Wow, so much I want to say and I don't know I can even get it all into one post.
My feelings on the concert are that it was a great success in many ways. It finally brought them to the American public, even though the audience wasn't the best type to try to get out there and be known, with. I am not a Beyonce fan but I will say this. X Japan is real music. Beyonce is a bunch of women dancing around the stage in the same way that they and others have for the past 20 or so years and it's old, to me. I am not interested in watching that sort of crap at all. I AM, interested in all of the members of X and their well being. I love them, all.
I think other than the people who were there to see X from the get-go, the rest of the crowd never saw visual kei before and were probably confused by what they did see in the video going behind the band and the holograms. They may have been confused by the holograms and not even realized that hide and Taiji were no longer alive and that's why there were holograms going on either side of the band, if only for a moment. I am pretty confident they also had no idea how much hide and Taiji wanted X to perform in the US and what that meant to them. So this whole thing may have been confusing to them. They'll get over it if they were confused. Hopefully, they'll remember it and want more!
However, the band did a teriffic job, despite all the equipment malfunctions and what appears to be Toshi's stage fright on Jade. And I think that's basically what it was for him - stage fright. IMHO, of course. But as soon as he got past Jade, knew he could do it, he opened up and let loose with some fantastic singing all the way up until X where his voice started cracking, again. I felt awful for him at that point. I think if Jade had gone bad for him and his voice cracked during the opening song, that would have been a disaster for the rest of the concert. Once he got through it and did such a marvelous job, his confidence came back.
I don't think the theatricals were overdone, either. I do think, maybe, Yoshiki should have cut the "We Are" part shorter when he realized his voice was gone or he'd lost it. Those people in the audience probably had no clue what that was about but then that's the kind of audience they were playing to. To me, those were just a bunch of kids out to party, get drunk, do drugs, etc, etc, etc.
I am in total agreement about the wheelchair footage. That was just unnessicary and the crowd, for the most part, wouldn't even understand what that was about.
A few people, helenmoon, included, have asked about why Americans may not be interested in J-Rock, etc. I think the answer is simply that they don't know the Japanese language at all, don't understand what they are hearing or the meaning of it nor the pronunciation of the words being sung. I really think that may be the only barrier. They need more exposure and to jump right in there and find out what the lyrics are, translate them if they want to and try to sing along. Just enjoy it because the music is so excellent.
I have several aquaintences who can't speak or understand a word of Japanese but once I exposed them to X, they really are getting into them, or at least two of them are. One guy was already a fan of Baby Metal so I'm not sure if he just wasn't paying attention to other J-rock bands in general or what. He likes another young girl band from Japan, though. Maybe he wants to watch females instead of males? IDK. The other main guy works in the music industry, apparently. He may work at a record shop of a sort. Not sure as he's never said but he keeps close track of charts such as Billboard and others and can pull up stats in a heartbeat. I know he was excited about watching them at Coachella and had told me after I was posting videos all the time, that he was going to buy Blue Blood as soon as he got the chance and that was a few months ago. He said he had never heard of them before I started posting their videos on a certain forum we both belong to and that he really liked them. He also said he wished they also would sing in English more often. If he would LISTEN, he might realize a lot more of what he hears Toshi sing, is actually in English, not Japanese. The 3rd guy heard Scars and that was the first time he had ever heard X. He said he really liked it. And that's saying something for an older Stones fan! So they have a chance. They just need more promotion and exposure, I think.
As far as me recording. I am more than happy to have done it for the fans, here. And of course, I have my own copy as well.
I am just happy that I could make my fellow X fans happy.
That's all for now but I am sure more will come up later on.