Gerard Way Japan Tour @ Osaka Big Cat (English)

Gerard Way Japan Tour 2015

Osaka Big Cat (2/16)

(by @postmcrjapan)

I fell in love with My Chem 13 years ago. I was in high school when "Three Cheers" became a hit, but for me, it all began with the Helena music video. I remember watching the video on a computer at my best friend's house. Strangely enough it was his mom who recommended the video to me and I remember being blown away by the lyrics, the melody, and the aesthetic. It was unlike anything I had heard before. I asked my best friend to burn me a copy and didn't stop listening. "The Black Parade" came out 2 months before I graduated from university, and "Danger Days" would come out after I had been living in Japan working as a translator. I have to admit, I had sort of put My Chem on hold after "Black Parade" -- but I found myself one day suddenly wondering what they were up to after listening to "Sweet Revenge" for the first time in what felt like ages. It was like all the emotions and memories I had of that time came rushing back with the energy of the music and once again, I couldn't stop listening. I was sitting in a hospital waiting room for a twisted ankle when I came across the My Chem wiki page and found out that they had broken up 3 months earlier. Even though there had been a long blank in my personal My Chem fandom history, it was still a shock to find out that My Chem was no more. I just sort of thought they were the kind of band that would be together forever. I never got the chance to see them play live -- and now, I never would. This is why when I heard about Gerard's Japan Tour that I was determined to go, no matter what.

February 16 -- Osaka Big Cat

I boarded a bus from Hiroshima to Osaka at around 9 a.m. I felt sick. I wasn't sure if I was excited or terrified to finally see Gerard play live. It would be another 4.5 hours before I arrived in Osaka -- was going to be a long ride. I have to admit, I spent the whole ride listening to live My Chem shows. By the time I finally reached Osaka and found my way to the venue, I was met with a handful of fans waiting to catch Gerard on his way in -- to no avail though. Shows in Japan are run differently than those in other countries, it seems, in that instead of lining up way in advance to get a good spot, they print what's called "seiri-bangou" on tickets -- numbers to designate who gets in first, second, third, etc, when the doors open. So basically, the earlier you buy your ticket, the better the number. Big Cat can fit about 800 people -- I was fortunate enough to be no. 57. We all took our places in numerical order in line and they called in the first 20 individually before going by 2s and then by 4s until it was my turn. There was a $6 mandatory drink charge (which is pretty expensive). I handed over the $6, grabbed my drink ticket and made a beeline for the venue (I ignored the merch, but there were only 2 t-shirts for sale, one white and one black). I was in the second row, dead center. 

Standard milling about before the opening act, Fabled Number, started -- but once they started, there was a giant WHAM of people, basically pinning us all behind the front row. The crush didn't let up until Fabled Number was done with their 30 minute set, and then there was another 30 minutes of clearing away their stuff. The crowd's getting restless. My stomach's twisting up in knots. And that's when James takes the stage, followed by Ian and Matt, and then Jarrod. The opening notes to "The Bureau" get heavier and heavier until finally Gerard takes the stage to the roar of the crowd and WHAM another crush. He shouts OSAKA!! and the show begins. 

Gerard's got command of the stage the instant he's on it and after "The Bureau" ends he's right into "Action Cat" jumping around stage. "Zero Zero" follows on the same energy. I was unsure how much talking Gerard was going to do at the show since I had heard from some Japanese fans that Gerard tended to talk less at shows here. But after "Zero Zero" he launched into his speech about support for transgender and non-binary. It was short and sweet -- something along the lines of "You all know what transgender is, right? If you have a friend or someone you know who is transgender or non-binary and you support them, then I love you" and then went on to introduce "Millions" as "a song I wrote about quitting, it's called Millions" -- fantastic energy on this song and the crowd was super into it. "Juarez" opens with Gerard's singing-with-my-eyes-rolled bit that's just awesome and then we're brought down for another talk session.

This time he talks about him and Mikey wanting to leave home -- not because they hated their parents, but they just wanted to escape and see the world. So they started a band and they did just that. Even though he hasn't been back to NJ for awhile, he said that he would never forget things about it, like the way it smelled, which leads into Drugstore Perfume. As an ex-pat living in Japan for 8 years now, I can very much relate to never forgetting certain things about home, especially smells, so this little interlude hit me pretty hard and I was crying for a good bit of this song -- it was really beautiful to see live. He then introduced the next song as "a song that I only released in Japan (crowd goes wild) called 'Stop Leaving'..." and then gave a little embarrassed laugh like "oh wait, actually it's Television All The Time, but oh well" and got the crowd into singing along. 

Piano Jam and Brother were another set of songs that really hit me hard. Before Piano Jam, he talked about how he never thought he was going to live past 25 -- how he had this romantic live fast, die young kind of philosophy -- but when he did turn 25, it was like well now what? I've got no idea what to do, and I have pretty much everything I want, but what I needed was love. Love is pretty much all you need. Just love... and when Piano Jam started up, Gerard looked up above and it looked like he was saying something before closing his eyes to sing -- I've seen speculation on Twitter and Tumblr (though I'm not sure if Gerard has actually SAID anything or confirmed anything) that the song is about his grandmother's death and the fact that he wasn't there -- but judging by his actions, it almost looked like he was talking to his grandmother before he sang. I had a very similar experience (being very far away from your loved ones when they pass) so this song pretty much destroyed me. The simplicity of just the piano and Gerard's voice is heartbreaking. Before going into "Brother" he asked us to sing along if we knew the words and the whole crowd was into it all over again. "Brother" is another one of those songs that gets me. Yeah, I know...I cried alot during this show...but c'mon, 13 years in the making...

"Brother" faded into an almost psychedelic intro for "Gang" which was really refreshing to hear after only hearing the album version for so long. Gerard was all over the stage for this one, singing on his knees and screaming into the mic. Wicked. "How's It Going To Be" followed in a similar style and before introducing "Maya", he talked about his battles with depression and about the stigma of mental illness. How he had no one to talk to and was into his 30s before he thought hey, maybe I should get a therapist. How people need a bullet hole or a stab wound before they'll say "oh well he's seriously hurt, we better help" -- just because there's no wound, it's hard for people to understand the gravity of mental illness. He advocated that if you're depressed you should seek help, how it would be worth it. When My Chem ended and his depression was at its worst, he started hearing voices -- "I was like, am I going crazy?"  and his therapist told him it was normal for those with depression -- "so this next song is a song about hearing voices."

After "Maya", he took a group picture, which was great because I wasn't sure he was going to, and then dove into "No Shows" with everyone singing "oooOOOOoooOOOOoooo" along at the beginning. The last song before the encore was "Snakedriver" and he filed off stage, following by the rest before James put on some noise and left the stage too. It wasn't too long before they were back for the encore "Don't Try". This song -- I've listened to it so many times on YouTube I can practically sing along -- that's how much I love it and I was so fucking happy he was going to perform it here too (happy as in bawling my eyes out again). 

Gerard blew us all so many kisses and responded to every fan's "I LOVE YOU!" with "I love you too!!" He also said it was like hanging out with all of us and he really liked that about these shows. Also, he thanked us for letting him continue to make music, and that's what he really loved us all. He took gifts from fans at the barrier during the show, including a Japanese flag with THANK YOU G! and messages from fans written on it -- the flag project was started by one of my followers and we were all so happy that he posed with the flag for us before putting it away to sing again. He also turned the house lights up at one point saying "Lemme see your faces, you all look so happy! I'm going to keep you all happy" and shouted out to some fans in the crowd, just interacting with us. After the show ended came the obligatory call for setlists -- the entire first three rows of fans were all jammed up against the barrier to get one. Though I didn't get a copy of the setlist -- actually, the staff guy threw the list out into the crowd and we all tumbled backwards, scrambling for it before losing our collective balance and falling over like some many dominoes...(^^;) I did get a picture of it. Hooray for nice fans!

 We all waited for Gerard to come out afterwards, but he ended up leaving the venue by car so we really didn't get the best view.

(This picture belongs to Miyuki @miyuki_uw)

That's all for Osaka -- stay tuned for my Tokyo report!

Just to let you know, videos of both the Osaka and Tokyo shows were taken -- I will let you all know when they've been uploaded! He also said that he was going to release a new album in the fall and would be back in Japan very soon!!