If European VK fans are used to seeing MIKARU & G.L.A.M.S in their countries, as he just wrapped up his 4th Europe tour, July 8th was a special date: the band’s very first show in Japan!
The concert took place at Shinjuku Ruido K4, a very stylish venue with its buffalo skulls on the walls, a beautiful chandelier, red velvet curtains to hide the stage, and even a disco ball. It fit G.L.A.M.S’ style perfectly
The doors opened at 6 pm. The venue wasn’t full, but it was already very good for a first show. The crowd was very heteroclite, with girls dressed in sweet lolita style who ran to the first row, but also some rockers and metal heads of all ages. Quite a lot of foreign fans showed up as well.
The concert started with the song “The Other Side of The Moon” from their first EP “Under The Moon”. Mikaru clearly knows how to create a bond with the audience, giving a lot of eye contact and interacting with them.
After the three first tracks, Mikaru introduced the band and said how happy he was about this show finally happening. He then asked fans their favourite song among the three music videos they released a few months before. Some people were just here out of curiosity and didn’t know the songs, so Mikaru joked about it, saying things like “what? you don’t know us??”, making this MC (and all the other ones) very funny. Finally, someone mentioned the song they wanted to play next: Let’s Fly Away To The Stars. A slow and smooth track followed by the beautiful “Wanderer”. There was a little microphone issue for Mikaru, but it didn’t stop him at all as he quickly took over Kei’s one to go on.
Then it was time to warm up the venue again. Mikaru introduced the next song “Our Freak Show” by telling it was written especially for concerts, and explained that fans have a part to play for this one: singing the chorus in English and jumping from the left to the right. Everyone did this well and the members were really pleased it worked out! The show continued with “Forgive Me”. We could once again see that Mikaru is a real frontman who knows how to entertain people by making them sing, clap and jump hard. A lot of people even [b]headbanged[/b] during the famous “Carry Down”.
Another highlight of the live show was Syu’s drums solo which blew everyone away by his strength, followed by an instrumental session with all the musicians, with Erina as the lead guitar who showed everyone his perfect dexterity. After this short break for Mikaru, he came back on stage with a birthday cake for Syu to celebrate it in advance with the fans, who probably heard of it as one of them also brought him some flowers. He was really surprised and took the mic to tell how grateful he was.
It was then time to wrap up the show, with another track from DIO (God Forsaken) and last but not least the touching “The Light of my Life”.
It was a very good performance of the band, and it was beautiful to see them bonding with their Japanese fans. As G.L.A.M.S said, they don’t know when their next show in Japan will be happening, but they hope to build an even bigger audience in the future! We can only wish them the best, and congratulate them for this beautiful evening!
Setlist:
01. The Other Side of the Moon
02. Call My Name
03. 12:00 A.M.
04. Let’s Fly Away to the Stars
05. Wanderer
06. Rainy Highway
07. Our Freak Show
08. Forgive Me
09. Carry Dawn (DIO – Distraught Overlord -)
10. Be Alone
11. Drum solo
12. Guitar solo
13. GOD forsaken (DIO – Distraught Overlord -)
14. The Light of My Life
