Yesterday Kumama and I managed to attend Miyavi's concert at the Chicago House of Blues as a part of the American leg of his Neo Tokyo Samurai Black World Tour. It was both of our first time to the House of Blues, and we ended up getting a spot to stand in front of one of the non-operating bars in the back that gave us a great view of the stage. When it was finally time for the show to start, Miyavi's drummer came out first, followed by the man himself. My first impression was that I was surprised that it was only the two of them.
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For the first few songs it was only the two of them, and then a keyboardist came out as well. We later discovered that some of the bass tracks, and even a couple of the secondary guitar tracks were actually programmed into the keyboards. That's cool, he was trying to keep things light, which was perfectly understandable when he announced that earlier this year he had gone indie (which I hadn't known about), so a lot of the money for this tour was probably coming out of his own pocket!

He definitely had a really good, strong performance right off! Now neither of us are super Miyavi fan-boys/girls, so we definitely couldn't tell you every song that he played. There were a few of our favorites that we definitely recognized though: "BOOM-HAH-BOOM-HAH-HAH", "Are You Ready To Rock?", "subarashiki ka na, kono sekai", and "sakihokoru hana no you ni".

As you can imagine, due to the size of his band live and his changing style over the years, some of these songs sounded a little different. Boom-Hah sounded GREAT live, particularly because they did not have the annoying DJ present on this track on the album shouting out his crap present at all! The keyboardist did a little DJ style record-scratching himself, and giving the song a little bit more of an electric feel did nothing to hurt its existing awesomeness.

They also gave "Are you Ready to Rock?" the electric treatment, which in my opinion made it much less great of a song. On top of that, he actually went and made it TOO audience-participant friendly. He sung the song's second verse right away, and then proceeded to make the rest of the song a chorus of "are you ready to rock?", taking out all of the Japanese bits ("junbi wa ii kai? yoi wa ii kai?") and just repeating that same part over and over. It was still fun though!

The other two songs I mentioned were maybe a little bit more recent singles, so they sounded more or less just as great as their recorded versions. I should finish up by saying that I'm in general a huge fan of live tracks that are well executed (whether I'm there or not), because a lot of the time the artist will add cool little touches that they just couldn't/didn't do for the recorded version (such as Miyavi's nice guitar licks in "Boom-Ha").

Miyavi's English was excellent, definitely showing that he spent time studying in America (which I didn't know until I read his wikipedia article after the concert). He was able to communicate pretty much everything that he wanted to well, from his neck hurting him to how hot it was in the House of Blues (he wasn't under an air vent like we were). He also DEFINITELY enjoyed playing up the large female fan-base that he knew he had but repeatedly asking "What's my name?" and getting a resounding female response back from the audience during several occasions.

I'm sure Kumama will have more to add, but that's my basic synopsis. All in all, I'd definitely go to a concert of his again, and perhaps the experience of going made me appreciate his music even more than I did before. I think I might start investigating some of his back catalog!

I would definitely recommend seeing the Miyavi lives even if you're a casual fan of his work, as we are. If the other US venues he's playing (he just kicked off the second leg of his tour here, after canceling one last year, which he made sure to personally apologize for during his talks) are as good as the house of blues, it has a very intimate feel while still giving room for the mosh pit. We were at the very back of the area, but could clearly see Miyavi's face and it was not overcrowded.

What I thought was interesting was how much guitar work he adds into his live shows. Several times I was impressed with his solos, he really goes into a lot more technical work live than I've heard on most of his album tracks. Ever the showman, he would alternate between impressive guitar licks, dancing and posing for the girls, and even doing Hendrix-style behind the back solos. He really is a talented guy that brings some much needed fresh air to Japanese metal by infusing elements of acoustic, hip-hop and electronica. Definitely a break away from his Due le Quartz and early solo days. He played a couple new tracks from his album releasing in the fall, and what I heard were some great blues-tinged songs that stood well on their own. I'll definitely be checking that out when the time comes.

Photos were not allowed in the venue or we'd have some great shots. I saw a few snuck in anyway, so maybe they'll show up on blogs here and there. Really the only downside was that the acoustics could have been a bit better - the low ceilings in the House of Blues, particularly around the bar area caused the sound to bounce too much and sound distorted, so it was very hard to hear lyrics clearly and when the guitars got too loud everything became a bit of a mess acoustically. But the work of his excellent drummer managed to keep everything together even at those times, and it was definitely a good experience that I would pay to see again.

An interesting review from his San Francisco live, very similar to the show we saw:

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/EarBud/ar ... ambassador

Haha,
I'm glad you both went!
I was on one of his shows last year. Now you know I'm not really a big fan of his, except for some songs, but seeing and experiencing the whole thing live was just awesome.

This year he's coming back to europe and i'm trying to get an Interview slot. If nothing else we're going to have a concert report in the magazine I'm working for.

Nevertheless. Glad you both enjoyed the show.

Greetings!