LIVE REPORT: 12012 at Anime USA

Hello for the first,personal time, everyone...I'm Ri, one of the many authors of Visual Kei Heaven. The convention I attended was the Northern Virginia anime convention, Anime USA. While there I located the booth for visual Kei band 12012 [which they shared with Echostream and Clockwork Dolls] and scoped out the merchandise..during this time I came to find out that they had already sold out of most of their merchandise the previous night with that being said I am sorry I cannot provide any merch images...I lied..going through my phone I found THIS..The person in the pic is one of the host club members but the stuff behind him is the merch table that belongs to 12012.

As an author of VKH this was an exciting new thing I wanted to try,being press that is, and even though I didn't get to do alot of things with the press pass I did get to spend some time wandering around the convention and met some of the other guests that were attending including Echostream's Tomo and got to sit in at Takuya Angel's Q&A hosted by Tainted Reality.

Now..Onto the concert.

12012 is known for their hardcore rock music that will blow you away once they begin their show. This one was no different...the air around the main events room hung heavy with the rising excitement of the crowd that had gathered. There were two separate lines, VIP (Which included Press and Sponsors) and regular attendee's. It took a lot to hold my excitement back once I got in line to wait but after a few minutes I started to feel the tug of a fangirl over power the professional persona. Once I entered the large ballroom when the press were called to enter I immediately felt the excitement rise to a boiling point as most of the crowd gathered upfront against the railings. When the concert began carefully planned shouts of 'Ichi Ni Zero Ichi Ni' rung out through the hall before the band stepped on stage. Toru, Tomo, Hiroaki and Yusuke were the first members to grace the stage before Wataru made his presence known to screaming fangirls up against the railing. Opening with 'Just the way you are' the mood was immediately set as heads bobbed and feet seem to push bodies upwards in moshing style jumping. Wataru continued to bounce around the stage as guitarists Hiroaki and Yusuke pumped the crowd up and sung along.

After greeting the crowd Wataru jumped on into their song 'Gallows' causing the crowd to enter into a headbanging moshpit jumping spree that would become more common throughout the night. When he sprung into the next two songs the crowd began to become more lively and in sync especially when he rolled into the chorus of their most anticipated song 'Cyclone[サイクロン]' which was number four on the setlist, [wana (罠) was number 3]. The crowd soon found themselves rocking back forth with headbanging motions to move with the beat of the song as Wataru sung into the microphone. Once the next few songs were sung [5. vomit // 6. Hai Furu Karada (灰降ル躰) // . my room agony ] the band took a small breather as Yusuke addressed the crowd with a simple 'I want to Fuck you' which caused an erruption of screams from all around the room as he laughed a bit.

As the band returned to their mic stands we knew for sure that the next few songs were going to explode the excitement into the room into a full out burst of energy. The band sung the songs 8. As, 9. lovers, 10. Over before thanking the crowd and dispersing into a quick but short lived intermission and the announcer stepped onto stage. He spoke of the photograph session that was to happen sunday before the closing ceremony of the convention and then of the autograph session that was happening right after the concert before the rave. Shouts of 'Roastbeef' then began to ring out into the concert hall causing the bands translator who was looking on from the side to giggle.

A little background for those that don't know..Roastbeef was Yusuke's answer to almost everything at the q&a which unfortunately VKH was not able to attend and Wataru I believe told everyone he liked Mashed Potatoes as his favorite food.

The band quickly returned to the stage almost as fast as they had departed for their encore after the announcer had failed at getting the chant 'Ichi Ni Zero Icihi Ni' to start back up. During these songs like before guitarist Yusuke would step down onto the platform below the stage and then teasingly step off onto the floor below allowing some of the girls upfront to reach out to him. Wataru burst into the chorus and lyrics of 11. Kubarareta card de Shoubu Surushikanainosa. Sore ga douiu imi de are..(配られたカードで勝負するしかないのさ、それがど) and 12. Usubeni to Ame (薄紅と雨) before they said their goodbyes and thanked everyone.

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