Omg... Yoshiki always likes to joke and, anyway, what can we expect from a man who
said he put and egg in the microwave? (incidentally I want to say that if it is true I like him even more
)
It's been a long time since Yoshiki couldn’t cope with his pains; the band's aesthetics was founded on feelings of loss and redemption; possibly - after the film - Yoshiki seemed to be getting better. But the band/Yoshiki's artistic 'character' remained the same, he/they dind't found/tried other ways to go ahead without canceling the past and now it's difficult to attract the public without something really new, if not with some attempted blast...
Yet I really think the band has already achieved their goal with the World Tour, I really think it. But the tour was very based on the reference to the inspiration still emanating from hide’s memory. Then they should try to go ahead creating something based on the experience of the past to express their
current feelings. And then something got stuck…
And now I ask myself what kind of obstacle prevented the band to go further?
I won’t even try to consider money/contracts affairs, I'm not a genius in these kind of things
and, besides, all we know are often just rumors.
I think that both Yoshiki's self-centered character and other members' disinterest in becoming famous abroad put the band's artistic evolution to the stake (in the sense that they didn't released new albums).
From the artistic point of view Yoshiki said many times that hide and Taiji had strong ambitions to make it abroad; and those forces aren't here to push the band in this direction any more. He said every time they tried to expand abroad everything fell apart at that time, perhaps because of english language's knowledge, or problems with comparison with western singers and who knows what.
Obviously the choice to nurture so strong emotional connections with people failing to keep repeated promises is really disappointing. I've been preserved from being completely discouraged because I met the band recently and never tried to attend subsequently canceled lives..., I perfectly comprehend historical fans' disappointment feelings.
I think Yoshiki started to remember Taiji so often because he knew his huge contribution to the band's initial success and the push he gave to succeed beyond the borders of Japan; plus, even if they always fought, they had been friends; but I don't think he really misses him like he misses hide.
hide played a multifactorial and multidimensional role in the band. We don’t always know every member's real contribution to every single note, but under the musical point of view obviously hide played a really great part. Yoshiki himself said he always listened to hide's point of view on every song.
Besides, hide supported and channeled Yoshiki's destructive energies, especially in p.r. relationships.
Now obviously all these aids are missing, but Yoshiki has always been intelligent and even from the very time when hide was alive has tried to develop in himself those qualities he saw in his friend who managed to magnetized them and that could be useful and stimulating for band's life and music.
Yet, after hide's depature, this was not enough to go further by themselves, something still missed.
Imho I think that hide was magnetinsing something more than musical and p.r. development. He represented some kind of innovative force that could go beyond limits converting Yoshiki's egoic self-destructive artistic feelings into a creativity based on group and interrelation. Somehow Yoshiki - master & commander of the band - could feel that his force could be not only voted to death and destruction, perhaps he felt less 'dangerous', and could see an opening in his possible pessimistic feeling of individual perception, which reverberated on band's creative environment.
The fact that hide was known as the ‘mom’ of the band could stimulate our most childish instincts as girl fans with a little tacky tastes, but his multitasking talent going from music to look to poetry tells us that this must really mean something more.
'I don't see our band as something that begins and ends. That notion is irrelevant' stated hide at 1997 X Japan last live.
X Japan created a new way of being which opened the doors to a complete creative freedom and I think hide expressed and catalyzed those emotions into a feeling of belonging to something common while maintaining their own specificity; a total freedom, without loneliness. Unfortunately hide was not a stable person; alcohol abuse, bulimic episodes and some bandmates’ talks tell us he was somehow upset, and his imprudent behavior did the rest.
The fact that alcohol had a great part in hide’s death must have been a great problem for Yoshiki, who probably accompanied hide in the first drunkenness. The friend - who had always given a chance to Yoshiki’s crazy reckless creativity of being a not too dangerous outburst - had died because of the abuse grown together… By the time Yoshiki recovered from this, luckily his talent and creativity got the better on dark mood.
But imho the feeling of belonging to something common in all bandmates wasn’t so strong any more because it was not magnetized and grown by hide’s presence, and this, under a creative point of view, didn’t support the band with the needed fuel.
There is something that Yoshiki said not a long time ago when he was a guest on a famous radio show after being abroad for one and a half year promoting the film, something that made me think; he told that he would like to ask people who think of X Japan only as a band that hasn’t released an album in 20 years something like “Do you know what kind of band this is?”; which means to me ‘Do you know what we had and what we really lost?’ (but it could be just a forcing…, I don’t know...)
Anyway guys, it’s been a while… and I’m glad I wrote something after so much time; we are in the middle of a pandemic and I wish you all the best, hope you are going on with your lives being prudent but without too much fear, I wish you to continue to be proud and crazy (like Toshi invited fans to be in early 90s lives) and fight with the same passion about our beloved X Japan 😉
