YOSHIKI and TOSHI at Japan Expo

Ulquiorra · **Reply #90 on:** July 05, 2010, 03:33:55 PM

Quote from shane from his recent post on xradicaldreamers

"http://www.jame-world.com/fr/articles-6539...i-et-toshi.html interview with Yoshiki and Toshi at the expo.

They said the album will be released this fall.They've just finished recording an english version of tears, And will do a concert in Paris soon, MAYBE 2011. I used google translate, I'm sure the other jame sites will translate it soon enough.
It's quite interesting."

Pretty much everyone's reaction on xradicaldreamers was negative, so was mine, and here it is,

"For f**** sake, why does there need to be another bloody ballad on the album, seriously, I thought BTBF was a sign that Yoshiki knew for a rock band putting out their first album for the US market that there was getting to be too many ballads. and that they were getting back on track, now it turns out we already have I.V, Jade, Endless Rain which are all basically ballads, but now on top of that we have Tears as well, holy shit.

Does Yoshiki think that a huge population of the US/UK pop/rock crowd like to hear depressing songs? No, they think the complete opposite of that, I know people who hate Queen because they think they're depressing, wait till they see this band. Then you have a huge portion of UK/US that thinks "emo=fail" (which it does really, not saying that X's songs are emo, they're not) Nobodys going to want to hear all these ballads.

And its not even over yet, there's apparently five old songs on this album, and five new songs, well we've only had four new songs so far, what's the fifth one gonna be? Without You? Damn it Yoshiki.

In my opinion this puts the chances of the other old songs being "'weekend, Kurenai, X' ect. even lower for me. "

Just like to add that I feel ENOUGH IS ENOUGH already with these damn ballads, end it Yoshiki. With Rusty Nail and Tears there's only three places left for Yoshiki to recognise that there were three whole albums before Dahlia.

Beauty/Broken · **Reply #91 on:** July 05, 2010, 03:42:17 PM

Given that the old songs we know about are Endless Rain, Tears, Kurenai and Rusty Nail. I'd like the other to be Weekend, but my educated guess, based on its commercial history and the frequency it is performed, is Forever Love.

As for the 'new' contingent, we have Born to be free, I.V., Jade and Without You - that still leaves room for another new song, Ulquiorra - supposing that when Yoshiki says '4 or 5' he means 5, as opposed to 4.

Ulquiorra · **Reply #92 on:** July 05, 2010, 03:46:24 PM

I'm clearly getting ahead of myself and not thinking the numbers of the songs correctly. Yes even if Without You was in there, there's still one new song. I'm pretty certain Yoshiki confirmed it was five new songs. But still Without You being there as well as Tears now just means this album has too many ballads, especially for US/UK audiences, its stupid.

And yeah I forgot that Kurenai had a pv filmed for it, which might mean Weekend or X is on there as well, but seriously, way to squeeze in the first three albums, rediculous, only two proper rock songs (Kurenai and whatever the other one is) and the rest of the album is basically ballads, and three new songs so far that practicly follow the same formula.

There is a completely unfair balance on this album, made by putting Tears in, Yoshiki deciding to put Tears on the album, rather then Weekend or 'X' their own self titled song (one of them has to be left out now), when they already have basically four (and Without You it will be five) ballads already, is just insane.

I guess Born to Be Free is a proper rock song, its not really ballady-ish, but still, I just don't like this tracklist at all.

rafaelo · **Reply #93 on:** July 05, 2010, 07:55:23 PM

one doubts why this show in France only had yoshiki and toshi.

CreepyKlutz · **Reply #94 on:** July 05, 2010, 09:29:29 PM

So now its like...

1. Rusty Nail
2. Kurenai
3. Endless Rain
4. Tears
5. IV
6. Jade
7. Born To Be Free

Likely/Possible
-Without You
- X
-Forever Love

Judging from that...ehh..erm..ugh..yeah..

Yu~Kun · **Reply #95 on:** July 05, 2010, 10:50:49 PM

Quote from: Ulquiorra on July 05, 2010, 03:33:55 PM

Pretty much everyone's reaction on xradicaldreamers was negative, so was mine, and here it is,

"For f**** sake, why does there need to be another bloody ballad on the album, seriously, I thought BTBF was a sign that Yoshiki knew for a rock band putting out their first album for the US market that there was getting to be too many ballads. and that they were getting back on track, now it turns out we already have I.V, Jade, Endless Rain which are all basically ballads, but now on top of that we have Tears as well, holy shit.

Does Yoshiki think that a huge population of the US/UK pop/rock crowd like to hear depressing songs? No, they think the complete opposite of that, I know people who hate Queen because they think they're depressing, wait till they see this band. Then you have a huge portion of UK/US that thinks "emo=fail" (which it does really, not saying that X's songs are emo, they're not) Nobodys going to want to hear all these ballads.

Dude, seriously...aren't you like...TIRED of saying this thing and analyzing all over again!?And i think it's a little bit hard to know what the entire U.S and U.K population will accept from Yoshiki.

Hey, guess what?THere are people who LOVE Yoshiki's ballads. And thery aren't the exceptions of all the population.

mC · **Reply #96 on:** July 05, 2010, 11:31:14 PM

I don't understand how people can keep classifying I.V. and Jade as ballads, it doesn't make any sense to me. You just need to listen to the drums and guitar parts and compare them with other X Japan ballads, and you can see an obvious difference. Look at the bass parts in particular! NOT BALLADS!

As for those who say that the up coming album will be fill of ballads, wait and see. As far as I know, the only ballads that have been more or less confirmed for the album are Without You and Endless Rain. That amongst I.V., Jade, Born To Be Free, Rusty Nail, Kurenai...not bad.

Finally, look at how popular X Japan were back in 1997. Their last album, Dahlia, had 4 ballads out of the 10 tracks on there, almost half, and yet that album is popular with X Japan fans. Their Last Live also consisted of a lot of ballads. Face it, during their later years, that was what their style had ended up being.

For fans out there, and this is not aimed at anyone in particular because people are usually of mixed opinion, I can't understand how they can say they don't want X Japan to change lyrics into English, or change their style to suit a more global mainstream, that basically IS America, and then complain about the "yet to even be confirmed" amount of ballads on the album, stating that the American audience won't agree...basically saying, in other words, that X Japan SHOULD change their style...to suit a western audience...let's have our cake and eat it too shall we?

Ulquiorra · **Reply #97 on:** July 05, 2010, 11:44:27 PM

Quote from: Yu~Kun on July 05, 2010, 10:50:49 PM

Quote from: Ulquiorra on July 05, 2010, 03:33:55 PM

Pretty much everyone's reaction on xradicaldreamers was negative, so was mine, and here it is,

"For f**** sake, why does there need to be another bloody ballad on the album, seriously, I thought BTBF was a sign that Yoshiki knew for a rock band putting out their first album for the US market that there was getting to be too many ballads. and that they were getting back on track, now it turns out we already have I.V, Jade, Endless Rain which are all basically ballads, but now on top of that we have Tears as well, holy shit.

Does Yoshiki think that a huge population of the US/UK pop/rock crowd like to hear depressing songs? No, they think the complete opposite of that, I know people who hate Queen because they think they're depressing, wait till they see this band. Then you have a huge portion of UK/US that thinks "emo=fail" (which it does really, not saying that X's songs are emo, they're not) Nobodys going to want to hear all these ballads.

Dude, seriously...aren't you like...TIRED of saying this thing and analyzing all over again!?And i think it's a little bit hard to know what the entire U.S and U.K population will accept from Yoshiki.

Hey, guess what?THere are people who LOVE Yoshiki's ballads. And thery aren't the exceptions of all the population.

As far as I remember I havn't brought this up for ages, its been many many months since I last complained about their setlist and the ballads ect.

I'm okay with their current live setlist, but this is a different thing, this is the first album, the US's first exposure to X, and in my opinion filling it with ballads wont appeal to the US. Also there is an even further bias towards ballads then there was before on this album, they now have to leave out either Weekend or another old rock song like X off the album since Tears is confirmed, why? is 'X' or 'Weekend' now considered one of those "too old and too heavy" songs for Yoshiki?

And the reason I think Jade and I.V are almost ballads is because the way Toshi sings them, the vocal lines, yes there are guitars and drums, but the vocals lines, especially on the choruses are completely ballad like to me and blatently the core sound/theme of these songs then the guitars. Especially with Jade which has had all the power sucked out of it in the studio version.

Don't know why, I just see it differently to Dahlia, which I do count as a rock/power metal song.

And yes while I do know there are people who love the ballads, you need to remember this is a rock band, and even though Yoshiki keeps claiming X is a rock band, it seems he's forgotten that somehow as well, I learned to like their new world tour setlist and I stopped complaining about it, but the tracklist for this album is rediculous. They're a rock band, even with Rusty Nail there's still more ballad type songs, and when you consider albums that aren't Dahlia there's only Kurenai and one other rock song from their first three albums, its not enough, especially for US audiences imo, which is the most important thing here.

denx · **Reply #98 on:** July 06, 2010, 01:05:13 AM

who knows X Japan release TEars as a single? not on the album?

tank · **Reply #99 on:** July 06, 2010, 01:23:41 AM

Ulquiorra, frankly for a lot of people, it doesn't matter whether it is a ballad or rock whatever kind of band they like to call themselves as. And come on, IV and Jade are not ballads, with only Tears, ER and possibility WY in the setlist, why the hell are you complaining?

And even if they are all ballads you can choose not to buy and pls stop ranting about this over and over again. I would be surprised if Tears is not in it somewhere. Just look at their overseas concerts, and see which are the songs the audiences responds to.

Ann1958 · **Reply #100 on:** July 06, 2010, 04:08:25 AM

Hi, I am back from Paris!
I actually can hardly believe that I was there I must say, but it was really great!!!

Saturday we were at the signing session, when I was in front of Yoshiki, I was so surprised that I didn't realised really that he was in front of me, I could say nothing, I was to much surprised

He is in his 40's and still no shrinkle, I couldn't believe it. He took my picture ('envelop')of the Dahlia album to put it good so he could sign it, I was realy too stupified to put attention at that. He signed and he shaked hand.
He is really a very nice and modest man, really very very nice, not at all, not at all the big ego that everybody say. He is a simple, nice and modest man.
One of my daughters asked him if she could make a picture of him, and she simply put her camera and clicked for a picture just in front of him. So she has a very beautiful picture of Yoshiki. Tomorrow evening I will post it. Now she is sleeping and she will upload picture tomorrow evening.

At Japan Expo, we had to line up for a longtime, line up to enter, and thereafter an longer line up for the Live House.
The fans were amazing, not screaming fangirls like in other concerts.
The acoustic concert was short but very beautiful and for us very emotional, because it is first time in our life we could be at an event with them, even if there were not complete X Japan it was very emotional for us. I still can't believe we sang along with ToshI and Yoshiki.
They didn't talk,ToshI's voice was really amazing and impressioning. You know already what they performed, we were very surprised by acoustic Rose of Pain, which was very beautiful: voice was very amazing, piano was very beautiful too.

It was funny: fans began to scream:We are, ToshI also 'we are','you are' a few times and then the songs continued, this was done a few times middle in a song, but I don't remember in which song.

I can't tell much, just it was very amazing, beautiful, emotional (first time in Europe even if it wasn't a full concert), and too short. In endless Rain, he sang the chorus both in french and original version.
All the songs, the fans have sing with ToshI. It was beautiful, that's all I can say.

Hoping for a full concert within a few months.
I try to upload the pictures we took. But it was difficult to take pictures.
I did upload already on my facebook, but I try to upload them here.

Ann1958 · **Reply #101 on:** July 06, 2010, 04:14:44 AM

http://s841.photobucket.com/albums/zz334/annmarijke/Japan%20Expo%202010%20Paris/

Does this link work for you to see the photo's? I am not so good in those things...

mC · **Reply #102 on:** July 06, 2010, 04:34:13 AM

^Yup the photos work

How many people attended the acoustic session do you reckon?

Ann1958 · **Reply #103 on:** July 06, 2010, 05:15:33 AM

I have no idea how many there were in the Live House, I was in the one / third part somewhere in the Livehouse, and for lining up, we were by the first (Vips passed first and we were not VIPS

...) I couldn't see the end after me in the Live House, so I think the Live House, if it was not full, it certainly was almost full.
Because after that we went to see Seikama, and there I could clearly see the Live House was a bit more than half full I think.

julien · **Reply #104 on:** July 06, 2010, 11:05:33 AM

there were 10 000 people in the live house according to someone i know ^^ He was the first one to queue, he entered at 10am and started to queue O_o til 2pm

AsukaMiyu · **Reply #105 on:** July 06, 2010, 11:24:05 AM

From the pictures I saw the hall really seemed as good as full. XD

On some japanese newspaper it said something about 8000 people aswell, but... I HIGHLY doubt that so many people even fit into the hall. o_O Unfortunately, I can't find anything about the size on JE's website either...

Ashemanu · **Reply #106 on:** July 06, 2010, 11:44:30 AM

Thanks for your report, Ann, that sounds great! You were so lucky

And good to know he is not the earthly embodiement of Satan himself, as whom people sometimes seem to regard him

XScars · **Reply #107 on:** July 06, 2010, 12:21:15 PM

Quote from: AsukaMiyu on July 06, 2010, 11:24:05 AM

From the pictures I saw the hall really seemed as good as full. XD

On some japanese newspaper it said something about 8000 people aswell, but... I HIGHLY doubt that so many people even fit into the hall. o_O Unfortunately, I can't find anything about the size on JE's website either...

The capacity is 8000 people:
http://www.japan-expo.com/en/contenu/je-live-house_22.htm?sid=2b6948c90fe1a1d252fd547ee36351762010-07-03%2F2010-07-02%2F2%2F

Yu~Kun · **Reply #108 on:** July 06, 2010, 03:23:35 PM

Quote from: Ulquiorra on July 05, 2010, 11:44:27 PM

And the reason I think Jade and I.V are almost ballads is because the way Toshi sings them, the vocal lines, yes there are guitars and drums, but the vocals lines, especially on the choruses are completely ballad like to me and blatently the core sound/theme of these songs then the guitars. Especially with Jade which has had all the power sucked out of it in the studio version.

errr.....That DID exist even BEFORE Dahlia.....or is it just me...?
But even if i'm wrong in this, still isn't it a bit too much of a generalization to call I.V and Jade ballads because of Toshi's singing...?This is like calling the majority of the heavy songs of symphonic metal bands, ballads.....:/

Beauty/Broken · **Reply #109 on:** July 06, 2010, 06:13:05 PM

Quote from: Yu~Kun on July 06, 2010, 03:23:35 PM

Quote from: Ulquiorra on July 05, 2010, 11:44:27 PM

And the reason I think Jade and I.V are almost ballads is because the way Toshi sings them, the vocal lines, yes there are guitars and drums, but the vocals lines, especially on the choruses are completely ballad like to me and blatently the core sound/theme of these songs then the guitars. Especially with Jade which has had all the power sucked out of it in the studio version.

errr.....That DID exist before even BEFORE Dahlia.....or is it just me...?
But even if i'm wrong in this, still isn't it a bit too much of a generalization to call I.V and Jade ballads because of Toshi's singing...?THis is like calling the majority if the heavy songs of symphonic metal bands ballads.....:/

I agree. Just because a song is melodic doesn't mean that it's a ballad. Yoshiki's composing style, for the most part, has always been extremely melodic - even as far back as X Japan's indie days. Only a few songs spring to mind which aren't, such as Stab me in the back.

Ann1958 · **Reply #110 on:** July 06, 2010, 07:04:18 PM

Pictures from the signing session of Yoshiki in Fnac in Paris + line-up

http://s841.photobucket.com/albums/zz334/annmarijke/Signing%20session%20Yoshiki%20Paris%20Fnac/

ElefeX · **Reply #111 on:** July 06, 2010, 08:55:34 PM

I am very jealous of you lucky people who went to the expo! Thanks everyone for sharing info/photos etc - Ann, you have some really good photos!!

I love the fact that they played Rose of Pain! Yay!

Ulquiorra · **Reply #112 on:** July 07, 2010, 12:04:22 PM

New awesome quality footage from the show

Rose of Pain & I.V.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsYqkDRyC5o&feature=related[/youtube]

Forever Love

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXJfmlMMobk&feature=related[/youtube]

Ann1958 · **Reply #113 on:** July 07, 2010, 12:19:27 PM

Quote

Ann, you have some really good photos!!

Thanks! Credits goes to Lora (one of my daughters) for the close picture from Yoshiki at signing session in Fnac: she asked if she could take a picture from him and she put simply her camera in front of him and clicked. Security man was not amused, she took too many time.

Other pictures from Yoshiki at signing session and the pictures from the showcase: credits goes to Joke, my other daughter, she is the tallest of us tree, so she could more see and became the camerawoman

Tanabata · **Reply #114 on:** July 07, 2010, 05:15:35 PM

Ann,

Thank you!

AsukaMiyu · **Reply #115 on:** July 09, 2010, 07:33:03 AM

I don't think this has been posted yet, but this guy here took some amazing pictures of the show!
http://www.chriscb.org/photos-concerts/x-japan-paris-nord-expo-japan-expo-festival-2010-villepinte-04-07-2010

He also photographed a lot of other concerts and events at JE, really nice stuff.

myuu · **Reply #116 on:** July 09, 2010, 10:47:45 AM

thank you for the link, asuka! amazing shots! o_o

radicalblues · **Reply #117 on:** July 13, 2010, 05:30:31 AM

Woah, that's what I call a good photographer.

This photo is nowhere as cool, but holds a lot of meaning for many people... Toshi got a very special gift before going out to sing. Thanks with my life to Clément for this picture.

http://www.xradicaldreamers.net/xjapan/DSC01125.jpg

vash-chan · **Reply #118 on:** July 13, 2010, 11:05:03 AM

The photos here are incredible, guys. I really wanted to go this

But the video clips are great and Toshi sounds amazing. I'm sure the show was a blast. I went to Japan Expo in 2007 when Yoshiki was there but couldn't get an autograph because I didn't know it was only for competition winners. Was there a competition again for this year or was it open queue for the Yoshiki and Toshi signing session?

XScars · **Reply #119 on:** July 13, 2010, 12:00:25 PM

There was only a signing session with yoshiki, on saturday at fnac... the first 150 buyers of the dahlia tour final dvd got a coupon for the signing session...