Setlist:
01. 狂骨の鳴り "Kyōkotsu no Nari"
02. THE BLOSSOMING BEELZEBUB
03. DIFFERENT SENSE
04. LOTUS
05. Midwife
06. 滴る朦朧 "Shitataru Mōrō"
07. 蜜と唾 "Mitsu to Tsuba"
08. DIABOLOS
09. 流転の塔 "Ruten no Tō"
10.「欲巣にDREAMBOX」あるいは成熟の理念と冷たい雨 "'Yokusō ni Dreambox' Aruiwa Seijuku no Rinen to Tsumetai Ame"
11. Unraveling
12. Cause of fickleness
12. DECAYED CROW
EN
01. VANITAS
02. Un deux
03. 新曲 New song!
04. 詩踏み "Utafumi"
05. 激しさと、この胸の中で絡み付いた灼熱の闇 "Hageshisa to, Kono Mune no Naka de Karamitsuita Shakunetsu no Yami"
Dir en grey have been delivering some fantastic tours recently as part of their 'From Depression' series, focusing on a single album for each tour. With 80% or so of the set list being solely from a single album, it is a fantastic way to revisit old eras of songs revamped in their new style. Having enjoyed the fantastic VULGAR album tour in Tokyo, which I sadly didn't get round to blogging (my apologies!) I hastily snapped up a ticket for the Dum Spiro Spero tour in Osaka's Namba Hatch. Whereas the VULGAR tour was lighter and punchy in tone with a lot of shorter, frantic and funky tracks, Dum Spiro Spero is an entirely darker and different beast, I must admit before the tour I viewed it as possibly my least favourite album but after seeing it live I found myself appreciating it in an entirely different way.
Namba hatch is a fantastic venue, the sound is amazing and the atmosphere is very intimate, the standing area is all on one gradual slope, unlike some of the Tokyo venues that have standing areas divided by stairs or barriers, so it is very seamless to move back and forward if you wish. The sloping area makes it great for even shorter people to see as they can position themselves further back. It is super close to Namba station too. I unfortunately had a super late ticket number in the late 1600's so I arrived at the venue shortly before doors opened, the joys of the Japanese lining system! I was worried the T-shirts would be sold out but luckily they still had Medium in stock. All of the designs were really solid this time, the t-shirt I bought has the image above printed on it, occasionally the merch stand is hit and miss but the Dum Spiro Spero styles are pretty wearable both in and out of gigs! But on to the show...
As we were waiting, I noticed they didn't have the usual generic rock songs playing but had a kind of 'music box' version of several Dir en grey songs which was beautiful to hear. Then suddenly the instrumental album opener 狂骨の鳴り kicked in. It's a really dark ominous track that played out against a backdrop of dark imagery, beetles scuttling over skeletal images etc. Then band members walked out in their usual order sporting a modest, dark look. Shinya was wearing a combination of white and black, looking pretty smart! Whereas Die and his super long flowing hair had a black suit with a casual black vest underneath. Toshiya looked freaking amazing with black paint streaked across his eyes, a black tux vest and I didn't realise until halfway through the gig that he was wearing a skirt/kilt similar to the new PV. Kaoru had a full black suit with red joker-esque facepaint and frankly, looked badass. Finally Kyo came out with short bleached blonde hair, and older style black bow tie, black hair and white shirt...he almost had a film noir look about him.
The backing screen cut to a clear closeup of Kyo's face shown from a camera planted on his mic, reminiscent of the shows they did in the States for the GHOUL tour. The focus was solely on Kyo throughout their performance of THE BLOSSOMING BEELZEBUB, his white contact lenses staring into the camera and the souls of the crowd. This song is pretty long, a common theme for the album and unlike the VULGAR tour, is very atmospheric and dark. It's a bit of a slow choice for an opener though! Kyo showcased his vocal range from high pitches eerie wails, haunting growls and verse melodies. The amount of range he shows on this album is pretty insane and definitely pushes him to his limits. The band swiftly kicked into one of my most favourite and brutal tracks on the album DIFFERENT SENSE. The crowd answered in full and began headbanging and fist pumping manically, a lot of this album's songs have unpredictable transitions and heavy thrashing so fist pumping was the order of the day, much easier to keep with the flow. I love this song for the solos and Die and Kaoru didn't disappoint, especially with the dual solo midway through, epic. What surprised me was Toshiya's deep growling backing vocals as Kyo did the main harmonic singing. Along with Shinya's powerful, thunderous drumming it felt like the band was a solid five, with each member contributing to the performance equally.
This was followed by another single, LOTUS, again one of my favourites, Kyo's vocals were solid throughout, the chorus especially! Everyone was singing along and Die went nuts on the guitar. This was all accompanied by backing clips from the PV of the woman in the red kimono floating across. Next up, lasers, lots and lots of lasers for the performance of MIDWIFE. This song is pretty dark and irrational and has been at the core of their set lists as of late. It compliments the brutal tone of the Dum Spiro Spero album well, I do feel the song is a bit too intense with the shouts and screams when listening to the CD, but it works really well for a live show! As the band took a break, Kyo began the first of two acapellas, set against the glare of a dark red light, Kyo showed a mastery of ghoulish crows, heavy thumps and erratic zombie-esque panicked breaths, which with the echo effect worked really well to link MIDWIFE into the next two songs of the set. 滴る朦朧 is a really solid live song, especially with the mixture of dark growls of the chorus and high pitched verses set against the punching and melodic tones of the guitars. The latter part with the crowd chants feels very animalistic and tribal, which was fitting as a montage of faces coated in animal paint were shooting past on the video screen!
The next song was 蜜と唾 which is a REALLY heavy growly remake of a song from their very early GAUZE album. 4 big long screens obstructed the view of the band, showing only their silhouettes and projected onto them was a bunch of flashing, unsettling red lights and lasers. As Kyo growled his way through,the song the lyrics appeared menacingly on the screen, the lyrics are equally dark but I couldn't help but smirk when I saw the awkward lyrics of "1 sad sexually, 2 sad sexually" appeared on screen. All of the other English words had been turned into their katakana forms except those two lines haha!
DIABOLOS was next, in my opinion it was the weakest point of the whole gig. The song itself is really long, 9 minutes, and goes through many transitions, starting slow and atmospheric before becoming really heavy, but the song just doesn't flow well, I like the individual sections but put it all together and it seems a mess! It doesn't work well live either as it just kind of halts the momentum they built up. For 流転の塔 the big red screens were still up and the back lighting made the band look completely epic and huge in scale, it really complimented the song well.「欲巣にDREAMBOX」あるいは成熟の理念と冷たい雨 works great as a live song, the chugging riffs really compliment Kyo's vocals and it gets really heavy near the end which leads to a lot of headbanging and fist pumping! Unraveling was really impressive to watch, highlights of the PV showed in the background and Kyo did some pretty unique dance moves to the chorus, with the crowd singing along in unison, simply a fun song to watch! Cause of fickleness was definitely one of the highlights of the gig, tons of psychedelic visual effects, bright colours, was like riding on a crazy funfair attraction except everyone is yelling "Wake me up!". This song ROCKS live, it really reminds me of their Vulgar era, fast paced, punchy verses and choruses, it's impossible to not smile and shout along. Everyone was happy as the Osaka crowd went nuts!
They ended the set with Decayed Crow, which as you can tell from the name, is brutal from start to finish, a massive head bang song to finish things off!
Namba hatch is a fantastic venue, the sound is amazing and the atmosphere is very intimate, the standing area is all on one gradual slope, unlike some of the Tokyo venues that have standing areas divided by stairs or barriers, so it is very seamless to move back and forward if you wish. The sloping area makes it great for even shorter people to see as they can position themselves further back. It is super close to Namba station too. I unfortunately had a super late ticket number in the late 1600's so I arrived at the venue shortly before doors opened, the joys of the Japanese lining system! I was worried the T-shirts would be sold out but luckily they still had Medium in stock. All of the designs were really solid this time, the t-shirt I bought has the image above printed on it, occasionally the merch stand is hit and miss but the Dum Spiro Spero styles are pretty wearable both in and out of gigs! But on to the show...
As we were waiting, I noticed they didn't have the usual generic rock songs playing but had a kind of 'music box' version of several Dir en grey songs which was beautiful to hear. Then suddenly the instrumental album opener 狂骨の鳴り kicked in. It's a really dark ominous track that played out against a backdrop of dark imagery, beetles scuttling over skeletal images etc. Then band members walked out in their usual order sporting a modest, dark look. Shinya was wearing a combination of white and black, looking pretty smart! Whereas Die and his super long flowing hair had a black suit with a casual black vest underneath. Toshiya looked freaking amazing with black paint streaked across his eyes, a black tux vest and I didn't realise until halfway through the gig that he was wearing a skirt/kilt similar to the new PV. Kaoru had a full black suit with red joker-esque facepaint and frankly, looked badass. Finally Kyo came out with short bleached blonde hair, and older style black bow tie, black hair and white shirt...he almost had a film noir look about him.
The backing screen cut to a clear closeup of Kyo's face shown from a camera planted on his mic, reminiscent of the shows they did in the States for the GHOUL tour. The focus was solely on Kyo throughout their performance of THE BLOSSOMING BEELZEBUB, his white contact lenses staring into the camera and the souls of the crowd. This song is pretty long, a common theme for the album and unlike the VULGAR tour, is very atmospheric and dark. It's a bit of a slow choice for an opener though! Kyo showcased his vocal range from high pitches eerie wails, haunting growls and verse melodies. The amount of range he shows on this album is pretty insane and definitely pushes him to his limits. The band swiftly kicked into one of my most favourite and brutal tracks on the album DIFFERENT SENSE. The crowd answered in full and began headbanging and fist pumping manically, a lot of this album's songs have unpredictable transitions and heavy thrashing so fist pumping was the order of the day, much easier to keep with the flow. I love this song for the solos and Die and Kaoru didn't disappoint, especially with the dual solo midway through, epic. What surprised me was Toshiya's deep growling backing vocals as Kyo did the main harmonic singing. Along with Shinya's powerful, thunderous drumming it felt like the band was a solid five, with each member contributing to the performance equally.
This was followed by another single, LOTUS, again one of my favourites, Kyo's vocals were solid throughout, the chorus especially! Everyone was singing along and Die went nuts on the guitar. This was all accompanied by backing clips from the PV of the woman in the red kimono floating across. Next up, lasers, lots and lots of lasers for the performance of MIDWIFE. This song is pretty dark and irrational and has been at the core of their set lists as of late. It compliments the brutal tone of the Dum Spiro Spero album well, I do feel the song is a bit too intense with the shouts and screams when listening to the CD, but it works really well for a live show! As the band took a break, Kyo began the first of two acapellas, set against the glare of a dark red light, Kyo showed a mastery of ghoulish crows, heavy thumps and erratic zombie-esque panicked breaths, which with the echo effect worked really well to link MIDWIFE into the next two songs of the set. 滴る朦朧 is a really solid live song, especially with the mixture of dark growls of the chorus and high pitched verses set against the punching and melodic tones of the guitars. The latter part with the crowd chants feels very animalistic and tribal, which was fitting as a montage of faces coated in animal paint were shooting past on the video screen!
The next song was 蜜と唾 which is a REALLY heavy growly remake of a song from their very early GAUZE album. 4 big long screens obstructed the view of the band, showing only their silhouettes and projected onto them was a bunch of flashing, unsettling red lights and lasers. As Kyo growled his way through,the song the lyrics appeared menacingly on the screen, the lyrics are equally dark but I couldn't help but smirk when I saw the awkward lyrics of "1 sad sexually, 2 sad sexually" appeared on screen. All of the other English words had been turned into their katakana forms except those two lines haha!
DIABOLOS was next, in my opinion it was the weakest point of the whole gig. The song itself is really long, 9 minutes, and goes through many transitions, starting slow and atmospheric before becoming really heavy, but the song just doesn't flow well, I like the individual sections but put it all together and it seems a mess! It doesn't work well live either as it just kind of halts the momentum they built up. For 流転の塔 the big red screens were still up and the back lighting made the band look completely epic and huge in scale, it really complimented the song well.「欲巣にDREAMBOX」あるいは成熟の理念と冷たい雨 works great as a live song, the chugging riffs really compliment Kyo's vocals and it gets really heavy near the end which leads to a lot of headbanging and fist pumping! Unraveling was really impressive to watch, highlights of the PV showed in the background and Kyo did some pretty unique dance moves to the chorus, with the crowd singing along in unison, simply a fun song to watch! Cause of fickleness was definitely one of the highlights of the gig, tons of psychedelic visual effects, bright colours, was like riding on a crazy funfair attraction except everyone is yelling "Wake me up!". This song ROCKS live, it really reminds me of their Vulgar era, fast paced, punchy verses and choruses, it's impossible to not smile and shout along. Everyone was happy as the Osaka crowd went nuts!
They ended the set with Decayed Crow, which as you can tell from the name, is brutal from start to finish, a massive head bang song to finish things off!
Next was a massive surprise, they played a NEW SONG! At the time I thought it was simply a Dum Spiro Spero song that I didn't recognise, I remember enjoying the hell out of it but sadly can't remember any details. If I had realised it was new I would have made better mental notes!
After the new song came their latest single 詩踏み, I freaking LOVE this song! I was grinning like a madman throughout. It works SO well live, with Kyo doing the manic arm flailing that he does in the PV before the crowd roars FALL, FALL, FALL, FALL! The pacing and the drumming is fantastic on this song and even better on stage. I really hope this becomes a regular song on their set list because its amazing.
"OSAKA!! OSAKAAAAAAAA! OSAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!", "Otoko! Otoko! Otokooooooo! (Guys!) Onna.....Onna.....Onna.....ONNA!!!! (Girls) and then had everyone from all sides of the venue.
What always gets me though is when he says "みんな一つになれるか！？" (Can everyone become one!?) Which when shouted over and over really makes your skin tingle and get hyped. The whole venue comes together and yells as one. 激しさと、この胸の中で絡み付いた灼熱の闇 has been their standard closing song as of late and super appropriate since its on the album! As everyone was headbanging, fist pumping and singing along you could tell that Dir en grey are a band that are comfortable and confident in Osaka. All the members were smiling, even Kyo and the vibes of the venue gave you an atmospheric high. Sadly it had to end and Toshiya even got carried away and threw his bass into the crowd with adrenaline! He later apologised on Instagram saying he hoped that no-one got hurt!
Hearing Dum Spiro Spero in almost its entirety live again has changed my view of the album massively, it has been on repeat since I got home. Their next tour is for my favourite album, Kisou, sadly I haven't been able to get tickets through the usual sites since its so popular but hope I can get one elsewhere!
They have also just announced an Uroboros tour! I can't wait! Dir en grey is a band that just keeps giving.
