X Japan Live at Tivoli in Utrecht

Last Saturday, I went to Utrecht to see X Japan perform at Tivoli Oudegracht. I had been waiting so long for this, so I was very excited!

Me and my friends arrived at the venue around 3:00 PM. Standing in the queue was nice actually, we had fun and prepared ourselves for the concert by adding some studs to my t-shirt and fixing make-up and hair and such. Time passed pretty quickly.
While waiting, we also got filmed by X Japan's staff. They decided to interview us for the DVD... It seemed like a nice idea, being filmed for their DVD, but once they had the camera's pointed at us I got a blackout and didn't know anything at all to say. So I basically said nothing and looked like an idiot XD

Here are some pictures of what I and Scarlet Penta looked like that day:

(Click for Full-size)

Fixing my make-up:

And here's a picture taken by Leyla, who wrote a great article about the concert and the visitors on her blog. You can find her blog here: http://www.leylafashion.blogspot.com

At around 7:30PM the doors of the venue finally opened, so we made our way to the hall. My friends wanted to stand in the back, but I really wanted to stand a little more to the front, because I hadn't been waiting since 3:00PM for nothing, right? Thankfully my best friend was happy to accomodate to my wish, and we managed to get a spot on the 4th row, all the way to the left. I could see the entire stage perfectly.

Me inside the venue, with my awesome red breaklights:

By that point I was still excited and enthusiastic, but after an hour of waiting that started to fade. I was getting pretty annoyed. They were supposed to start at 7:45PM, but it already was 9:30PM when they finally made their appearance on the stage.

Here's a screenshot on which you can see where me and Scarlet were standing. It may not look like it, but we had a great view!

When they finally started playing I was so happy, that I had already forgiven them for being so late. The intro started, and the sound was LOUD. It was so loud my ears started to itch out of irritation. Thankfully it soon got better.
They started off with their latest single, Jade. I really love that song, the lyrics are wonderful! But I must admit I mostly like their older stuff.

I liked all songs they played, I don't think I could've wished for a better setlist! The more rough songs, such as Rusty Nail, Silent Jealousy, Kurenai and X were some of my favorites. I was surprised that they played an English version of Rusty Nail and Kurenai, though. That was kind of disappointing to me, it just sounded way too strange.

Sugizo played a nice violin part, and I think he is very charismatic on stage! He played it very elegantly, and the wind blowing through his costume added to that. Yoshiki later joined him on the piano, and slowly they built towards the intro to Kurenai, one of X Japan's classics. I loved that part, it was beautiful.

During the interlude to I.V. some Spanish fan threw a Spanish flag on stage, which Toshi and Yoshiki held up together. And right at that moment, a Dutch fan threw the Dutch flag on stage, right on Yoshiki's face/shoulder. That was just EPIC. And when Yoshiki held up the flag, the audience cheered loudly. Another Spanish flag was thrown on stage, and Yoshiki and Toshi fooled around with them for a bit, which was hilarious. It was great to see how much fun they were having with the performance.
Eventually, Yoshiki went back to his piano with the Dutch flag still wrapped around his shoulders.

And I believe it was after they had played 'X' when Yoshiki suddenly dived into the audience. It was such a sudden action, no one had been able to prepare for it at all! From a distance it was pretty hilarious, but I'm sure the people in the center front were a lot less pleased by it. The security, too, wasn't very happy about it. But Yoshiki himself thought he was pretty awesome XD

I found a video on youtube of the stage dive:

All in all, it was a great concert! They played really well! It was one of the best concerts I ever attended. Not that I was expecting anything less. They're X Japan after all!

The setlist was as follows:

New Intro S.E
Jade
Rusty Nail (English version)
Silent Jealousy
DRAIN
Kurenai
Born To Be Free
I.V.
X

Encore:
ENDLESS RAIN
Art Of Life (2nd movement)
ENDING SE (Forever Love)

Sadly, I had to leave before the concert ended, because they started playing so late and I had to catch my last train back home. Finding a place to sleep wasn't even an option for me, as I had a return ticket for the train.
I'm very sad that I had to miss out on Art of Life, because I consider that song to be a real masterpiece. I've always wanted to see them playing it live. So the ending was kind of bittersweet. This live was an absolutely amazing experience, but with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Either way, I'm really happy I was able to see them, I'm still excited when I think back to the evening. I keep watching the videos made by fans on youtube all the time, it's great for my memory of it! This night rocked!

WE ARE X!