I came across a new song on youtube from guitar legend Panther (former guitarist of Sex Machineguns, now in Cycle and doing his own solo project). There was a picture of his new guitar in this vid and it reminded me of a guitar from hide.
not a clear picture but a cool guitar for sure
hide signature fernandes mg-160s | and no..there aren't many black signature guitars that have roses
So I liked the style of Panther's guitar and saw similarities with hide/ X Japan.
Now taking a look at Panther himself:
This is how he looked when he was called Circuit V. Panther as a member of Sex Machineguns.
So he looked quite feminine/ visual kei how...hide looked too. Before Sugizo became a member, the idea was that there wouldn’t come a new member in X Japan but different guitarist would support their live shows. This caused me to fantasize about X Japan with Panther….less ballads…..more rock songs…probably a second art of life instead of born to be free but only better…etc. So in my ecstasy I posted a comment on the video thinking I would get many negative reactions. It included:
“Panther should have taken hide's place in X Japan instead of Sugizo! He's perhaps technically too good for the music they make now but then we could have had less ballads and better solo's. Not the crappy whammy bar action of Sugizo -.-“
But to my surprise it became the best comment with a good number of thumbs up’s!
I got one negative comment (won’t mention the positive):
“Whatever you like or dislike sugizo,This advice is so bad that really sounds like a joke.Panther is not as famous as sugizo in mainstream music zone, Yoshiki has a relationship based on friendship and acquaintance with sugio,not only know him.If you say so, then syu ,daita,ace shimizu,whichever guitarist I like,are they available to take hide's place in XJAPAN?”
So I responded:
“Looks like the one that uploaded the vid of Panther's new song didn't agree with you. Still, I do respect your opinion and I'll answer.
Yes, I dislike Sugizo's playing but only for X Japan as a power metal band. They are going more mainstream now and Sugizo's style really suits them now. I'm just more a fan of X Japan before their reunion. It's of course not Sugizo who's responsible for this new direction but I think he was given some freedom by Yoshiki regarding solo's and I do think his solo's are crap.
Looking at his style though including the violin playing and his history (Luna Sea discovered by hide and he played with them at a live when the band was still called X) he's a good option for X Japan. It's just my opinion that I rather would have seen Panther as their lead guitarist. Not only because of his excellent playing (there are idd other guitarist that are technically more advanced then Sugizo) but also because of his image thats sometimes quite visual kei and his new guitar which I said reminded me of a guitar of hide.
It's just an opinion and I actually didn't expect my comment to get some thumbs up's. Interesting discussion though.”
And he responded again saying he removed his comment himself because he was embarrassed after realizing he was wrong. He didn’t like Sugizo either and rather would have seen Syu (Galneryus) but wouldn’t dare to say it out loud lmao.
So there aren’t any negative comments left for the Panther fans. Maybe we need to start a petition
. Now, what do the X-freaks think of this idea? Just imagine how great it would be