L'Anniversary
20th November 2007, Tuesday
My missus bought me a concert DVD during our recent Japan trip...L'Arc~en~ciel's "L'Anniversary" DVD which is shot in November last year at Tokyo Dome, in celebration of their 15th year in the business....
I haven't had the time to catch the 2 disc concert (which I believed to be an amalgam of the 2 separate days of events) till over the weekend when the missus is out of town, and Laruku served pretty well as my lullaby provider...
While going through the list of the songs performed in this ceL'ebration, it certainly brings back memories of when I first got to know of Laruku...
I believe it was back in 1997, after having sampled the likes of Glay and Luna Sea and hungry for more J-Rock (still a bit refrained from visual kei), I picked up the album which sees yukihiro officially becoming their drummer after the previous drummer (Sakura)'s drug fiasco which subjected them at the brink of disband...
I wasn't really hooked on the tracks at first finding it now as speed rock as certain classic tunes from the band mentioned above...Melody was more of Laruku's genre and it proved to be much endearing as time tells...
By the early 2000, the 4-men Osaka based band which name stands for "rainbow" in French was sweeping the mainstream Japanese music scene by storm and I became a rabid fan...
I went in search of the 4 previous albums (not much a collector of singles, though I had almost all the singles between "winterfall" & "Neo Universe") which became my favorite music companions for years....After I had decided to sell most of my Japanese pop/rock albums a few years ago to save space as well as the emergence of the mp3 player era, I kept the L'Arc collection in intact in a corner of my room....
As they reached their peak, they decided to go solo for a few years with Hyde & tetsu doing especially well with their solo projects.
I followed the former with his solo works but felt I still like the Laruku sounds the best, which was why when they returned in 2003 with "Ready, Steady, Go", I was exhilarated as they continued to release new songs for the next 2 major albums before another break again but at least we knew they are still a band...
Of course their love for anime was evident with tracks for anime openings and endings throughout their discography (such as "Blurry Eyes" for "DNA²"., "Fourth Avenue Cafe" & "Niji" for "Rurouni Kenshin", "Ready Steady Go", "Link" & "Lost Heaven" for "Full Metal Alchemist", "Shine" for "Seirei no Moribito" & "Daybreak's Bell" for "Gundam 00" and even Hyde's "Season's Call" for "Blood+") which further reinforce my passion for their music...
They had also been spicing their line-up with the P'unk~en~ciel and D'ark~en~ciel project which gives their classic tracks a whole new feel...
Tomorrow will see the release of their 16th album (including indies and compilations), "Kiss" which I will try to get my hand on (though a cheaper Asian press would be suffice for me who is more into the songs than the collectible value of the limited edition)... It comes a week after their very first X'mas anthem, "Hurry X'mas" which sounds pretty jazz-like (and some commented as a Disney wannabe song) but despite the cynics, it just add on to the wide spectrum of song genre they could produce....
After watching the DVD, it just rekindled the fact that they had so many wonderful and endearing tracks in their repertoire or at least to me they are...So I dug within myself to come out with my top 10 L'Arc~en~ciel tracks which is an ordeal on its own:
Top 10 Favorite Laruku tracks of mine
Anyway today marks the big 30th birthday to my buddy, Foo who himself was a L'Arc~en~ciel fan for a while....who wouldn't...
Happy birthday man!
My missus bought me a concert DVD during our recent Japan trip...L'Arc~en~ciel's "L'Anniversary" DVD which is shot in November last year at Tokyo Dome, in celebration of their 15th year in the business....
I haven't had the time to catch the 2 disc concert (which I believed to be an amalgam of the 2 separate days of events) till over the weekend when the missus is out of town, and Laruku served pretty well as my lullaby provider...
While going through the list of the songs performed in this ceL'ebration, it certainly brings back memories of when I first got to know of Laruku...
I believe it was back in 1997, after having sampled the likes of Glay and Luna Sea and hungry for more J-Rock (still a bit refrained from visual kei), I picked up the album which sees yukihiro officially becoming their drummer after the previous drummer (Sakura)'s drug fiasco which subjected them at the brink of disband...
I wasn't really hooked on the tracks at first finding it now as speed rock as certain classic tunes from the band mentioned above...Melody was more of Laruku's genre and it proved to be much endearing as time tells...
By the early 2000, the 4-men Osaka based band which name stands for "rainbow" in French was sweeping the mainstream Japanese music scene by storm and I became a rabid fan...
I went in search of the 4 previous albums (not much a collector of singles, though I had almost all the singles between "winterfall" & "Neo Universe") which became my favorite music companions for years....After I had decided to sell most of my Japanese pop/rock albums a few years ago to save space as well as the emergence of the mp3 player era, I kept the L'Arc collection in intact in a corner of my room....
As they reached their peak, they decided to go solo for a few years with Hyde & tetsu doing especially well with their solo projects.
I followed the former with his solo works but felt I still like the Laruku sounds the best, which was why when they returned in 2003 with "Ready, Steady, Go", I was exhilarated as they continued to release new songs for the next 2 major albums before another break again but at least we knew they are still a band...
Of course their love for anime was evident with tracks for anime openings and endings throughout their discography (such as "Blurry Eyes" for "DNA²"., "Fourth Avenue Cafe" & "Niji" for "Rurouni Kenshin", "Ready Steady Go", "Link" & "Lost Heaven" for "Full Metal Alchemist", "Shine" for "Seirei no Moribito" & "Daybreak's Bell" for "Gundam 00" and even Hyde's "Season's Call" for "Blood+") which further reinforce my passion for their music...
They had also been spicing their line-up with the P'unk~en~ciel and D'ark~en~ciel project which gives their classic tracks a whole new feel...
Tomorrow will see the release of their 16th album (including indies and compilations), "Kiss" which I will try to get my hand on (though a cheaper Asian press would be suffice for me who is more into the songs than the collectible value of the limited edition)... It comes a week after their very first X'mas anthem, "Hurry X'mas" which sounds pretty jazz-like (and some commented as a Disney wannabe song) but despite the cynics, it just add on to the wide spectrum of song genre they could produce....
After watching the DVD, it just rekindled the fact that they had so many wonderful and endearing tracks in their repertoire or at least to me they are...So I dug within myself to come out with my top 10 L'Arc~en~ciel tracks which is an ordeal on its own:
Top 10 Favorite Laruku tracks of mine
- winterfall - I think this might be their original winter themed track, very easy-listening and I couldn't get enough of it, I put it in one of my travel video
- Honey - One Hyde's composition I really enjoy, a favorite track of mine to pick in the karaoke
- Lies & Truth - The MV is cheap but the song is not
- Niji - A wretched ending to my attempt of this song for a karaoke competition didn't deterred me from loving this song till this day
- White Feather - One classic slow ballad with a wonderful intro.
- Fourth Avenue Cafe - Like it so much I used it for the video in my wedding
- Flower - Always perks me up when I hear the song with a distinctive harmonica solo from Hyde
- New World - Another song that would make me revitalize, nicely written by Yukihiro
- Love Flies - I was dumped by a girl in my University and this song was playing at the background during that juncture
- Lost Heaven -Haunting tune which you can keep listening to...
Anyway today marks the big 30th birthday to my buddy, Foo who himself was a L'Arc~en~ciel fan for a while....who wouldn't...
Happy birthday man!
Japanese word of the day: バンド (Band) Seriously for me to be aband, you really need to play musical instruments
Labels: music
posted by Kei at
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