ToshI and YOSHIKI in Paris! Like a dream coming true - I've been waiting for something like this for four long years now. Japan Expo, here I come!

First of all, the weather was hot. Very, very hot. I brought 4 bottles of water and used the map of the con as a fan, and it was still hot, hot, hotter than hell.
The line for the JE was insane. A huge hall was dedictated for the line, and it continued outside. All in all, the way to the JE might've been longer than my ride to Paris, haha!

We could find the way to the JE livehouse quite easy thanks to our map-reading friend, but some people weren't that lucky! A Spanish friend got completely lost, but luckily she found some spanish people that could explain where she had to go to.

The line for X was - 1 hour and 30 minutes before they started - already very long. So we just sat down and waited, while our other friends were making their way to the line themselves.

The wait was long, but X arrived quite on time. We waited inside, trembling of excitement. The hall was large, and a whole lot of people were there. Unfortunately, we didn't get a good spot close to the stage, even tough we arrived long on beforehand. There were two large screens next to the stage so we could see what was going on.

All of a sudden, the lights went out and the audience went wild. On the screens we could see a compilation of their concerts and appearances of the past few years. Hong Kong, Tokyo Dome, LA, people being interviewed about X on the street, ...
All the fans were doing the X arms and shouted "WE ARE??" "X!!" "YOU ARE??" "X!!"
After that, YOSHIKI and ToshI came to the stage. Everyone clapped and did the X arms, while the two X members started off with Forever Love. Very beautiful, I saw many people in the audience crying and everyone was singing along. ToshI's voice was so good! He reached every note and didn't even make one mistake.

After Forever Love, the audience was enthusiastic, and ToshI liked it. He responded with his "Japanese battle cries", as I like to call them. And all of a sudden, we could hear the first notes for Rose of Pain... on piano. I was so amazed and looked at my friend thinking "this cannot be happening!!"
But then we heard ToshI singing "Why are you sad?" and we knew it was not a dream.
Rose of Pain stopped a bit too early and I.V. started. I never heard the accoustic version of this before, it was very nice. I didn't like that they made Rose of Pain shorter to play I.V. though. Rose of Pain was by far the best song of the entire concert.

After I.V., Endless Rain started. Or should I say Endless Song? The song lasted for more than 15 minutes, which was a bit too long for in a showcase of 60 minutes! ToshI was singing the English and French version. I didn't hear the french version before, and I must say his pronounciation was good for someone from Japan! I understood what he said and sang along together with everyone in the venue.
Endless Song kept on going and going, and I was wondering if they would sing another song after that. Apparantly, they didn't. They left the stage, and everyone was shouting for more, but then... we could hear the studio version for Born to be Free!
Everyone was very enthusiastic about it and sang along with the words they knew, and I could feel that the fans liked it. But then the piano part came, and everyone was silent. Dissapointment or amazement? I don't know.
But the heavy part started again after that and everyone sang along again. After Born to be Free, we stayed in the venue for a while to take pictures, and some of my friends (including someone from Xplosion) were interviewed!

So,  all in all, it was a very nice concert with Rose of Pain as the big highlight!
Now we are all looking forward to the X live in Paris. Hopefully this will happen soon!

WE ARE X!!

Written by: MIHO