[2024.09.23] DEZERT Let's Go Budokan?! 1 & 2 @ Shinagawa Inter City Hall

This is going to be a long one, because it's actually two lives on the same day.

So, during DEZERT's The Heart Tree Tour Final in June, they announced 

1. that they would be releasing a best-of album, 
2. that it would be 2 discs,
3. there would be 1 new song on each disc, and some of the songs would be re-recorded,
4. they would be doing 2 lives to commemorate the release of this album (1 live for each disc)
5. they would hand out special editions of each disc at their respective lives
6. there would be a "Special Invitation" card included in each distributed copy
7. the card would be used for their Budokan live to do *something* (To be announced)

Whew! Talk about an information overload.

Anyway, since each live is 7000yen + service fees, my spouse and I thought it would be a little too expensive to go to both of them together. The original plan was that I'd go to the first one, he'd go to the second, then we'd get 1 cd and 1 Special Invitation card each. 

The two lives sold out pretty quickly, so we were going to stick to the plan... until the day before, when I looked on twitter and saw quite a few people selling their extra tickets. We ended up getting one of each so that we could go to both lives together.

Here's the kicker: the "extra" tickets we bought had even better numbers than our original full price tickets (we forgot to apply via the FC route) AND they were only 3000yen and 2000yen... Oh well.

Anyway, we got to the venue at around an hour before the first live opened. The line for merch was stupidly long... There was another line waiting for... Oh shit, we forgot the goshuin-cho stamp notebook!

(Dezert has this thing were they have a special stamp at every oneman live. It works just like the train station stamps and the shrine stamps in japan. Anyway, if you fill the whole notebook with stamps, you get *something*. We only have like 6 or 7, so we're miles away from whatever the prize is.)

So here's the poster for the new album:

I have a weakness for Dezert merch. They have a lot of well-designed stuff, and this was no exception.

The Vintage-design shirts sold out before we even got to the merch counter, though.

I ended up getting:

1. The rubber band set for the Heart live (spouse got the Brain one)
2. The Heart coaster (spouse got the Brain one)
3. Both the Heart and the Brain hand towels
4. The rubber coin case

Haul photo at the end!

It took us about half an hour to get into the venue - our numbers were just THAT bad.

I thought we'd be waaaay in the back because there were hardly any B tickets left, but to my surprise, the floor had been split into 2 sections, and while the section closer to the stage was packed, the other was only around 50-70% full. We had plenty of space to decide on spots.

Chiaki came out in a late 90s hide-esque hairstyle and black lipstick. And wow, he looked so GOOD.

The setlist was great. Lots of headbanging songs, a wall of death, some light v-kei moshing, a little banter before Hentai. Chiaki talked about to being weird to be performing in Shinagawa of all places. 

Then during Hocho No Tadashii Tsukaikata or Himitsu (I can't remember which) Chiaki made us do a "circle mosh". This doesn't usually happen in v-kei, so most of us had no idea how to start. The middle partition came in handy here - we had two circles going. 

Then it was time to leave and grab a bite before the second live. They handed us our special copies of the Heart disc as we headed out, plus a bunch of flyers. We gave up on the merch line since we were starving, and I found the woman who was selling her ticket, paid her, and got my second ticket.

The second live rolled around, and this time it took us about 20 minutes to get in. The front half of the floor wasn't full yet, but we opted for the back half for the extra space.

The band came out in different outfits and started with the new track on the Brain disc - Watashi no Uta.

Hmm, wasn't expecting them to start with a ballad. Anyway, next song rolls in and it's headbanger after headbanger. Ooh, it was amazing. This is exactly what I love about Dezert.

Then it was time for Isho, and Chiaki made us sing the chorus. He said we'd gotten much better than before. He was like, "you guys should be proud. Even if there's nothing else you can do, now you can say that I'm good at singing Isho." (Isho means will, as in, for the deceased and stuff.) Then he said "Wait! Don't tell anybody else that! They wouldn't get it!"

Not gonna lie, Today always makes me get a little teary-eyed, and this was no exception. 

But before I could finish wiping my tears, a new song had started, and it was Setsudan.

Crap! I was super tired from being on my feet all day, my ankle injury isn't 100% healed, and now Setsudan? The song where everyone has to kneel (or sit) on the floor and headbang in a circle??? Help!

As I expected, I had some trouble kneeling and getting up, but was otherwise fine.

Anyway, at the end of Setsudan, Chiaki talked about how Dezert has its own culture. He said that the band has never asked anyone to sit during Setsudan, and that one day, people just started doing it.

Once it was time to leave, we realized that we had no paper to stamp our goshuins on (I had thrown the earlier flyers into a station locker), so after some debate, I decided to stamp my Heart ticket. 

So anyway, here's my haul!

One thing I have to add is that I am a sucker for coasters and magnets. Of course I had to buy the rubber coasters!

I was pleasantly surprised, because it was much better quality than the coaster I got from the Heart Tree tour.

The Heart Tree one was plastic, while these ones were rubber.

They even look better!

Anyway, here's a picture of the Pass sticker, and my stamped ticket.

Until next time!