LIVE REPORT: THE SOUND BEE HD @ Katsucon 19

My group and I began watching the doors to the Main Events hall at about 8:00pm, two hours before the doors were scheduled to be open. Surprisingly, there weren’t many people lining up at the time. By 8:30pm, around 8 to 10 people had managed to start sitting against the wall near the double doors; half an hour later, that amount quickly tripled. Security guided people around the corridor, separating the press and VIP from the regular attendees; the attendees line stretched about ¾ of the way down the wide hallway. Despite the impressive gathering, as the doors opened, only about 1/3 of the ballroom was filled, leaving plenty of room for the chairs filling the second half of the concert hall. Press and VIP entered accordingly, walking calmly across the room. I remember seeing the chairs and thinking, Who would sit through this show? Moments later, the rest of the crowd stampeded to the stage.

The was no barrier, making it very easy for anyone up front to simply reach up and touch anyone or anything on the platform. I, barely being tall enough to look over the platform, stood on a small rail to my right, knowing very well that I would not be able to move. My legs were sandwiched between the audience and the rail guarding the convention's cameramen; I could hardly feel either leg. The room was dark with the familiar blue tint from the stage lights--all silence had been broken by the excited chattering of fans and sounds of working cameras.

The lights dimmed and the crowd quickly became frisky with anticipation as Roger Shackelford, Director of Tainted Reality, walked onto the stage acting as MC. He wore a gothic rock get-up, seeming to match the performing band’s style fairly well. He yelled into his microphone, addressing the crowd and getting them revved up for the show by telling us a story.

In 2005, he had attended Katsucon as a regular attendee himself for the performance of the band Psycho le Cému. He reminisced about how amazed he was by their concert, pointing to a member of the audience to indicate where he was standing those 8 years ago. He discussed his dream to be standing on this very same stage and how that dream has come true.

When he had finished, everyone had cheered, full of emotion and approval of his accomplishment before Roger managed to introduce the band to the stage. I had never been so happy to have earplugs before in my life as I heard the fans overpower the sound of the introductory SE when the band took over the stage. Despite the enormous speakers, the noise from the crowd often managed to overpower the sound from the speakers.

THE SOUND BEE HD is a band that you really need to see and hear live in order to understand! In my personal opinion, they are so much better to experience rather than listen to.

They began the show by walking onto the stage during the SE Souretsu, opening to their mini-album Sou, then immediately flowing into the next and first full song, “Sai”. The song had taken me aback when I heard the fast tempo. The intricacy of the guitar chords were what had really caught my attention, but, despite my interest, I focused more on getting clear photos of Kazuha and YOU than anything else! The two members were constantly dancing about their sides of the stage. Eventually, I strived to catch a photo of DAISUKE chanting with the audience. "Sai! Sai! Sai! Sai! Sai! Sai!" he shouted, bringing the song around to a close and flowing quickly into “Ran”. I had hardly noticed the change in the songs at all; the basic tempos of both of the compositions sounded almost the same, save for the lyrics and the music itself. The movements both on stage and in the audience were mirrored, making it even more confusing to me. I, having been unable to hear either of these tracks prior to their performance, probably though what other newcomers did.

It all sounded the same to me.

Now, the long-term fans who have learned their music will probably start telling you off about how each song is different, but, for me, having only gotten around to a certain number of releases to review, I didn't realize that the set-list was steadily moving along until we reached the middle of “Cry”, a song that I recognized from the band's first full album Hachi. I was more excited and focused on getting clear photos of the band for a good amount of time.

Some people have called THE SOUND BEE HD boring; I understand why. It still frustrates me a bit anyhow because half of the time when someone said this, they had never had the chance to see this band in action--only hearing their recorded material. I think THE SOUND BEE HD is more of a live band than a studio-recording one, which is one of many reasons as to why a great band with this amount of energy hasn't been able to become that popular.

As “Cry” began, surrounding fans went wild as DAISUKE shouted "Cry" into the microphone. The backtrack in the song asking "Are you ready?" sounded almost mocking at this point of the concert; wasn't it obvious that everyone in this room was ready? The crowd shivered and screamed in response to the rhetorical question asked by no one, adding to the building climax of the chorus. Interesting enough, they didn't start slow and grow into speed, they wanted to punch you in the face and beat you down with their speed and apologize by slowly elongating the tempos. Even though the songs grew slower, the band continued to play heavier and heavier. In slow songs like "Doku", fans managed to throw their bodies against the stage in dragged headbanging with the band. The show was only about an hour or two long, but even in the short amount of time, THE SOUND BEE HD certainly left a good impression on the majority of all attendees; whether they be veteran fans of the visual Kei scene or simply checking it out.

After “Cry” had ended, the crowd was buzzing as DAISUKE stepped back from the platform with Kazuha. YOU stood at her microphone.

“Hello Katsucon!” she said enthusiastically, “We are THE SOUND BEE HD; we are happy to be here thanks to Tainted Reality and Fixer.” The crowd cheered at the familiar names and YOU waited for the yelling to die down a bit before continuing, “We have a table in the Artist Alley, right, where you can buy our CD’s! We were here before for Nekocon, but now we are back! Our next song is ‘Monster’!”

At that, HIRO began the fast beat and the backtrack began. DAISUKE would force the crowd to shout with him during the song, having his gaze touch as many faces as possible like he was absorbing the energy from the crowd and vice versa. The more the band moved around on the stage, the more the crowd cheered and shook; the more the crowd moved, the more powerful DAISUKE's voice became. The only downside to this: Kazuha’s guitar was hardly heard throughout the entire concert. You could strain your ears all you could, but couldn’t hear him very clearly unless he had a guitar solo. Some said that he was going for a sound similar to the band Bullet For My Valentine, but you can’t really be sure of that. I, being right near his amp, didn’t have too much trouble hearing him, but I knew what people were talking about as we discussed it after the show. As the song ended, DAISUKE stood still with his arms wide open, floating to the closing beats as he did with all of the songs on the set list; he looked almost as if he were caught in some kind of trance half of the time as he swayed back and forth. He started a few songs like this as well.

We moved in to “Kira” from “Ade”. During this song, DAISUKE had everyone shouting “Hai! Hai! Hai!” for about a minute while waving his fist in the air. Whenever we stopped, he would say “One more time!” and we would, obviously, repeat the action; and even more obvious, his “one more time” bit was a lie. We did this about 5 more times and, I swear, each time he said it, there was a certain expression growing on each of the band member’s faces. Around the 3rd time, it was clear that YOU and Kazuha were getting a bit annoyed when DAISUKE had dared to scream “One more time!” out of his excitement from the crowd’s energy; and I can't blame them! It was getting pretty redundant and YOU looked like she was about to bop DAISUKE over the head with her bass! When I finally heard him say “Last time!” there was an obvious relieved expression on all of the instrumentalists faces and they lead us eagerly to the end of our chant before having DAISUKE move on the second chorus of the song.

At that the song ended with DAISUKE in his usual open arm stance on top of the platform. He stepped down, walking around a bit and saying “I’m so happy…” The crowd was cheering in response and DAISUKE repeated himself over and over again before greeting the crowd himself. He seemed to have a short speech in English prepared before he bothered to introduce the band.

Everyone screamed as he approached the guitarist. “On guitar, is Kazuha!” He said, short of breathe from screaming previously. The fan girls of Kazuha shrieked out of excitement as he played a small on tune on his guitar. DAISUKE moved on to HIRO, saying “HIRO on drums!” HIRO responded by playing a bit himself with a big smile on his face. The spotlight followed DAISUKE as he continued over to YOU, saying “Bassist YOU!” The cheering never ended, following DAISUKE to each member like the white spotlight as he stepped up to the platform and shrieked with nearly all of his power “On vocal, DAISUKE!” The crowd responded with immense excitement and Daisuke, taking from their power, chanted “Let’s rock!” over and over again before shouting “This… is… Live!”

The fans shivered and waved as the beat to the song began. DAISUKE appeared somewhat calm as he spoke the single introductory word, “Live” in a low voice; after that, all hell broke loose. Kazuha shredded the guitar, occasionally trading places with YOU to give the fans on the far left a better view of himself as well as a better chance to take pictures with their cellphones. Hands followed YOU and DAISUKE about the stage, everyone reaching and trying their best to come as close to touching one of the band members as possible; of course, this was throughout the concert. “Live” was the first song they had played from their newest mini-album Cross, and the energy they had exerted in doing so was amazing. Afterward, DAISUKE had managed to slip in a quick “Thank you!” before the beat for “Truth” followed immediately after, slower and apologetic.

Never the less, hardly any of the fans bothered to stop head-banging and waving their hands in the air. The flashing lights had been shifting from reds, to pinks, to shades of blues, making each moment different. Now, most attendees of this concert could tell you about how DAISUKE continuously head-banged and leaned in close occasionally; it wasn’t until we had reached “Truth” that I realized what he was doing. That sly-dog had a lyrics book setup! He was bending over so closely so he could turn the pages to keep up with the order of the set-list; the head-banging was mostly to mask the movement. The part that really gave it away was the sort of fiery glow that stuck to his face as he moved in and out. I guess it’s better to be prepared that not have them at all, should he forget the lyrics to his own songs, right?

“This is ‘Adore’!” DAISUKE yelled, before the following song began. Strobe-lights were quickly flashing, stunning the vision of anyone in the audience. The backtrack made for an interesting inverted and dream-like feel with this experience; one moment you would see the band, running around the stage, watching as Kazuha would approach the crowd for guitar solos and offer high-fives, but in the next moment, everything would turn black, white and red, like a penguin in a blender. The best way to get past this terrible headache was if you held your camera up to your face and watched through the preview screen.

Once the strobe lights died out and settled back into a nice, soothing mixture of pinks and oranges, I saw Kazuha suddenly directly in front of my camera. His face was intent on the complications of his guitar playing. He focused more on his finger placements than on the groping fans reaching around me to get to him! In the far back, the rest of the members resided around HIRO, leaving Kazuha to the spotlight each time. Eventually, the show came around to it’s 3rd MC and YOU approached the microphone with a big smile.

“As some of you know, I like to drink a lot! In America, before you are about to drink beer, you all say cheers, but in Japan, we say ‘Kanpai’. Let’s all say ‘Kanpai’ together! Ready? KANPAI…!” YOU then lead us to an epic chant session with everyone shouting “KANPAI!” at the stage and shaking their fists in the area. In the end, DAISUKE took over again, saying “Next is… ‘Sou’.” Many of the MC’s seemed to be short-lived, just as this one.

The beat began immediately after. Everyone turning into quivering piles of hair as we moved to the heavy beat of the song in unison. Those who had visited the Tainted Reality tables in the Artist Alley often enough should have known it by heart, since the music video for it had played on repeat for the past day and a half. Watching each member, out of all of them, it looked like the vocalist had made the most effort to pose for the cameras surrounding him, what with Roger floating around with his video camera. Don’t exclude the other members from this, though! Kazuha placed an impressive amount of energy into his performance, running up to the platform of the stage and pointing at a member of the audience or slapping hands every now and then. At one point during the show, someone near me had said “whoa” under their breath as DAISUKE appeared out of nowhere next to the guitarist, touching his shoulder. The two looked out over the audience, then into each other’s eyes for only a moment before indulging in an epic head-banging session. HIRO played with all of his might, showing so many different kinds of expressions on his face; it was really interesting to watch him! All the while, YOU would be dancing around the stage, waving at the cameras and fans that waved at her. She had a very welcoming aura around her.

It may have been about this point that Roger handed off the video camera to DAISUKE and had him film some of it from his stance for a few moments. (If you look closely at some of the photos, you can see Roger’s ever-invasive figure in them). DAISUKE had many broad gestures with his arms as well, especially for the faster paced songs. Kazuha, however, was the most difficult to photograph clearly of everyone; the man was a constant blur to over half of the people in that room. He would jump from the back of the stage to the very edge in a split second out of either pure impulse from the music or the pull of excited screams.

“Die”, also from their mini-album “Sou” was heard. This was one of the few songs composed with mostly English lyrics. “We….we live in darkness. We… start in darkness.” The lyrics floated in the room, phasing nobody as the shift to the new beat was nearly effortless. Anyone who knew the song yelled “Die!” right alongside everyone else during the chorus. Sometime during the show, a various drunk black guy started screaming at the band, yelling “Nabemashita!” The man later managed to get his hand slapped by Kazuha, like a “brotherly-love” greeting. He started floating about the crowd during the show from that point on, shouting, “That’s my boy, son! (referring to Kazuha) That’s my n****!” I, as well as a number of other people, couldn’t help but laugh at his remarks.

The crowd continued to buzz long after the song was over and YOU then forced everyone into silence.

“Children! Hush!” She said before turning to the drummer. “HIRO!”

“Huh?” he responded, slightly disoriented with a wide smile on his face. “Oh!” he said, realizing it was finally his turn to talk to the audience. It was the first time he addressed us throughout the entire concert. “Are you guys having fun?!” He shouted. Everyone screamed “Yes!” In response. “Then, let's have fun together! OK?” he yelled. The crowd continued to cheer and then YOU captured everyone’s attention again after a few moments.

“Our next song is called 'Doku' and ‘doku’ means poison…” she said, almost hissing the last word as she stretched it in a humorously maniacal way.

At that, the band began to play “Doku”. At last, the members were at a stand-still….but only for, about, 10 seconds before the explosive energy from the chorus got them moving again. Newcomers were caught slightly off-guard and everyone worked to adjust to the song’s new beat. The band managed to move around on the stage quite a bit as the song progressed. People’s hands and heads swayed in dragged movements as if they were in molasses. No matter the tempo, the power remained in this band’s influence over the crowd; we were but puppets in their play. The sound of HIRO's angry drums mixed superbly with Kazuha’s whining guitar, speed and stealth contrasting with the slower pounding of the peculiar rhythms.

The song “Again” began, having a track that was slower still than “Doku”. Everyone had managed to settle to this beat, both band and audience were in a trance from the song. It’s one of my personal favorites from the band, as well; everyone managed to be fairly soulful despite how heavy the composition was. It was graceful and well executed; just about anyone who had managed to hear this song live had agreed that this was a great song to hear from them. “I loved ‘Again’!” I heard some say. The song played out and faded into the distance, but was then masked by another song that wasn’t expected by anyone in the audience at all.

Had the band decided to walk off of the stage after “Again”, I’m sure people would have been duly satisfied with what they had both heard and seen, which could have caused about a third of the audience to decide to leave, but THE SOUND BEE HD weren’t about to leave yet as the beat for the next song quickly picked up the pace. The complexity and speed of the composition caught some people off guard, but everyone really jumped when DAISUKE suddenly released a blood-curdling growl into the microphone.

The last song on the set-list, “Delete”, had boomed throughout the room, taking the crowd by storm. It had thoroughly over powered and broken the subtleness that “Again” had created. The audience was forced to re-adjust, yet again, to a new tempo, quickly becoming ravenous and confused as the band worked to energize them. YOU, Kazuha and DAISUKE moved around on the stage more often. DAISUKE had managed to get rid of the distressed sleeves on his arms as Kazuha threw, what seemed to be, an endless amount of picks into the ever-flailing crowd. The strobe-lights occasionally returned when the timing was right, creating even more chaos during the mellow, heavy song. By the time it was over, nobody really understood what had happened in those three minutes, but they all knew that they were hungry for more.

At the end of the fast-paced performance of “Delete”, DAISUKE opened his arms wide and then pressed his palms together. He bowed his head, making the pose of deep gratitude. The pink lights during the song made for a beautiful effect, causing flower petals to appear on one's camera when the lighting hit the lense just right, and each of the members prepared to leave the stage. HIRO also bowed in the same way, giving thanks to the people that had attended the show before walking off of the stage and leaving everyone in a blue darkness. It appeared to be a fairly emotional exit on their part.

Roger stepped out onto the stage, some moments after the band walked off and the crowd stood in darkness yelling a mixture of “Encore” and “SOUND BEE”. His face was comically unimpressed and he teased us by saying “You guys really want more? It doesn‘t sound like it!” He had us yelling, continuously, and then the band came back onto the stage one by one after the lights became a bright white again. First was HIRO, striding in awkwardly with his shirt over his head; it gave everyone a good laugh.

Then came Kazuha, DAISUKE and YOU, running down the line to touch all of the fans' hands with big smiles and taking their places on the stage, but nobody picked up any part of their equipment. Fixer comics and merchandise were passed around for display on the stage and Danny Kang, the illustrator of Fixer, was introduced to the audience. More advertisements and promotional items of Fixer were given before handing off the microphone to HIRO. He took the microphone, interrogating the fans, quickly. It was his first time approaching us, since he was far back in his drum set the entire time.

“Hello Katsucon! I am drummer HIRO!” He yelled. I don’t quite remember his exact words from the number of head-rushes I had experienced that night, but I do recall him screaming at the crowd a bit and then yelling “I’ll be back!” at the very end of his message. The microphone was then passed amongst the band members, each one talking to the audience for a call and response a bit. YOU spun in a circle from all of the hype still flowing through her as she held the microphone. She encouraged the audience to either give DAISUKE or Kazuha their phone number and call them, thus causing every female fan in the room to shriek in approval while the guys on stage chuckled in response.

It was around this time that our friend, the generic drunk guy, returned to the scene. He had gone back to get more greetings and high-fives from the band while screaming “Nabemashita!“ Everyone on the stage couldn’t stop laughing at him; it was really entertaining!

He went for DAISUKE this time, pushing past me. I could easily smell the alcohol on his breath as he received a fist bump and slap from DAISUKE, then grabbing his hand. DAISUKE, in turn, was smiling and having fun with it all; many thought that he was trying to pull him into the crowd, but actually, the guy wanted to be pulled onto the stage! I could hear him saying “Get me on stage! Get me on stage!” all excited, but DAISUKE let go of his hand and walked away laughing. The man was still extremely exuberant and continued to yell, “That’s my boy!” while saying, “Let’s go drinking later!” The band kept laughing with Roger and I laughed as well, knowing full-well that DAISUKE isn’t one to drink. They continued with the MC, then, finishing promotions of Fixer and reminding the audience ever-so-often to visit the Artist Alley and buy their merchandise and support THE SOUND BEE HD.

Roger would try to guilt people into it like he had that entire weekend saying, “Come on, guys! Support them! They came all the way from Japan just for you!” He would then say “They will be outside of this hall signing any SOUND BEE merchandise you purchased! And, are any of you going to the rave tonight? Get ready to party with these guys there too!” At that, all of the excess materials and promotional items were brought off the stage, leaving the band to set up for their encore. DAISUKE pepped us up by introducing “Answer”.

The back track began to play and, what went through my mind at the time was the excitement of experiencing what I had seen in live recordings all of this time. Many of you have experienced this or will in the future, I’m sure of it; it’s a wonderful mixture of excitement and nostalgia. The band, as a whole, performed the song just as they did in all of the live recordings; DAISUKE raised both of his arms at the very beginning, and drop one suddenly at each beat before giving in to a full body convulsion from the rush of the music. The band appeared more interactive as they did this, throwing picks into the crowd and running down the row a number of times more to give everyone the chance to touch their hand. Their plan to perform this song last was the perfect way to leave the fans and newcomers unsedated as they left the stage.

After all of this, I had realized something tragic on my part; I did not hear them perform “Omoi”! That was fine, though, because they redeemed themselves by performing “Again” from Hachi instead; it was a wonderful decision and they managed to always leave the crowd hanging on a cliff when they walked off of the stage. Many had left the venue in good spirits, still energized from the concert as they discussed going to the following rave. I had managed to talk to a good number of the attendees; the newcomers had compared their performance and sound to Marilyn Manson or My Bloody Valentine or other metal bands like Breaking Benjamin, whereas some just couldn’t find words to express their thoughts. Others said that, at times, the music just sounded like one long song to them. In any case, THE SOUND BEE HD had left many people in high spirits and managed to leave good impression on those new and veteran to the visual kei scene; I hope these guys can manage to return to the U.S. for a third time soon!

Setlist:

~SE~

1. Sai

2. Ran

3. cry

~MC~

4. monster

5. Kira

~MC~

6. live

7. truth

8. adore