Ahoy all! Now I know this blog is all about Kikka, but as this is a concert I attended I feel it is ok to post here, plus it is my blog, so that's how it is! For those with a short attention span, I’ll give you the short version... Amazing weekend! Now that is out of the way I’ll give you a rundown of all encountered and how things went day by day, expect this to be a long one, but it will be interspersed with picture goodness and even a video clip that I am rather happy about getting ^_^
Day One
This day started a bit boring with me getting up, doing a last minute triple check of absolutely everything. On the train, I met up with pukovnik_krv as we were rooming together in Paris and have known each other now ever since the failed attempt to bring Buono! to our midst in 2009 (the less said of which the better!) So after a boring train ride we reach the airport, having checked in online we went straight for our first hurdle...
You see, at this point in time, there had been no indication that acquiring glowsticks over in France would be easy. So we decided to take advantage of a local Poundland and took of our respective favourite’s colour. All well and fine, except we realised they not only contain fluids, they also have glass and hooks on. So they could quite easily have been seen as an offensive weapon, and the last way I wanted to start the weekend was with a nightstick up the arse!
Fortunately it would seem Manchester Airport are relaxed at security, as nothing went wrong at all. Pukovnik_krv even managed to not set off the security detectors despite wearing steel toe-capped boots! Departure lounge was not brilliant, first of all the only affordable food option was a Burger King, which was shit, we both had this sweet chilli wrap, and quite frankly, I’ve seen better looking dogfood!
Though we did find an air hockey table and blew about £4 in that, killed a good forty or so minutes anyway. After that, just continued to kick our heels and wait for the time we took off. Our strategy to try and get seats at the front was scuppered instantly because Ryanair have now started allowing people to reserve a seat for £10 (gotta love the ability to find any way possible to extort more money from those stupid enough to pay!), so the front three seats on the aircraft were gone, we ended up in the middle, but no one sat in the third seat, which allowed us to go through everything without incident.
Flight itself was about as interesting as it ever gets on short-haul, namely looking at snow covered farms and the sea. So we bided our time and landed at Paris-Beauvais. many of you are probably researching where it is now, and let me tell you, it is a one hour coach ride out of anywhere that accesses Paris proper. (port mallion I believe) Now I bet you are all thinking, “why in the name of all that’s holy did you not go Charles De Gaulle?” Well there are two reasons.
The most important was money, to get to Manchester airport only cost me about £8 return on the train, pukovnik_krv probably only paid around £20 - £25. To reach Charles de Gaulle would have meant an easyjet flight from Liverpool and a much bigger cost not only to reach the airport, but to get to France. Our flight cost just £30, including the extortionate double booking fee even though I only made one payment. (UK Government, if you don’t start treating this as money-laundering and arrest their owner, I’ll personally come down there and shove your gold plated toilet brush so far up your sphincter that you’ll be gargling sixty-nine’s for the next year!)
Ok, rant over, back on track, the second reason was because it was far out. With the attendees being many from abroad, there was a possibility that security and so forth would be much slower. As tiny as Paris Beauvais is, we got through with very little trouble or delay whatsoever, despite a queue of twenty ahead of us at passport control.
Once in Port Mallion we ventured onto the Metro system, massive echoes of London Underground in the layout of the stations and also the map design. Though something I found bizarre was that some of the cars ran on train rails, while others have huge tyres and are literally guided buses. Still got us to our hotel without incident. Now what happened next was truly silly, when we booked the room back in November 2011, the room was booked with one double bed and one single bed.
So we go up to the room and sure enough, there’s a double bed, but no sign of a single. We check everything and all we see is this.
Now that looks tiny, it does no justice to the real thing, maybe if you curled up into the feotal position and dislocated about eighteen of the body’s joints you would fit in! Clearly not the single bed, so we phoned to reception and were told all of the rooms of the sort were booked, I rather bluntly replied, “yes, one by us in November!” Luckily when we walked to reception we got a guy this time and he simply sorted it out, changed the room. After barely two minutes inside, the concierge comes in, uses a key on the wall, and folds out a single bed, job done!
Well with that out of the way, we wanted to scout the venue out, the pair of us were in a hotel called ibis which is about two minutes around the corner from the event. We get there, and fine a venue that has a windmill over it, very peculiar, but never bothered to get a shot (Buono! Staff have a few so go look there!)
One shot I did grab, however, was this one.
So there you have it, in the middle of a smattering of electro/dub, j-pop invades France! And so it should be, was fantastic to see the gig openly advertised this way, not that anyone who saw it there would have had a chance to get it!
Though what happened next made me realise how close to the truth Chibilolli was being about the location. We decided to go further past the concert venue and less than one hundred yards later we were literally swarmed by sex shops, strip joints and other paraphenalia used in the slutty industry. A bit taken aback we went into a local supermarket, grabbed some toiletries and got the hell out of dodge! (note: this did not stop a creepy 50 year old woman constantly try and lure us into one of her joints, definitely not cool!)
After this we visited a local Mcdonald’s as both were hungry, and I’d been advised that the French have laws about meat purity or something, and that the Mc’d’s are miles better in France... BULLSHIT!!! Same tasteless, unhealthy, artery clogging, shitty smelling, unappetising and expensive bollocks I can get over here!
So on that crushing disappointment we decided to just hit the hotel for a bit and see if anyone had posted on various forums (free wi-fi ftw!) A certain forum I have long since been banned from gave me a few laughs when I was referred to as he who shall not be named and a banned member we cannot name. If any users of that site are reading this blog, shout my name all over the forum if you like, but a certain Admin might give you a lot of trouble.
Speaking of which, if said Admin is reading this post, I hope you are proud to know that you are possibly the least liked member of the forum in question. Personally you may not have liked my straight talking, bullshit cutting and sarcastic style, but it made me a damned mile more entertaining than you could ever hope to be!
Ah sorry about that, I get easily distracted from the point when I have been up for hours and on the road! Back on topic, through this site, pukovnik_krv advertised we would be in the area and if anyone else was, please joins us for a drink. We got a solitary reply from the user Kenshin who met us by standing opposite us for a minute while talked, with him smoking a cig, before he plucked up the courage to ask if we were those who advertised lol.
So we hit a couple of Irish bars and were aghast at being asked for six euros and upwards for a pint. Fuck alcohol aversion therapy, send recovering alcoholics to Paris, they will be so upset by the sight of the cost they’ll never took a drop again! Still, my friend advises me, that when he visited Paris, it was on average nine euros a pint! So I suppose we actually got pretty lucky!
After this we crashed around one o’clock and set an alarm for seven in the morning, as we wanted to try and get a signing ticket for Buono!
Day two
So woke up and hit the metro, aiming for the area in question, as pukovnik_krv knew someone personally who was hopefully going to help us with this. We got to the street around 8:30 am, unbeknown to us KerriChan21 and Meike1991 were just ahead of us. Once in the queue we started chatting with above mentioned members and then got a surprise appearance from Maoh who had come all the way from Japan once again.
Maoh then shocked both pukovnik_krv and myself by giving us each a copy of the C-ute PB Cutest for absolutely nothing! Considering how expensive PB’s are in general, this is a great and unexpected gift. Cue many utterances of thanks in Maoh’s direction ever since!
Now when we got to the queue, we had been advised that there was already one hundred people, and I pretty much wanted to bugger off, but we were told by a person sort of working with the organisers (note: - I don’t believe this was an official hiring so not blaming them at all here) advised us there was a chance we could get in.
As such we hung around, for three and a half hours, at about minus 5 degrees celsius, toes freezing to the point of snapping off, only to not be allowed a chance, despite person 101 being let in.
Needless to say I and the others around me were extremely unhapy about this. The person who sort of worked with the organisers, had got a list of names up to and exceeding one hundred when we arrived at 8:30; therefore the organisers knew much much earlier in the morning we had no chance and should have just told us then.
It was bad enough that soundlicous fucked up the first signing chance by having a website so shit that barely 20% of the total audience (total and utter guess here by the way) had any chance of filling in the form to get drawn, but to then compound this by not advising people who had started queuing from 8:30 am that they had zero chance was total and utter bollocks, and I would say they deserve to be shot, but that’s not fair on the bullet!
Dejected and more than a little angry, pukovnik_krv, Meike1991, kerrichan21, another friend (really sorry but did not get your name) and myself hit a McDonald’s, purely because it was close, it was warm and relatively balanced in price. While the lunch didn’t do anything to fill me with happiness, the casual conversation and inherent warmth did uplift my mood somewhat.
After this pukovnik_krv and I hit the hotel again, while the others went elsewhere, as I wanted a shower and we had nothing else to do. So took a long time showering, whilst pukovnik_krv continued to laugh at some of the updates on certain forums via his PSP (note: they are shite at wi-fi, constant failure to load anything beyond 300kb in size!)
Subsequently we decided that whilst we were not going to be able to go into the signing, due to the nature of the area it took place at, we would be able to at least see them. So once again hit the metro and went to the area. Whilst there we hooked up with La’kea and chibilolli who had been there earlier than us and actually got a ticket for the signing, during this we were met by chobineko who was so happy to meet pukovnik_krv and I, that she took a two-shot photo of us.
With Chobineko being somewhat tiny, she found herself in the situation of not being able to see her fave member Airi. So pukovnik_krv jokingly suggested that I should put her on my shoulders to let her see in. Being a 6‘2, 120 or so kilo mass of a northerner I thought “why not?” Thus I hoisted her up skyward and she could see over the mass of adverts and posters, it made her very happy, and is further evidence I am a nicer guy than I have a reputation for. How much I’ll leave to you lot to decide!
Anyway, for the loitering outside pukovnik_krv had brought his rather powerful camera, whilst I just used my phone. Even with five megapixels it is never a certainty it will come out, so I am rather proud of this shot.
This shot has both Momoko and Airi staring right at me! I doubt they saw me and went “wow he’s awesome!” but I don’t care, I have the evidence, and even though if I ever saw them again they’d be like WTF? I know they looked!
We hung around the street and had tonnes of local people just asking us why the street was so crowded, and we explained that it was because of Buono! They all seemed really miffed and I can kind of understand it, unlike most signing events that usually take place in record stores or major historical locations, this was just an annex street at a Japan themed cafe!
Now we hung about hoping to get something more and got lucky when we guessed that they would be walking off the street back to whatever transport they had. So I managed to capture this.
I have said it before, but Buono! are the closest thing the Hello Project has to punk. Three members, rocking songs, stripped down stages, live bands... Now this! Every other group would turn up in a coach with blacked out windows and a huge trailer of supplies? Buono! on the other hand turn up in the back of a bodged Mercedes Sprinter van, the spirit of punk definitely lives on there!
After this we arranged a meeting for the night but first thing we needed to do was go greet both Oroboras and Shirow who were both arriving at pretty much the same time, so the little rambling group of pukovnik_krv, chibilolli, La’kea and myself ventured to the station Gare du Nord, which had everyone pissing their trousers when I said it, as it was like Geoffrey Boycott doing a feature on a travel programme. (Note: - Not that such a feature would be very interesting, it’d be all about why Bradford is better than Huddersfield or something!)
Now both were coming in via the Eurostar, but to our knowledge they were different trains... Wrong! Both on the same train, but due to the massive size of them, Shirow must have been with us a good five minutes before oroboras joined the crew!
We all briefly hung together discussing multiple jokes before Shirow, Chibilolli and La’kea had to dash off to where they were staying, pukovnik_krv, Oroboras and myself helped get the hotel sorted there. Like us, there was an issue with Oroboras hotel room. Exactly the same as ours!
Now unlike ours, there was a bigger problem with this hotel, actually finding the room. You see, it was a hotel that had an address from something like 216 all the way to 224, after a long discussion at check-in, it turned out that oroboras and Tomacz (who was staying with him and really sorry for the shit spelling of your name!) were in 224 and we walked in to see a narrow area with seating and a kitchen, but no obvious directions to the specific room.
We saw what looked like a tiny elevator for supplies, but got in, and to our horror, it was the actual elevator! Its capacity was three persons or 300kg, I think we came dangerously close to topping that! After this the hallways were so narrow that if I put my hands on my hips I’d crash through the walls.
So we pretty much crabbed around the area and got oroboras inside, now again, unlike our hotel, for oroboras it was a bit less civilised. They simply dragged an ancient bedframe, with one missing wooden slat and the rest terribly curved, then threw what looked like a dirty futon on it and went “thank you for co-operation, better room tomorrow!” and just left. Needless to say not impressed with that! (I have no idea what the other room was like, hopefully a million dollar upgrade)
After this we decided to go the Moulin rouge area for a pre-arranged drinking meet up. oroboras came with us but had to immediately go back as Tomacz kept trying (and failing) to call. So Pukovnik_krv and I set off, found Maoh who’d walked into the wrong Irish bar! And then stood outside the venue as multiple others wanted to join us... After twenty minutes of waiting, we headed to a place called Corcoran’s which was less than one hundred metres from the venue.
After an hour of chatting and no one else turning up, pukovnik_krvwent back to the hotel to try and connect online with people. This generated Kenshin and Nimrawt, then later on oroboras and Tomacz also joined us. Missing though were chibilolli, shirow, La’kea, Meike1991, kerrichan21 and a few others. But still the union of seven hung out, drinking beer and discussing all the awesome stuff that was gonna happen the day after. At 10:30 we all called it a night.
Day Three
The most important day actually started rather late for us, pukovnik_krv and I had decided, after the fiasco of the day before, that it was worthless queuing ridiculously early. So we simply planned to go later and get wherever we could. Though we didn’t just hide in the hotel, we did go to check out the line.
As we did so we noticed Chobineko quite far up front, so no doubt she had a great position. Further along the line we found Chibilolli, La’kea, Shirow and Ptom98 all stood together (though I didn’t recognise Ptom98, shame on me!)
At that point we were told a spot would be held for us in the queue, and that also meant that Oroboras could also catch up with us and the band stick together so to speak. As such, pukovnik_krv and I basically meandered in and out of the queue, finding people we knew and chatting to them.
This led to us finding Meike1991, kerrichan21 and their friend, who gave us some lovely waffle type biscuits they had brought from Holland, hit the spot I have to say. We also spoke to a guy called Nino (at least that was the name I got, I’m probably wrong!) who wasn’t really into Buono! but was selling goods from a case at the front of the line. Annoyingly he had some quite rare Kikka picards but some cunt stole them, should I ever find out who that person was I shall ensure they get the harshest sswishbone special they can. (Many of you should know what that means!)
After this oroboras arrived, thus we swiftly adjourned for a coffee along with pukovnik_krv, kerrichan21, meike1991 and their friend, for a refreshing mug of caffeine on a cold day. By this point it had got to about 12:30 and we kjust went back to the queue, when out of nowhere Buono!’s van pulled up, instantly about half the queue dashed away from the doors. Being ultimate opportunists, we followed the dash, but then cut back to the queue gaining quite a few places!
Now before you all start flinging heat at me and those who were with me, I will make one thing very clear, both before and after this, if people knew those in line who had saved them a spot, I let them through, but there is a golden rule, if you and your spot saver leave the queue, you have left the queue and have to reset to the back. Might be harsh, but I’ve done gig promotion and had to tell many a fan they are no longer front of the queue because they decided them and their mate wanted a beer!
With this in mind, pukovnik_krv and I got the others to save our spot and we went back to the hotel to get our tickets, as we did not plan until getting there until around 4pm. When we got back the line had been sealed with a barrier, luckily for us, oroboras and La’Kea acknowledged our shout to them and thus the crowd let us through. So see? We had our spot saver and got back in, all was great!
At this point, we noticed a group of guys that had Tsunku masks on!
This was awesome and led to some Tsunku chants, about ten minutes some of the No Life crew were walking around with video cameras and getting interviews from fans, they asked me to take part. Now I composed myself explaining how I found Buono!, who I love best, and so forth. Then behind me Shirow and oroboras had borrowed a Tsunku mask and had it look as if the man himself had appeared behind me during the interview.
I personally found this hilarious and to me it would look awesome, but the No Life person disagreed and asked me to reshoot, which I did without issue but still, where’s the sense of humour? This was fans being fans and pissing about with each other, it’s what the whole weekend was, why cut it? Epic fail in my view!
We continued to wait with oroboras playing pv’s from his netbook as a way to entertain us all, much Buono!, Berryz Koubou, Kikkawa Yuu, Canary Club, Morning Musume, C-ute and so forth was played, with everyone in the area joining in singing and what not where necessary.
Just before the doors were to open, the organisers made a decision that was totally beyond comprehension. To split the crowd by surname into two lines, one from A to L and one from M to Z. As a former organiser of a music event I was baffled by this, it didn’t in any way allow them greater control, and it wuite possibly resulted in antipathy as people could have arrived after you, but got in ahead purely by luck, for me, if they needed two lines, all they need was to put a barrier down the middle near the door, that would filter the crowd naturally.
Once inside I dashed for the merchandise stall and got what I wanted, a Momochi name towel for swirling in the concert. I also got given a photocard by a Japanese wota.
This truly made me happy, but pukovnik_krv was not so fortunate, despite us being relatively far forward (easily first two hundred people) all of the Airi towels had gone, the one I got was down to the last five when I bought it!
But once done it was down to the floor and while it looked like we were gonna be about 2//3rd’s back, I saw a gap on the left and went for it, seconds later, fourth row! The stage really shocked me, it was absolutely massive, they could easily have had a live band on there as well if it were possible.
Before I talk further about the gig itself, I have heard people complaining because Dolce did not come over. Personally, as someone who has worked in music events, I totally understand why. By having Dolce they firstly would have needed much bigger transport. They’d have needed techs in order to set the equipment up, they’d have needed an extremely long soundcheck to get both the live band and Buono! themselves right, plus they’d have needed more complicated setup between stage and soundboard. Add to this the cost of bringing at least a further seven people in total over and you can see why Dolce did not perform here. had they done the 43 euro ticket everyone bitched about initially would be more like 63!
But anyway, the great thing about this was that in the intermediate time, they played lots of pv’s and the crowd were electric! When BK, C-ute came on there was constant chants for individual girls. Now I was personally expecting nothing but this, but they played Mano Erina, then, much to my amazement, Kikka-sama’s Konna watashi de yokattara! When this played I was going berserk chanting extremely loudly and singing along, a few local fans seemed a bit shocked, but some Japanese wota on an elevated level to my left were delighted to see such energy!
After Sayaka’s latest video and upupgirls giving a special message of support the crowd were truly alight, then played DMM ‘shining butterfly’ PV, when Ai Chan came into shot the roof was blown off, unbelievable reaction to here, takitty is still immensely popular! During this PV I freaked people by shouting ‘Johnson’ whenever Iida san came on screen, the Japanese wota were again clapping and giggling, but most around me were like ‘wtf is he on?’
They then showed the clip of Buono! finding out on tour in Japan that they were going to be in France. The sight of Momo going ‘is this real?’ and Airi literally lapping the stage was just epic, then bang, on comes the music for Hatsukoi cider and that was it, the roof went from up top into the stratosphere! The crowd simply went nuts.
What was brilliant is that everyone, French, Japanese and other countries all appeared to have done their homework and chanted in mostly perfect unison (well at least it felt that way on the floor) I do think though that I may have left some lasting damage in the venue. You see I got very eager to see Momochi and support her. So I shouted at the top of my voice, which unfortunately for those in the area is around 105 decibels (or to put it in layman’s terms, as loud as a jackhammer pounding the street!)
With We are Buono! and Nakimushi shonen Buono! simply had the crowd eating out of the palm of their hands with the energy and power they displayed, despite the stage having no banner, no smoke, nothing, just three girls, great music and great stage presence, punk as shit!
Only thing is, after this the first MC started and one of the women from Soundlicous started doing some translation shit, and she totally killed the energy, constantly signalling for the crowd to shut up and everything. The next part where she confused both Buono! and us as fans by trying to do interactive translation thing just did not work, twice the management for Buono! came on stage telling to hurry the fuck up, fortunately she saw sense and asked the crowd if Buono! could speak to us in Japanese and we speak to them in French? Crowd chanted yes and we fortunately saw the back of her for a long time, much needed energy came flooding back!
Buono!’s dance lesson for Rottara rottara was awesome, but being such a big guy I couldn’t take part, however, once they ripped into that song, the crowd just became a mass of chants and light sticks blazing, truly stunning to see. They then played my favourite song Honto no jibun so I was singing my lungs out and chanting like a wild animal, as they followed with kokoro no tamago I once again was over the moon.
After this concert became a blur for me, with tracks such as kiss!kiss!kiss and Bravo Bravo! I personally was beyond any form of fatigue and determined to get the most out of the event, by the time they’d blasted through Renai Rider I couldn’t have cared what they played, they could have done a Lady gaga track and I’d have been happy!
But the moment I was waiting for came as they ripped into Warp I got to do the towel spinning which looked incredible on the We are Buono! dvd. Unfortunately, shirow was right beside me and was whipping his Miyabi towel against my Momo one and we kept on getting tangled! In the end it was a case of me swinging with my left hand and him his right, the universal balance we needed was restored.
After this Momo stated it was their last song and I was thinking they’d end with Last forever or gachinkou de Ikou so imagine my shock when they belted out rock no kamisama! What’s brilliant about this track is that it translates as ‘God of rock’ done by three idols, you know when I was saying they were punk? Well the concept of such a thing is a huge middle finger to the rules!
Only disappointment was the lack of an encore, now Momo did say that was definitely the last song. However, the lights stayed down, the music stayed on, and the crowd chanted for a good solid ten minutes. A Japanese wota and myself calling the crowd with one shout, letting them answer with the other. Despite this, the lady from before came on announcing that the show was already over, needless to say she got a huge chorus of boos.
This for me really was ridiculous, as someone who has organised gigs it is piss easy to sort. If a band says there is to be no encore you do one of the two things. First of all, if nothing is on after them, you immediately turn on the house light, dim the stage lights, cut all the equipment and the crowd will naturally leave. Two, if you have something like a clubnight on, you get the |DJ to thank the band for playing via a mic, have the DJ get the crowd to cheer their appreciation, and then announce that the clubnight starts immediately and for them to not go anywhere.
Leaving the lights down like they did trolled the entire audience for an encoure that would never come, and to hear the boos really made me sad, as it seemed like we were really unappreciative for the epic concert. I truly hope UFA have the sense to know we all loved Buono! and want them back!
After the gig got some food with Pukovnik_krv, Maoh, Kenshin, Meikke1991, Kerrichan21 and Ptom98, we also briefly spoke to some other members of a certain forum though we missed their big meet. After this we visited an Australian bar and had a huge turnout of at least 20 people! All of those above, myself, plus Nimrawt, Oroboras, Shirow, Chibilolli, La’Kea, Tomacz, and a huge selection of Japanese wota. We must have spent something like 300 euros collectively and had one of the greatest times ever, discussing H!P fandom, oshimems, merchandise and so forth.
Also Pukovnik_krv tried a drink called a Cumshot, and no, this not made up, check out the pic below for proof.
That pic is the cocktails menu for this place! Truly insane, but we must have been there at least three hours and it was amazing, great end to a truly sublime day.
Day Four
Relaxing day, had breakfast, checked out, walked through the surrounding area, which included surveying a frozen river that had everything from bottles to a tent thrown on top! We also visited Stalingrad as seeing it on the metro line amused us, then went for some japanese food at an awesome place in Port Malliot, part of a very lush looking designer shopping arcade, the place itself was called Matsuri, had that for lunch, got coach and flew home, not much more to say.
So overall, firstly if you made it this far congratulations! Truly long post but lots of ground to cover, my concert report might be gushing, but I believe it was the best one I have attended! I am really fired up to see Buono! with Dolce now, at some point I will, but I shall sign off by saying thanks to everyone I met, if I missed you, it is not because there was a problem, I just forget names. I’d love to hear all your thoughts, but otherwise, hope those of you who left France got home ok, and those still there have an awesome time while you can.
Until next time *sets sail*
