Fumi Rock Festival
May 3rd, 2004
This event was announced to Lareine fans at nearly the last minute. We received the e-mail notification from Fleur that morning. And we were glad to have that much notice, as only a month earlier we'd been startled by an e-mail announcing that Kamijo would go flower-viewing with fans at Yoyogi Park... in 5 minutes. The fans' outcry over that was terrible and from all I've heard, not a single fan was able to make it there and poor thoughtless Kamijo went looking at the flowers alone. I don't think he meant the last-minute notice as a prank; more likely, it was an ill-considered attempt to keep the crowd of fans down to a manageable size. Most visual kei bands would have at least a couple of fans hanging around Takeshita-dori on a Saturday who could make it to the Jingubashi park entrance in 5 minutes. Anyway, for the Fumi Rock Festival appearance, we were e-mailed with a few hours to spare so that Tokyo-area fans would have time to travel.
And quite a few other Tokyo Fleur-tachi were able to make it. They were hilariously easy to spot in their elegant romantic expensive goth/lolita/victorian clothes, because Fumi's friends and fans all have a very ordinary casual rock fan look. Most of them parked themselves in front-row seats from the center to the right side at the beginning of the show and didn't budge until the end, determined to wait through anything for a glimpse of Kamijo-sama. I didn't think he'd appear until late in the event so I got a nice comfortable seat at a table further back and watched the first 2/3 of the show from behind a bunch of happily dancing Fumi fans on the left side in brand-new "Drink Beer!" Fumi t-shirts. That was the theme of the night, "Drink Beer!"
The first performers were straightforward rock musicians and bands who I didn't know at all. The only thing that really stood out was one of the bands in the middle, with a female vocalist in a really skimpy frilly bikini outfit with a transparent red thing over it. Judging from the comments behind me, the guys in the audience really liked this but I wasn't crazy about it and none of the other women seemed thrilled either. The dancing "Drink Beer!" Fumi fans especially had "Um! We'd rather not see this! What do we do?" reactions. Where they were standing, every time the vocalist turned around they got stuck with a too-close view of her mostly-uncovered butt.
Eventually the big band came on, lots of musicians that I didn't recognize, and Naomi on keyboards. The mysterious Fumi was one of the guys, doing both vocals and guitar. They played a few cover songs, and then another guest guitarist/vocalist came out and they did some bluesy stuff with long jams. All the musicians took turns doing bluesy solos and periodically drank beer. If you like blues and beer, I'm sure it would have been great. The dancing Fumi fans certainly seemed to enjoy this part. Except for a couple of American songs at the very beginning of the night, I didn't recognize ANY of the covers performed.
Then finally they called Kamijo out, and he came out in full "Bara wa Utsukushiku Chiru" costume and hair/make, looking outrageously absurd amidst all the other musicians who were casually frumpy in "Drink Beer!" t-shirts and jeans. And he produced his drink -- the vitamin-rich nonalcoholic energy drink "Oronamin C." (Kamijo does not "Drink Beer!" It's not just a joke to match his elegant image, he actually does drink only rarely.) He had a sip, and then waved his roadies to take it away. It was hilarious. He brought TWO roadies to wait on him, when no one else had even one roadie just for them and were either making do with the few "group" roadies or doing stuff themselves. One, perched at Kamijo's right foot, took the bottle from the stage, and the other darted through the crowd to take it away. Meanwhile, right behind the stage roadie there was a changing of the guard... The 3 "Drink Beer!" girls in the front row noticed that I and 2 other Kamijo fans in our conspicuous Kamijo-fan gothloli outfits had magically appeared right behind them, and cheerfully stepped back from the stage and waved us into their places. This was a little embarrassing because it was such a conspicuous spot! (Maybe that's why the Fumi fans were happy to let us Kamijo fans there?)
Kamijo didn't know the lyrics to his cover songs -- he NEVER knows the lyrics to covers unless it's "Bara wa Utsukushiku Chiru", which doesn't count -- and in typical flamboyantly shameless style he had one roadie hold up extra-large cheat sheets for reference. Not satisfied with the way the roadie was holding the sheets, Kamijo kept reaching over and tugging them into a more perfect position. The roadie's reward for putting up with this came at the end of the first song, when Kamijo (and then a goofy jam musician) rumpled up his hair like you would do to a pet. The things his roadies put up with! *LOL* Back in December at the end-of-year show, one of them got stuck holding up cheat sheets while an innocently-smiling Kamijo beat time on his head. Anyway, the reason my spot was particularly conspicuous is because it was right behind the line of the cheat sheets, so every time Kamijo forgot the lyrics (basically, after every line of each song ^^;) he had to look right in my direction.
He performed two songs which I didn't know (non-bluesy hard rock/metal) and then left the stage. We Kamijo fans gave the front row back to the "Drink Beer!" girls and stood behind them waiting for him to come back out at the very end. Fumi's band performed a few more songs in their more usual style and then there was some sort of boa thing going on... a few of the musicians were wearing boas, and Fumi got a bright pink one placed on him. Then "Tackey and Tsubasa" (aka. someone and Kamijo) came out with their own boas and the "Drink Beer!" girls switched with us again.
I think Kamijo was supposed to be "Tsubasa", not that I know the difference. He'd changed into the white "Hakuchou" costume, the one that appears in "Lillie Charlotte." I don't know which costume was more beautifully bizarre looking in the group onstage... They both gave the effect of a freak teleportation hole having been opened between this rock club and a Takarazuka stage, so that you wondered if in the middle of a Takarazuka version of BeruBara somewhere a "Drink Beer!"-clad Oscar had suddenly appeared... @_@
The Tackey and Tsubasa song was the last for Kamijo. The rest did a little more, and then the show was over...