“CLAUSTROPHIA”

Last Friday i went to a very important concert.

No, maybe that’s an understatement.

To be precise it was a band i listened to excessively in the 90s. It was a band whose ideals, concepts and visuals kind of merged along with mine while i was growing up. It was also a band i had later outgrown as i grew older and as my musical knowledge widened and matured. However, undoubtedly it’s always difficult to deny the roots of your musical influences no matter how embarrassing.

And so i got myself ready to face my teenage desires from the past. I wondered if i might cry. I wondered if i might fall asleep. I wondered what to wear. I had often wondered about the above while daydreaming about going to their concert back in the days. Now that it was really happening, i had to wonder about that all over again.

So i submerged myself back in the good days of the 90s, rediscovering old videos (that i had undoubtedly re-watched to death when younger). I brought out my platform shoes and smacked on some dark lipstick. I was ready (i think).

The lights came on, the audience rose, and the music started. It was very loud. The songs i knew well. The musicians i knew well. Two hours flew past before i knew it and the show was over. Sugizo tossed water onto the audience and waved bye bye.

It was great, i think. It was okay. I was happy to be sixteen again for a night. I knew that the best things from the past should stay in the past and i guessed the experience affirmed that belief. And no, i didn’t cry nor fall asleep. But i shouted a whole lot and lost my falsetto for awhile. But it was all good. Thank you for fulfilling my lost teenage desire… Now that it’s all checked and done perhaps i can move on with my adult life a little more easily…

This is a close-up Ryuichi’s hand from the “Sin After Sin” DVD  while he sings the words “Destroy…”

And these are Sugizo’s beautiful triplet dolls on his freaky bed in the forest from “Providence”…