the GazettE 11th Anniversary | DIVISION Final MELT at Saitama Super Arena

Saitama Super Arena was packed hours before the doors opened for the GazettE's 11th Anniversary/DIVISION tour final.

The live served as a finale for the country-wide DIVISION tour, which began in 2012 and was finally concluding on March 10, 2013--also the GazettE's anniversary.

Some fans had clearly been there all day, waiting in anticipation for a tour that had spanned over the course of a year.

The concert was divided into 3 major sections.

There was the main concert, the first encore and then the final encore.

The main concert was similar, if not exactly the same, as the rest of the DIVISION tour with little to no change to the visuals and setlist.

The first portion of the setlist included:

[Diplosomia]
[XI]
DERANGEMENT
GABRIEL ON THE GALLOWS
VENOMOUS SPIDER'S WEB
VORTEX
CLEVER MONKEY
THE SUICIDE CIRCUS
DRIPPING INSANITY
余韻
影踏み
籠の蛹
[Depth]
歪
ヘドロ
VERMIN
SLUDGY CULT
HEADACHE MAN
ATTITUDE
REQUIRED MALFUNCTION
[Melt]

For those who had a chance to attend previous DIVISION lives though, the familiarity ended with a bang--literally.

After the band exited the stage, the audience began to buzz.

A clear sharp explosion sliced through the chatter and a startled silence fell over the arena.

The stage, which had darkened when the band disappeared, suddenly blazed to life in fire pots that appeared where Kai's drumset had been. The audience screamed in excitement as sparks burst over the stage and several more fire crackers exploded with loud bangs.

The pyrotechnics, dazzling as they were, proved tricky to control as a rogue firecracker brought two light fixtures swinging down from the ceiling. Both of them literally hung by a thread and swung precariously over the stage, just above the amplifiers and elaborate equipment set up.

Despite the potential danger, the accident only served to rile up the audience even further as staff members rushed to bring the fixtures down safely.

Not long after, Reita and Kai emerged to open the first encore, which included the following songs:

Ride with the ROCKERS
赤いワンピース
Psychedelic Heroin
Filth in the Beauty
COCKROACH
LINDA～candy dive pinky heaven～

During the encores, the mobile band members dashed out into the side wings. While taking care of the right audience, Reita simply sat with one leg over the rail of the right stage, playing leisurely.

Ruki, at one point, seemed to disappear backstage but, surprisingly, continued to sing as the band played on. He soon emerged out from the left wing of the stage, walking directly in the audience walkway and--unsurprisingly--was nearly mobbed as fans rushed from the upper levels to get a chance to touch him.

Surrounded by a barrier of staff members, Ruki continued to sing to and from the stage.

Fans on the right wing of the stage waited in anticipation for their turn but Ruki first took a water bottle from in front of the drums and tossed the cap as he took the bottle with him to the right wing. Ruki, with no change in expression, pantomimed an ejaculation into the audience with his water bottle before turning and emerging into the audience walkway to walk into the audience.

Meanwhile, Aoi, Uruha, Reita and Kai were occupying the main stage. Aoi and Uruha both hopped onto Ruki's stand and played together in what seemed like a conversation between guitars and Reita did his customary swings with his bass.

Throughout all this, Kai never skipped a beat, even when exchanging drum sticks by hurling them into the back of the stage and having another two in his hand the next instant.

Ruki used the MC to ask the audience to raise their voices. He called for the back to reply and, while they replied enthusiastically, Ruki apparently found it unsatisfactory.

"I'm wondering if it's a bit quiet because you all have pollen allergies," Ruki said with a grin.

The first encore ended and the audience was quickly back on its feet, calling for a second encore.

It wasn't long before the band emerged again for the second, and final, encore, delighting fans with silver streamers that burst from the stage and two very nostalgic songs:

関東土下座組合
BEST FRIENDS

Fans screamed in delight as the songs pulsated through the entire arena.

After Best Friends, the band put down their instruments and, surprisingly, Reita and Aoi stayed on stage. All five members gathered and stood at the center of the stage as Aoi playfully tussled with Reita, punching and kicking him before the bassist pulled away and stood beside Ruki on stage.

"Since it's our anniversary, we should all say one thing we really remember," Ruki said. He eyed his band members, as if deciding who would be the first to suffer through an MC, before thrusting the microphone at Uruha, "Here."

Uruha, Kai and Reita all thanked the audience for their support and their desire to move forward with the fans' continued support.

Aoi's MC opened with Reita giving him a vengeful kick to the backside, leaving Aoi holding his "injury." Aoi gave a relatively long and rambling MC and, as the audience moved to clap and cheer after a comment, Aoi shook his head, "Wait," he commanded. "Wait, wait a sec, okay?" The audience laughed anyways but fell silent to let him finish.

"Well, it's time," Ruki paused and glanced down at his bracelet like it was a watch before looking out at the audience again. The audience tittered and he smiled sheepishly, "It's time for us to go....to the sky."

The end of the sentence earned a brief silence and another collective laugh from the audience. Ruki continued for a little longer before getting to the purpose of his joke.

"Shall we take you with us?" Ruki asked. "To the sky?" The audience responded enthusiastically with cheers. "Everybody, grab the hand of someone around you," Ruki instructed. On stage, Reita grabbed Ruki's free hand with Aoi on the other side. Kai also moved to take Ruki's hand but paused with his infamously awkward smile as he realized Ruki had a microphone in the other hand. He took a firm hold of Ruki's upper sleeve instead while holding Uruha's hand.

"Let's go together. To the sky. Are you ready? We're gonna go. We're gonna go. We're really gonna go--all the way into space, okay. Ready? We're really going."

Ruki decided that the audience perhaps had enough of his teasing and began the countdown,

"Ready--set--GO!"

The band and audience leaped together and, in one tense simultaneous moment, everybody let out a cheer as they followed the band for the brief moment up towards the sky--before landing as one back in the Arena.

The band left the stage after a final goodbye and thank you, leaving the audience to file out of the arena.

As the audience left the arena, fans got to see all the support the GazettE had--not only from fellow fans but also from industry friends. Flowers lined the exit of the arena from various celebrities, congratulating the band on their anniversary.


Congratulations on 11 years GazettE!

---

Disclaimer: This report was written from memory, which is far from perfect, so events may have flowed differently and quotes certainly are not verbatim.

Now that the report's done--here's what many of you were probably waiting for.

MICHIDO's first GIVEAWAY!

Giveaway Closed

We're giving away 2 MELT cards.

We will randomly pick one Twitter follower and one Facebook fan. There are two steps to enter the giveaway and you can enter up to two times, once on Twitter and once on Facebook.

To enter the giveaway on Twitter, you must click "Reply" OR "Retweet" to share our live report. Clicking both does not increase your chances.


To enter the giveaway on Facebook, you must click "Share" AND "Like" directly from and on our page.


Next, comment on this post at the bottom about what song you would like to hear from this set lists, what you would've wanted to see and why. If you want to make sure we catch your shares and retweets, feel free to attach links on your comment on the blog (highly recommended actually).


The giveaway will run from March 16, 2013, Japan time to March 23, 2013, 23:59.

Good luck!!

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Posted in: 11th Anniversary,2013,concert,jrock,live report,Saitama Super Arena,the GazettE