute. Set list was as follows:

The Funeral for Humanity
Blind
Unforgiven
Collector
Byakuya
Morphine (TRANS mix)
Gothic
Oboro
Maria
Blood
Death Dies
I Remember You
Tanmei
Sweetest Disease
D.T.M.H.
~encore~
Pegasus Fantasy (Saint Seiya theme)
Blind

First of all, it was interesting to hear Collector live. o.o I actually kinda enjoy that song, despite the fact that the lyrics are... well... scary? x_x; Probably because the song has some of the most amazing bass riffs I've ever heard, and I have a thing for bass. I was sad that I was too far away from Kaede during the show to see him rock out on those riffs though. :\ Also, they perform Death Dies a little differently now than they used to... more energetic, mainly... and they sort of keep up a constant chant of "DIES! DIES! DIES! DIES!" throughout the chorus instead of the original "death DIES death DIES!" Anyway... also noticed that these guys really get into D.T.M.H. at live shows. From their perspective, I can understand why... it's a really energetic, hard song, even if there's not that much to it. And on a final note as far as the music goes... they played Pegasus Fantasy! :D *dance* I've been dying to see them perform that song for like, a year now... and it really was fun to hear from them. The whole crowd was singing along, and I'm proud to say I could join in. ^^;

As for other random notes... the members were their usual selves, with a few interesting additions and changes. Kiwamu spit blood again this time, something he didn't do during Thursday's show for some reason... and also, it seems that Yuu has taken over (or is at least sharing) Kiwamu's former role of convulsing and spewing blood during Death Dies. O.o Oh, and Fu-ki let Noa sing lead at a few points during some songs, which was very cool. Some of the most amusing points of the night... during one song Fu-ki actually laid down on the speaker in front of us (which made for a great photo op :P), and... he was all smirky through the whole thing, which is always amusing. x) Also, about halfway through the show Kiwamu seemed to finally realize where we were in the crowd, so from then on he kept making faces and pointing at us. >.> He also still has the habit of throwing water at the crowd in his own systematic fashion - he flings two or three splashes first, then the whole bottle, then the cap, then walks away. One of the highlights of the evening was when someone threw his bottlecap right back at him as he turned to walk away. XD We were also pretty amused when Fu-ki was trying to say something but everyone was screaming over him, so Kiwamu yelled "Shut up! SHUT UP! He's talking! Damare!" which really just sort of had the opposite effect. :P And what else... same plot-style fanservice during Funeral and Unforgiven, plus this time Kiwamu decided to kiss the daylights out of Fu-ki when he was in the middle of singing some verse... you could actually hear his voice go all squeaky and HOLY FOOK when Kiwamu kiss-raped him. :P Another amusing moment was Fu-ki patting Kaede on the butt. *giggles* And finally, Yuu performed a very... graphic perverted hand gesture at the audience, which amused us more than it should have... >.> <.<

And that's all I can remember from the live itself... we then waited around again while they had their signing session and gathered up their stuff backstage, busying ourselves toward the end of our wait by playing volleyball with a random black feather we'd found on the floor. Felines are easily amused. >> Anyway, finally they emerged from backstage. Kaede smiled and waved as he went by... but we were still batting that feather around (or I was, anyway... can't remember every detail now >>) when Kiwamu emerged. We both heard him break into a run coming straight toward us, and both of us figured he was probably going to try to snatch our feather and run or something... but instead the man went all unpredictable and flying-tackled Calla for no apparent reason. *dies* Then he told her the chocolate she gave him the day before was very good, and to give him more. He even specified that he wanted the Crunch bar. :P So we told him we had another candy bar (not Crunch, but still chocolate) waiting in the room, one of those huge king-sized ones, and we'd give it to him later. So then he was all happy and randomly petted me as he walked out toward the band's van. >> We followed shortly after to get our own taxi, and he kept waving and staring at both of us from the van, gesturing with his hands the large size of the candy bar he wanted us to give him. <<

Then we returned to our hotel and headed down to the cafe for dinner, and after that we were both exhausted enough to go to bed at the blasphemously early hour of 11:30, and thus ended day 3 or our Mexican excursion.

~Day 4: Saturday, May 7~

After lazing around the hotel for as long as we could bear to procrastinate (which is a long time if you're us :P), we called our own taxi to the convention center again, thinking we'd arrived early enough to get front row spots on Kaede's side of the stage... but alas, no such luck. So again we stood in front of Kiwamu, even further off to the side than the previous day... but on the plus side, we weren't quite as close to the speaker, and being right at the barricade we could actually breathe and feel a draft blowing through the area in front of the stage.

Anyway, when we got there some random Mexican visual band was finishing their set, and after that ended the cosplay judging event began on the same stage. Turns out BLOOD had been selected to be the judges of the event, which we'd known nothing about previously... so they took the stage in full costume and were seated at a table while the cosplay contestants paraded in front of them. And you know, apparently these Mexicans really go all out on cosplay. O.o The contestants included everything from the very common Inuyasha to things like Gandalf, Edward Scissorhands, the mother alien from Alien(s), and a random velociraptor; but I think the most common cosplay theme of the bunch was Naruto. A lot of them were extremely detailed - the mother alien costume even had the little second set of teeth that protruded from its external mouth, and more than one cosplayer wore a set of wings that must have spanned at least 10-12 feet and, feather for feather, were made in pretty impressive detail. It was amusing to see BLOOD interacting with some of the finalists after the judging was over... especially Fu-ki, who patted the mother alien on the head and lifted the winner, a little kid in an extremely shiny golden armor costume (winged again), in the air for all to see. ^^

So that event ended and BLOOD returned to the backstage area, which we could see pretty well since our eye level was just above the height of the stage itself. There were a few inches of open space between the stage and the screen on that side, through which we saw Kaede and Fu-ki peering under the screen toward the stage to watch WINDY, the Korean girl group who played some sort of rock style music with traditional string instruments. Not bad at all musically, but... oww, as if we weren't close enough to the speaker... those strings... *clutches ears* Anyway, at least we were able to amuse ourselves watching Kaede and Fu-ki peering at the stage from under the screen, especially when Kaede spotted us and waved again. :3

Finally the eardrum-scraping WINDY left the stage, allowing the TNT staff to cause still more riots by throwing more shirts and magazines and water before BLOOD at last emerged. So far no new quirks that we hadn't seen in the previous 2 shows, except that Kiwamu flipped everyone off when he came out >>, so here's the set list...

The Funeral for Humanity
Blind
Unforgiven
Collector
Byakuya
Morphine (TRANS mix)
Gothic
Oboro
Maria
Blood
Death Dies
I Remember You
Tanmei
Sweetest Disease
D.T.M.H.
~encore~
Pegasus Fantasy

So, happily, they played Collector again... and as I expected, Kaede kicked serious tail in it. Too bad he wasn't on our side of the stage so I could see his fingers fly over that bass up close... but oh well, at least I finally got to watch him play those riffs. I also realized then that I just might have been the only person in the audience who was able to sing along with that song. O.o Most of it at least... Anyway, not a lot of new stuff to report from this one. Same plot-style fanservice, plus another instance of Kiwamu kiss-raping Fu-ki, leaving the poor boy standing there looking all "O_O... XD;;;" again... and also leaving a huge slobbery mess of fake blood all over Fu-ki's face and hair. >.> Same para para and interesting gestures and poses and such also (Fu-ki gave us a dirty look once when we didn't participate in some particular move he was leading the crowd in :P)... same energetic participation by Noa and Yuu... same flinging and spitting of water... and Yuu actually lit up a cigarette on stage at one point and blew the smoke at the fans. X_x He shook up a huge can of beer and opened it so it sprayed half the audience too, then proceeded to drink and spit it at everyone... yeeeeah, Yuu had a lot of fun with audience interaction. ^^; And the final amusing moment I can recall was toward the end when Kaede came to our side of the stage with a bottle of water to fling around, and he actually looked at us and gave us a questioning look as if to ask permission before finally flinging it our way. We gestured for him to go ahead... figured the shower would cool us off nicely... though we didn't expect him to throw the entire half-full bottle at us, or for it to bounce somewhere behind us and completely soak Calla's back... ^^;;

So, the show ended... and this time we decided to actually join the line to get autographs, as Calla still lacked Fu-ki's and I still needed Noa and Yuu's. Was hoping to get something signed for a friend I promised autographs to as well, but I could only have one item signed... sorry dear. ;_; Anyway, our turn came, and the guest musicians signed our stuff first, followed by Kaede, then Kiwamu and Fu-ki. Was pretty amusing... Kaede was the only one who seemed to be paying attention to who he was signing for before he actually signed. He gave me a smile and wave again as I passed him, then passed the thingy on to Kiwamu, who was all slumped down in his chair paying absolutely no attention and scribbled some quick... thing that looks nothing like any variation of his name >.>... and finally Fu-ki signed my paper and actually looked up as he handed it back to me... and actually visibly jumped when he realized who I was. :P He then went into this long string of Japanese that I didn't catch most of, partially because of the psycho noisy crowd around me and partially because he was laughing as he said it... but I did catch that he hadn't realized I was there and that I surprised him. Again, laughing out loud all the while. That moment made my day. XD Also amusing was when that little outburst prompted Kiwamu to actually pay attention to his surroundings, and he looked up at me, laughed, and growled "Omae naa...!" ("Yooouuu...!") LOL

So after we got our autographs and marveled at the complete randomness of Kaede's and Kiwamu's chicken scratch signatures for a while, we found one of Andres' staffers to help us catch a taxi back to our hotel. However, before we could retire there for the night, we encountered Shelly and Kiwamu, who immediately beckoned me over and asked me if I knew about the staff party going on that night. I had known about it previously, as both he and Andres had invited me there, but I didn't know exact details about it so I said no. So Shelly told me they were just on their way to go there, and as soon as that was out, Kiwamu said "Ok, let's go!" while grabbing my arm and starting to drag me out the door. >> <<

Anyway, he then told me where to meet the band and their party so we could all depart together, and rushed me off to go get ready. >.> So after a quick return to our hotel room to change and drop off some things, Calla and I headed down to the chosen meeting place, where everyone except Noa was hanging around waiting. It was at that moment that I first got to see Kaede completely out of costume and makeup, with his new haircut. As expected, I didn't recognize him. Thought at a distance that he must've been Noa, until it was announced that Noa was the one we were still waiting for. O_o I do like his new cut though... it sort of frames his face in front and reaches a bit past his shoulders in the back, no bangs, very natural looking smooth black... it actually does look cute in a masculine way. o.o

Anyway, when Kiwamu realized we'd arrived, he walked over and immediately made the "big candy bar" gesture at Calla, so she gave him the two Crunch bars she'd bought him on the way there (substitutes for a giant Crunch bar, which they didn't sell) and he was a happy camper. :P I would've given him the giant candy bar I'd brought from home too, but after Calla spoiled him with the Crunch bars I decided I'd give mine to Kaede instead. >> Never got a chance to do that though, sadly... <<

Oh, I should also mention that it was sometime during this whole pre-party process that I encountered Kiwamu while walking around in my blindingly cute slippers (see here to understand this part :3), which had given him a good laugh... so while we were hanging around waiting for Noa, Kiwamu noticed that I'd changed into black shoes and he made some comment about that (the dork wanted me to go to the party in my slippers I think :P and to be honest, I would have, but they would've gotten dirty >>)... and then he got Fu-ki's attention to tell him about the slippers I'd had on earlier. Fu-ki kept looking at me, I guess waiting for me to explain them or something... not sure... but yeah, he was all intrigued after Kiwamu told him they were really cute and had made him laugh. :P So I told Fu-ki I'd show them to him later and he gave me this insanely happy *nodnodnodnod ^_______^* thing. LOL

Then, eventually, someone reminded Kiwamu that not all of us would fit in the same van to go to this party... so a few of the Mexican staff members provided for the band by TNT told me they were calling a separate taxi for me and Calla. So right around the same time Noa finally showed up and the main party headed for their van, our cab arrived... so everyone was off, in different vehicles but at pretty much the same time. However, due to a chain of events set in motion by a certain preppy little female Mexican staff member, which I won't go into any further detail about here... only one of those vehicles actually went to the party. Guess which one didn't? -_- Sooooo, with no other choice, we returned to our hotel room so pissed we couldn't see straight - not because of missing the party, just simply because of the irresponsible (to put it politely) actions of that woman that had caused us to miss it.

Anyway, we spent the next few hours trying to calm ourselves down enough to stomach a few bites of the random junk food still lying around in the room before we finally went to bed, dreaming up as many ways as possible to maim that bitch when we saw her again the next day. And yeah... that was our Saturday. -_-

~Day 5: Sunday, May 8~

Very, very little to report about Sunday. We still weren't in the greatest of moods when we woke up, so we lazed around the room until about 4 in the afternoon, when we decided to go see if anything BLOOD-related was going on during TNT's final day (after a side stop to get some more money exchanged into pesos, that is). Sadly it seemed there wasn't; Yuu and Noa were there with some of the staffers selling the band's merchandise, and we saw Kiwamu and Shelly on the way outside to get a taxi, but one of the TNT staff guys told us there'd be no concerts that day, so we figured there was nothing worth fighting those insane shoulder-to-shoulder crowds for. I wouldn't have expected the place to be even more crowded on Sunday than on Friday and Saturday, especially with no concerts going on. x.x But oh well... we bought a couple magazines that featured BLOOD, one of which included a CD-R with four BLOOD songs, a BLOOD gallery, and some videos from previous TNT expos... and then we returned to the hotel. Sadly we couldn't find Andres to say goodbye to him. :\ Wish there'd been more time to hang out with him... he was so sweet to both of us the entire time. He even randomly gave us massages and cheek kisses and stuff every time we did see him. *reaches to fluff him*

Anyway, back at the hotel, we ordered dinner via room service and hung around doing very little for most of the evening. One thing we did to kill time was look through the magazines we'd bought, which led us to discover that the biography section printed in one included set lists for pretty much every show BLOOD has performed... and for the Fanime entry, it seemed they'd decided to use the set list I wrote myself (translated into Spanish) during that concert. That kinda amused me. :P Anyway, some hours later we were bored enough to just randomly wander around wherever our feet would take us... and on one such trip we managed to run into Shelly. She asked us what had happened the previous night, so we spent a while discussing that whole ordeal... and at some point during our conversation Fu-ki wandered along and saw the three of us talking, and made one of his special little cocky pointing gestures at us. So since I'd promised him the night before that I'd show him my slippers, and I happened to be wearing them (I took as many opportunities as I could to wear those things >> <<), I held up one foot over the railing thingy for him to see, and as soon as he saw it he broke into a run around the corner and straight toward me, stopping in front of me to literally double over giggling as he pointed at my feet. Then just as he was catching his breath, he spotted Calla in her own... special slippers, and went into another point-and-giggle-fit at those. We found all this unbelievably amusing. XD *noogies the nerd boy* Another point I must add on the subject of Fu-ki, however... that man is REALLY SKINNY. X_x Had us just slightly concerned, since we know he wasn't always such a toothpick...

Anyway, then they moved along and things quieted down for a while... but not before I had one more chance to see Kaede in regular street clothes looking all normal. As in no makeup or wig, quite cool patterned brown shirt, dark blue jeans, and even a chain hanging at his waist. And you know what? He's quite sexy as a man. >.> <.< His new haircut really does look good on him... and to think I never thought I'd get used to seeing him without that long feminine hairstyle. o_o I wish I could've found the time to take a picture of his new look, but I didn't want to bother the members with cameras in their downtime outside of the con...

Anyway, things quieted down then as the BLOOD party continued with their evening out... which gave Calla and I time to discover that we could see into our own room through the window from the part of the hall on the other side of the floor, so we spent some time stalking each other that way. :P Mostly with her staying in the room and me hanging around on the other side making faces at her. Yes, we were bored. >> << So eventually we holed up in our room again, figuring we weren't likely to run into the band again since they'd probably be out and about for a good while, so on to bed we went... and ever since, we've been telling ourselves we should've just walked up and told Kiwamu earlier that evening to bring everyone over to our room cause we were bored and had tons of junk food to get rid of. Plus our room was huge and everyone would've fit comfortably. >.> Darn... but anyway, that ended day 5...

~Day 6: Sunday, Man 9~

The only thing that really happened on day 6 was flying home... and learning a few things from talking with some other BLOOD fans/agents at the airport as we all waited for our flight (we would all fly to Chicago together on a transfer, and part ways there). Such as, the band had apparently left at like 4:00 that morning, so we'd missed them... and also that, after they got in the previous night, Kiwamu wondered if he should grab me and Calla and gather everyone to hang out, but they told him no, everyone was too tired. No wonder we were bored all night. >> So then we knew we REALLY should've just walked up and smacked Kiwamu and told him to bring everyone to our room and amuse us. << Anyway... we also learned of some of the events we missed at that staff party we never made it to... such as Fu-ki prancing around in a Dr. Seuss hat, and Kaede getting completely trashed. >.x And I believe the final BLOOD-related note we learned was that they HAD played another concert on Sunday after all, and we hadn't known about it because the TNT staff guy told us no concerts were planned for that day. >_< Why do I have a feeling the staff party situation AND the Sunday concert would've actually gone our way if only we'd been able to find Andres... *sigh*

But oh well... our flight finally showed up, so that was pretty much all the BLOOD conversation we had, and our journey home truly began. Amazingly we reached Port Columbus pretty much exactly at the scheduled time, and managed to return to Calla's without incident (except when we briefly got lost in the airport parking lot >.>; ).

Sooooo basically, other than a few rough spots, our Mexico experience was a pretty good time. There were a lot of things we didn't like, such as the smoggy insanity of Mexico City and the crowds and overheating of TNT and what seemed to us like the worst traffic situation in the known universe... and some things we still regret, like not getting to see more of Andres, missing the Sunday concert, and not being able to hang out more with the band even though Kiwamu seemed to actually want to spend time with us. But as I think about it... even if I am BLOOD staff, I'm just a translator, so there wasn't much actual work I really could've done for them at the convention that someone else wasn't already doing. Plus, working for them would've had me either missing ALL their concerts or having to watch them from some weird location like behind the stage or way in the back of the hall where the booth was. And with no real work to do, I would've felt like I was just in the way all the time anyway. So, all things considered, I'm thankful that I got to spend as much time with them as I did, that they all know and trust me now (and Calla too apparently :P), and that we got to enjoy three excellent BLOOD concerts.

So that's it. Before I wrap this up, I must thank BLOOD and the guest musicians, Shelly, Leslie, Roger, Miwa, and Karime and her sister for being there for us and helping us feel more at home during our stay... and special thanks to Andres, who dedicated so much of his precious time, energy, and staff to making sure our stay went as smoothly as possible. And thanks most of all to my kitty, who somehow did most of the communicating that got us where we needed to go (:P) and without whom I would not have been able to make this trip. *glomps the Calla*

And that is all for now. With any luck, I'll be posting here again in... oh, November or so... ^_^

So, welcome to my very long-winded BLOOD-only review of Fanime 2004. ^^; Just for the sake of introduction, I'll say that I experienced all of the following together with pretty much any given combination of the following: Suzanne, Kristin, Roxanne, and the other Kristin (she shall be Little Kristin because she's the younger of the two). So, thanks again to you four awesome girls for letting me tag along and enjoy the weekend with you. ^_^v

Our BLOOD experience began on Saturday, when we all went to a local florist to buy a dozen long-stemmed red roses for each member of BLOOD. We all pitched in to cover the cost, and we even had a little leftover, which we decided to give to the members also. So after buying the roses, we returned to the convention center one hour earlier than the BLOOD panel was scheduled to start – and we very shortly found out that the panel had been moved up an hour, so it was just about to begin. So much for being early. x_x We got fairly decent seats somewhere in the middle of the room... but we had been hoping we would get there before the band, so we could give them their roses before they got seated and ready and not interrupt the panel or anything. But, we decided to just go on up and give them the roses – we had decided that Roxanne would give them to Kiwamu, Little Kristin would give them to Fu-ki, and I would give them to Kaede (thanks Suz and Kristin for letting us be the lucky givers :D).

I knew it was going to be a very, very good day when the three of us started to walk up to the front together, and as soon as he saw me carrying the roses in his direction, Kaede's face absolutely lit up. ^.^ I'll never forget how happy he looked as he took them along with the card Suzanne had made (which was adorable, I might add!). And after taking them he thanked me and very cheerfully held out his hand to shake mine. ^_^ We were so glad that BLOOD seemed to like the gifts... and as we returned to our seats we even got a round of applause.

Eventually the panel began, but unfortunately I couldn't hear a lot of the questions and answers. Several reasons: we were in the middle of the room (which was good sized), they decided to make people with questions walk up to the front to ask them which meant no one behind them could hear the question (that was the biggest problem), and the members of BLOOD were so quiet. ^^; Maybe the microphones were turned down, I'm not sure... but it didn't help that the translator just stole Kaede's microphone right from the beginning. ><; Anyway, I'll try to include as many questions and answers as I can remember, but don't expect them to be in any kind of order :P.

I'll start with one of my favorites... someone asked the members which they thought came first – the chicken or the egg. Fu-ki answered by saying that he created both, so it doesn't matter XD. When asked what each of the members did during their flight to California, Kaede said he slept, Fu-ki said he drank (of course ^^; ), and Kiwamu said he read books. Early on someone asked something about what kind of underwear they all wear, and only Kiwamu answered, saying he wasn't wearing any. O.o; Someone else asked what each member's favorite anime series was... Kaede said Gundam, Fu-ki said he liked Ge Ge Ge no Kitarou (I think that's right...) when he was younger, and Kiwamu said he doesn't watch anime. Another amusing one was when someone asked the guys if they would be willing to do... stuff... just for the sake of fanservice. In answer, Kiwamu quickly nodded and then sort of leaned on Fu-ki, and then Kaede leaned even closer and gave Fu-ki a sort of half-hug, along with that big amazing smile, which was a very cute answer. :3 I also seem to remember someone asking how they go about doing their hair and makeup, and in response they offered to demonstrate their techniques on the person who asked the question... flashbacks to Ohayocon! (the demonstration didn't happen this time though, lol) Another amusing moment was when a girl in a cow costume stepped forward to ask a question, and BLOOD pointed at her, started laughing and said "Ah, ushi!" ("ooh, a cow!") ^_^

As I said, I don't remember much in the way of questions/answers... which I guess is ok, because I think everyone, BLOOD included, was much more entertained by the more interactive activities that followed. First they were told to draw portraits of the other members – Kiwamu drew Fu-ki, Fu-ki drew Kaede, and Kaede drew Kiwamu. Fu-ki kept laughing while he was drawing, and it was amusing watching his hand fly over the paper in big flourished sweeping strokes that we later found out became Kaede's hair. The other members kept looking at his work-in-progress and laughing too. Finally they all finished their drawings and held them up for all to see. Kaede drew a very good Kiwamu with big eyeliner-heavy eyes, a somewhat evil expression, and perfect hair ^_^. Fu-ki drew Kaede with flowing hair, some big curls in front, big sparkly eyes, and the label 'KAEDE' at the bottom complete with a big heart at the end XD. Finally, Kiwamu drew Fu-ki as a caricature with tiny body and huge head... complete with Fu-ki's characteristic strong cheekbones. It looked like he added little circle-lens glasses too, which was interesting.


Hard at work on their portraits of each other... except Kiwamu, who finished first and took a little time to observe the crowd ^^.

Then came what had to be the most entertaining part of the panel: the BLOOD members were asked to make balloon animals. But no one had a hand pump to inflate the balloons, so they asked for some fans to come forward and help blow up a few. I used to do some work making balloon animals for my former youth group, and I had been stuck without a hand pump before, so I went up to give it a try... but for some reason I couldn't manage to get the balloon inflated. ><;; So I went back to my seat, where, after a little playing around, I finally managed to get the thing blown up and tied off – only after BLOOD already had all the balloons they needed. Go me XP. Anyway, so then the fun began. Kiwamu messed around with a balloon very briefly before getting fed up and tossing it into the audience – or trying to, but it ended up kinda falling right in front of him instead. So he batted it away and wrestled with a second balloon while Fu-ki and Kaede were making a little progress with the folding and twisting. But Fu-ki’s especially was turning out to look like... well, as he put it in his Bacchus entry, "a thing like a rod with two little ball shapes attached that I really can’t say here." XD;; And of course he and Kiwamu had just a little too much fun with these balloon "animals"... wearing them as hats, trying to stick them in Fu-ki's mouth, holding them in front of appropriate areas of their bodies...


I still can't believe my camera managed to capture this moment of BLOOD having a little too much fun with the balloons XD

...so yeah, the balloons were just a little disturbing, but very hilarious – especially when Kiwamu cracked up laughing so hard it was almost painful to watch XD!

Anyway, finally they finished, and Kaede's was the only one that seemed to resemble any kind of animal – one with a very long neck. ^^; So finally, they all autographed their balloons and their portraits of the other members, and all of the works were given to fans through a drawing. Lucky Suz won Fu-ki's picture of Kaede X_X!


Kaede's already signed his balloon, and poor Kiwamu's still wrestling with his second one, lol.


The only picture I got of any of BLOOD's drawings that actually turned out. Isn't Kaede's Kiwamu cute? :D

With that the panel ended, and BLOOD stayed around for a few minutes, mostly letting fans take pictures and stuff. I took the opportunity to snag a PERFECT photo of Kaede posing with his bouquet of roses. ^o^


I love this picture :D! Roses suit Kaede so well~

Then most people migrated to the dealers' room, where BLOOD would be personally appearing at the booth that was selling their CDs and merchandise. We spent the better part of 2 hours just hanging around the booth watching BLOOD goof around and mingle with fans. I wanted to buy the BLIND single, the poster set, and the newest photoset, but I was very low on cash, so after buying just the poster set (as they were selling fastest) I only had $3 left. T_T It was pretty cool though, since because of it I was able to have an amusing little mini-conversation with Kaede in Japanese, which went something like this:

Me: *gazing at BLIND single, whiny voice* I wanna buy this...
Kaede: *looks interested*
Me: ...but I'm out of money T_T
Kaede: *chuckle*
Me: I wanted to buy the newest photoset too, but...
Kaede: ...looks like they're all gone already. (I was amused that he finished my sentence ^_^)
Me: Yeah... *picks up some BLOOD stickers, not realizing they're stickers and studying them confusedly*
Kaede: *points at stickers* They're stickers. (his exact wording was "Stikkaa." hehe~)
Me: Ahh, I see ^^;
Kaede: You get three of them (I think it was three... they came in a set)
Me: Yeah... *observes $6 price* but all I have on me is $3, so... ><;
Kaede: *chuckle again*

I felt bad for being broke, but it was still pretty entertaining. :P;; Then later, I had a similar Japanese mini-convo with Fu-ki:

Me: *notices only 3 BLIND singles are left on table* Is this all that's left of these? They’re selling really fast...
Fu-ki: *looks amused* There are more.
Me: Oh, good. Because I want to buy one but I have no money left ><;
Fu-ki: *thoughtful* There should be more out tomorrow, too.
Me: Ah, ok, I'll buy one tomorrow then~
Fu-ki: Buy one, ok? ^_^
Me: Oh I definitely will :D
Fu-ki: *chucklenod*

Anyway... So the first order of business was working through the insane crowd to get my posters autographed, and then came pictures. Each of us had our pictures taken with the band, and when my turn came, Kiwamu sort of grabbed my waist on one side and my arm on the other side and pulled me backwards toward him, and then proceeded to plop his chin on top of my head for the picture. So I ended up looking really dorky in that shot because my head was half-tilted in a weird position and it was pinned under Kiwamu's so I couldn't move it. XD;;


Me with BLOOD! You can kinda see Kiwamu's hand on my waist, heh. And I love how Fu-ki seems to be saying "Ooh wait, don't forget me~!"


I actually got this shot of Roxanne with BLOOD just after the picture had already been taken on her own camera, so everyone was kind of moving away... though Fu-ki apparently noticed me and my camera still standing there ^^;


I love this shot so I had to add it too~ Kiwamu looks awesome, Kaede is being cute... and look at Fu-ki's smirk! XD


Da Suz gets in on the fun too! We all love Kiwamu's smile :D.


And finally, Little Kristin. You can tell from these pictures that Fu-ki was always the one still rushing to get an autograph done nearly every time people tried to get pictures of the band. He tried~ ^^;

A little later, when the insane crowd clamoring for autographs and photos calmed a bit, I asked for hugs from each of the members... mainly because I had a friend back home who wasn't able to go to Fanime and would've killed me if I didn't get BLOOD hugs. :P So I asked Fu-ki first, and he agreed, but then he just sort of stood there, not moving. o.o;; So I hugged him, and he finally hugged me back, which very nearly caused me to lose my footing and stumble on top of him... but he laughed so I guess he didn't mind, lol. I asked Kaede next, and he quickly agreed – and then he laughed and decided to sort of squeeze me to death XD. Finally I got to Kiwamu, and he also quickly agreed, and pulled me into one of those patented Kiwamu embraces. The man knows how to hug. *_*

So as the crowd cleared out, we got to witness BLOOD just hanging out and having fun, which was probably the best part of the day. Of course I have to start with the big Finding Nemo incident – Suzanne had made a picture from a Finding Nemo poster, with Kiwamu's giant grinning head in the place of a shark chasing some very frightened looking fish. It took Kiwamu a few seconds to figure out what it was, but he got a good laugh out of it when he did, which was very fun to see. Kaede squeezed in to look at it and had a good laugh too. But the funniest part was when we showed Fu-ki - he laughed too, and then he pointed at Kiwamu's picture and said "Uglyyyy!" We totally weren't expecting that – we all laughed so hard XD!

It was also fun watching BLOOD take pictures with their fans... especially the ones doing some form of cosplay.


Whenever a fan wearing any kind of leash accessory would ask for a picture (this one is Victoria *waves* and there may have been others), Kaede would grab the leash and tug on it with this quirky grin on his face that just screamed "yay, I have a new pet!"


There was also this guy with extremely spiky hair, which got a laugh out of all the members... and they posed for pictures while standing a marker on one of his spikes of hair. XD


This guy's cosplay involved fake guns, which Fu-ki repeatedly used to shoot poor Kaede in the gut ^^;


One girl had a kitty ears headpiece, and she asked Kaede to pose for a picture wearing it, which he did (and his pose was too cute! I really wish I had that picture...). And then he decided to put the ears on Fu-ki, who stood there looking very bored while everyone else laughed. Unfortunately my camera cut out Kiwamu, who was laughing too, as you can sort of see.


Fu-ki then decided to hold the kitty ears in front of his chest like a bra, which was even cuter. XD Unfortunately I was too slow to get a picture of it... so this shot is sort of the immediate aftermath.

Also, a bit later, Little Kristin was showing Kiwamu the sword she'd just bought, and Kiwamu decided to poke Fu-ki in the butt with it. In response Fu-ki turned around and grabbed the blade between his palms – little samurai action there, lol. It was so fun watching the guys have a good time and play around with each other like that... you could tell they were tired, but they were really relaxed and enjoying themselves, which made us really happy.

Some other random pictures that I really like...


Poor Kiwamu looks really tired, and yet Kaede seems to be plotting something... if I didn't know better I'd bet he had an inflated paper bag behind his back in this pic XD;;


And now Fu-ki and Kaede plot something together. ^^;;


Great group shot. They all look so sweet!

And finally, right before we decided to leave the booth (after 2 hours of just watching BLOOD goof around ^^;; ), we got to see Kaede taking a break, sitting in a chair behind the booth cradling his bouquet of roses and looking absolutely perky. We were so glad he seemed to enjoy them~ Oh, and before I move on, I have to note that Kiwamu's red and gold contacts looked SO awesome. *_*

So, at last we tore ourselves away... and a little later we all decided to wander around town for a bit and find dinner and stuff. As we were walking down the sidewalk I thought to myself, wow, the only band here that we haven't randomly encountered yet today is BLOOD (some of the members of Camino had passed us while we were in line for the BLOOD panel, and later we had run into Duel Jewel getting into the elevator that we were just getting out of). And just as I thought that, I looked ahead of me – and my eyes fell on a head of silver hair. Who else but Fu-ki, along with Kaede and some of the band's staff, walking toward us on the same sidewalk. We all waved and said hi and stuff, and Fu-ki was sort of straining to see who we were because he was walking into the sun, which I guess was blinding him a bit. So as he passed us, he gave us a little apologetic smile and, with one hand shielding his eyes, said "Too shiny." And once again we all cracked up laughing - it was just too cute. XD

That's pretty much it for actual BLOOD encounters on Saturday, unless you count when Suz and I were heading back to the Hilton bar late that night and saw BLOOD inside together with Camino (O_O). But the bar was closing and they were all on their way out, so we didn't get to talk to them or anything. After that I went back to Suz and Kristin's room where we played around with the BLOOD cola cans Suz had made and laughed for 3 hours straight... and with that the most amusing day of my life as of yet came to an end XD.

Sunday was MusicFest day, and after I stopped by the dealers' room again to buy the BLIND single (keeping my promise to Fu-ki ^_^), our BLOOD experience began as we all waited in line for the doors to open and the concert to start. Actually, it wasn't much of an 'experience'... not as much for me as it was for Roxanne and Little Kristin, anyway. ^^;; The extent of my pre-concert experience was seeing BLOOD walking from their hotel to the concert venue... and what really struck me was that Kaede was wearing his awesome spike-heeled boots, which appeared to be causing him great pain as he was lagging several paces behind the rest of the group. And he was carrying his bass at the same time. I was so tempted to jump up, abandon the line, and run across the street to carry his bass for him. x_x;;

Anyway, eventually the doors opened and MusicFest began. We got good seats in the second row on the right side, right near the aisle. As the concert event went on I did my best to save as much energy as I could for BLOOD's performance, which came at the very end. But the Duel Jewel set, which came next to last, was sort of annoying because of all the rabid DJ fangirls crowding the front of the audience section – we were in the second row of seating, yet still there were at least 4 rows of fans in front of us the entire time. Not to mention I had the aisle seat, so people were also pushing their way into the space in front of me, completely blocking my view through most of the show (even though I was standing). So as soon as their set ended, Suz, Little Kristin (who returned from her backstage heaven to watch BLOOD's performance), and I immediately claimed all the available space at the front of the aisle right behind the velvet rope barricade, just so we wouldn't have the same rabid fangirl problems. It almost worked. ><;

Unfortunately, by the time BLOOD appeared on the stage MusicFest was already running 2 hours late, so the techies felt the need to be in a hurry getting the equipment and such set up, which meant endless technical difficulties. ;_; For starters, Kiwamu's guitar seemed to be turned way down so we could barely hear it most of the time... Fu-ki's microphone also seemed to bounce in and out of audibility. Also, by the end, two of Kiwamu's guitar strings had broken. At one point Kaede disappeared from the stage for almost a whole song, I assume to try to straighten out some of the problems. We all felt so bad to see so much going wrong.

Anyway, depressing stuff aside. ^_^; BLOOD gave an amazing performance despite all the problems! It's really incredible how they can get the crowd worked up and having a great time in any situation – no matter how many difficulties, no matter how tired they were (and they all did seem very tired), no matter how hoarse and exhausted the fans were, everyone was on their feet screaming and having a blast. They all have amazing stage presence and put so much energy into every moment, and they truly know how to give their fans an unforgettable live. Between the constant screaming, jumping around, headbanging, singing along with the lyrics, doing para para, taking pictures, and scribbling down the setlist, I lost much of my ability to hear, speak, and just remain on my feet by the end of the show. It was excellent. ^_^


Kiwamu pumps up the crowd! This was taken pretty early in the show - shortly afterward, he removed the wings and red hair extensions.


As always, Kaede seriously rocked on that bass. I love watching him play *_*.


Fu-ki frequently crouched at the edge of the stage to encourage the fans to scream and get into the performance. I believe that's Little Kristin's arm partially blocking my shot :P

The setlist was:

1. BLOOD
2. Maria
3. Sweetest Disease
4. U+K
5. 白夜 (byakuya)
6. 朧 (oboro)
7. sakura
8. BLIND
9. morphine (TRANS mix)
10. 追憶 ~I remember you~ (new mix with English lyrics)
11. death dies

First off let me say that from the start I was entranced by Fu-ki's performance as vocalist. He has endless charisma, he knows how to get the crowd worked up, cameras love him (XD), and hearing his voice was just an amazing experience. Of course, Kiwamu and Kaede were amazing too, as always... but with Fu-ki being BLOOD's newest member, meeting him and seeing/hearing him perform for the first time were among the things I was looking forward to the most about Fanime. And I was not disappointed at all. *_*

Let's see how much I can remember in any semblance of order... as the recorded track for the first song started to play, the curtains opened revealing Kaede standing in the shadows at the right end of the stage (where we all were), and Kiwamu standing in the shadows at the other end. Shortly they walked forward, then Fu-ki joined them onstage and the show began. Not long into the concert, Kiwamu knelt down and Fu-ki stood behind him, bending down over Kiwamu and putting his hands over his face... and then he snapped his hands back and fake blood literally gushed from Kiwamu's mouth. Very nice touch. Also in the beginning somewhere, Kiwamu came over to our side of the stage and threw his bottled water on the audience, and I got soaked with it. Since I was screaming at the time, some of it got in my mouth... and it actually tasted sweet. I'll always wonder what he put in it... O.o;; The next highlight was probably the U+K cover, which we all agreed was quite unexpected – yet VERY fun! Kaede spent most of the song bouncing around the stage throwing candy at the audience and looking absolutely chipper (even more so than usual ^_^). I believe Kiwamu threw some candy as well, in between leading the audience in screaming and jumping around. Also, at one point Fu-ki and Kaede met at center stage and did this little spinny-dance thing that was just adorable. :D At some point a little later, Kiwamu started spinning and swinging his guitar around, as if gearing up to fling it into the audience... even though we knew he wouldn't, some of us were ducking for cover. XD;; Finally, we were all surprised when Tsuioku ~I Remember You~ began to play and Fu-ki started singing English lyrics for it. I couldn't really hear all the words very well, but if Tsuioku's new English version is anywhere near as good as Morphine's new English version, I'd certainly be among the first to buy it.

Some noteworthy occurrences throughout the live... I'm pretty sure Kaede and Fu-ki each took one or two (or several) long, amused looks in my direction. Maybe they were entertained by the fact that I was singing along through pretty much every song they played... ^^;; It was also interesting that the para para for some of the songs was different from what it was at previous conventions; that was a little confusing, but still enjoyable. Another interesting point was the fanservice – not only far more frequent than it was at their Ohayocon live, but also FAR more... intense, or believable, or something. Hugging, dancing, caressing, and no less than three full-blown kisses exchanged, all about as intense as fanservice can possibly be (without crossing 'boundaries,' of course). The fanservice fangirls definitely got all they ever could've asked for from this concert. O.o

Sadly, much to everyone's annoyance, concert security was terrible. They decided to just set up a human barricade, which lined up in front of the stage every time one of the BLOOD members came down to try to interact with the crowd. In all seriousness, the purpose of security is to keep the performers and fans from getting hurt, but these people caused more injury and annoyance to both BLOOD and their fans than what would've occurred if there'd been no security at all. They were actually elbowing the band members and pushing them down to keep them from getting to the crowd. >_< It was very frustrating, since Kiwamu especially loves to dive into the crowd, but he could only get away with it 2 or 3 times during MusicFest before the human barricade got too ridiculous. Fu-ki had the same trouble – several times he left the stage and actually tried to beckon the fans closer to him, but he had to give up too because security kept pushing him away. However, it was great when, at one point, the security guy standing right in front of me all of a sudden got a very pained look on his face and nearly fell to the ground, as Kiwamu flew right over him into the crowd. I was so proud of Kiwamu then. >:P

Anyway, finally BLOOD's set ended and they left the stage, but Kiwamu returned and continued revving up the crowd by leading in more screaming and cheering. He kept asking if we wanted an encore, and of course the response was deafening, but unfortunately it couldn't happen because the event was already running 2 hours late and Kiwamu had 2 broken guitar strings. So he started to leave, but on the way he dropped to the ground and just... laid there, worrying us greatly. :\ Fu-ki told the crowd something like "He's dead, sorry ^^;", and then went over to kinda kneel over Kiwamu for a minute while Kaede also ran out to do the same... but at that moment Kiwamu jumped up and went right back to pumping the crowd again. We all knew he's a very good actor, but considering how tired all the members had been before the show started, this was a little too scary for us. :\ Thankfully, Kiwamu seemed fine afterward, so we did our best not to worry anymore. And that was the end of the concert – BLOOD thanked the fans, announced that there would be no encore (they didn't seem happy at all about that either), and MusicFest staff practically shoved everyone out of the building.

That was the end of MusicFest day, and we didn't have a chance to meet BLOOD again on Monday because they had to leave a little early and couldn't make it to the signing event. So, maybe a somewhat sad ending to our BLOOD experience, but on the whole we all had an amazing time. Personally I've never had so much fun in just a few days as I did at Fanime, and I owe a huge part of that to BLOOD - between the panel, the dealers' room, the concert, and the good times with other fans, I left with some great memories that'll never run dry. BLOOD was the reason I took 6 days off from my last 2 weeks of college (not to mention every dollar I had and more ^_^; ) to fly 2500 miles and attend Fanime, and it was SO worth it. Thanks, BLOOD. ^^v

(A final note: I took more pictures than the ones I tossed in above, but I couldn't include them all here, and of course several of them didn't turn out... but I uploaded all the ones that did, and you can find them right here.)

Irasshai! So, chances are, if you're reading this, you were probably at the concert BLOOD gave at OhayoCon 4... either that or you're here after reading other fans' reviews of the weekend... so I won't post a review here. Others have written up far better ones than I could. Check out the BBS at BLOOD's official homepage to find some. I will include some comments with my pictures though, just to keep things in context. They're not the best quality pics, but there are some cool moments captured in them, so I thought I'd show them off. Oh, also, they're all rather large, so if you're on a slow connection you might be waiting a while... sorry about that. :x
So, from the top~


Takeshi and Taichi working the audience in between songs. Even though I was right in the front by the stage, there always seemed to be someone jumping in front of me just as I took a picture... I cropped out most of the heads that blocked this shot, but you can see the hair that sucked up all the light from my flash, which is why the picture is so dark. -_-;


A bit of discussion between sets? I had really high hopes for this shot, because it's the only one I got to take of Kaede's lovely smile... but it had to come out so dark! >_< Once again, note the head stealing all the light from my flash... I cropped out all that I could without cropping the guys themselves.


Ah, now we're moving up in image quality. If not for those flash-eating heads again, this would be an awesome pic. I was lucky enough to be right in front of Kiwamu, who was probably the most animated member during the concert - pointing out faces in the crowd, diving into the audience many times (even though he was mobbed every time, he kept coming back - these guys are so great to their fans~!), spinning around in circles, and generally making for some excellent photo ops. Most of mine didn't develop, sadly... ;_;


Kiwamu once again gives every camera-bearing fangirl in the room something to look at ^.^ ...but, once again... a head in the shot!! Luckily though, this one didn't seem interested in stealing ALL the light from my flash. I really need a digital camera...


The guys take their final bow after an amazing double encore. Actually, if I recall, it wasn't so much a bow as a lining-up-with-their-arms-raised-looking-cool-while-everyone-screamed-and-took-pics... but same difference~ Only two things depress me about this shot: 1) Kaede leaned back just at the moment I took the pic, so I missed his smile again *sigh*, and 2) once again someone's hair is blurring out Kiwamu. Not as bad, though, at least.

That's all I have of the concert. I had slightly better luck at Sunday's Q&A panel, since the lighting was... well, normal, at least... and there wasn't a lot of jumping around and headbanging going on. The panel was a blast - from the moment the guys walked in, Kaede had his camera out, taking pictures of everyone. They showed us once again how important their fans are to them, by posing for everyone's pictures, giving hugs to fans brave enough to ask, and even doing a hair and makeup demo on lucky Kristin. >:P On with the pics...


There's a little story behind this one... I was sitting not far from the aisle on the right side of the room, and in the open space to my right, someone was aiming a camera at the guys. They noticed and posed for him, giving V-signs and grinning and such... and Kaede gave him that charming smile. I saw my chance and bolted out of my seat, but by the time I got there, the first guy had already taken his picture and Kaede was looking away. Still no smile shot for me T_T But he still looks cute flashing that digicam around... and Taichi made up for my loss by making a really adorable face XD


Dark and grainy again, unfortunately. I think this was before people started asking questions, while they were trying to figure out what to do about a translator (the official translator never showed due to Ohio's ever-bizarre weather). It's hard to see through the hair, but Takeshi had a really cute confused look on his face~ *laughs*


When the questions got too difficult for the translators and BLOOD to handle, the guys decided to demonstrate their hair and makeup techniques on a fan. This was my best opportunity for photos, since I got to stand in an open area to one side, VERY close to the action and with very little in the way. But I still missed some good shots because I had to switch film rolls halfway through. >.> Anyway... here Kiwamu and Kaede are playing around with Kristin's makeup, while Taichi works on her hair and Takeshi decides he could use a quick stylin' touch with the blow dryer. O.o And is it just me, or does Kiwamu look adorable peeking out from under Taichi's arm? Such a focused expression... hehe, good times~


Kaede once again hides from me! T.T *ahem* ...pretty much a continuation of the above... Taichi, Kaede, and Takeshi are hard at work on Kristin, while Kiwamu sets about making one of the con's security guys look like a serial killer. ^_^


Kiwamu's work is done! The red eye from my camera was a nice touch, ne? >_o


Dekita~! The guys stood around showing off their work for some minutes, in which many, many photos were taken. I don't know how I got lucky enough to end up with Takeshi looking right at me. *glee* Did anyone else notice that? Somehow he seemed to be looking right at every camera aimed his way at the same time... uncanny...


Same thing, pretty much, except Taichi was actually paying attention ^_^; ...and gave us the infamous V-sign. Once again Takeshi seems to be posing for the camera, though hiding behind some hair.

That's about it. I got a few shots at the autograph signing too, but they're probably pretty much the same as the ones anyone else at the signing could've taken, so I didn't upload them. Maybe someday... or maybe not...

Anyway, sorry the pics aren't great, but thanks for checking them out, and I hope you enjoyed them! Oh, and if anyone managed a nice shot of Kaede smiling, I'd love to see it :D

[EDIT: Ok, due to certain issues I had to move the pics in this entry to a different image server... and for some reason I'll never know, they were automatically resized in the upload process. Sorry about this. But on the other hand, this post is ancient now anyway... and the smaller image sizes should work wonders on this blog's load time ^^]