Over the Edge 2011/2012

JILS

Beginning with some gentle plucking and a nice touch of violin, JILS began in darkness. A small spotlight lit YUKIYA’s head as he began to sing “Birthday” in a treasure of a voice, visual kei’s answer to Frank Sinatra. His vocal line came to an end on a minor note, but shun contrasted it with a major tone to the guitar line.

With that annoying singing thing out of the way, YUKIYA launched into the real reason he stood onstage, the almighty emcee. “You can sit down if you want. In fact, do sit down,” he ordered. “Anyone who’s been to this event before probably knows, but I’m YUKIYA. You might have heard the name? There are a few good rumors about me but probably a lot of bad ones. My band is JILS. We have no heavy songs. No wind up songs. We don’t sell cheki.[Polaroids] I’ll say something cool: All we sell is music. Oh, I lie. We sell towels. Those are for wiping off the sweat so you don’t catch a cold when you leave after the concert. Our feelings for you take the form of towels. So I sell towels and music. JILS has been broken up for five years but we got on the reconvening band wagon. Well, specifically in response to Baroque. We probably won’t continue on after this so I have no promotion to do to you. It’s lame, but I appear here every year like this. Whether aie and I appear or not becomes a big drama. I mean, there’s a Mr. Over the Edge.” At this point, the fans interrupted the endless spiel to shout for Aie, aka Mr. Over the Edge.

“Um, he’s support, so please call for Shun. Think about the balance. Anyway, at events people do a lot of promotion but I have none. I have nothing really to say, either. The next song will be slow too so just keep sitting.” Despite seeming ready to move on, YUKIYA suddenly regressed. “In bands there are waves, right? Popularity and drops etc. and as I’m talking this is happening. I once thought we could do a live here at Shibuko but then it became C.C.Lemon Hall. Before we broke up we did AX and then it turned out we were breaking up and I didn’t have the courage to say, ‘Let’s go to C.C.Lemon.’ Now, after breaking up, it’s hard to say, ‘Let’s do Shibuko.’ If you just listen and go home, that’s fine. Just sit. It’s fine if you sleep too.” The crowd obviously had no intention of doing so, the volume of their laughter proving they had boundless energy.

“If I keep talking, you’ll wonder if it’s OK but I’ll just cut songs so don’t worry. I kinda wanna leave just after that one song, though… Shall I tell you something sad? You’re watching me now, right? Well… I’m gonna be the last band you see for 2011.” Despite his dreary spin, the crowd screamed enthusiastically. “Did you get together with the band you liked in 2011? How many cheki did you buy? Careful. Cheki can cost more than CDs. So this is the kind of last band you’ll be seeing this year. On that note, shall we go?” No, it wasn’t over yet. “Wait, I wanna give you a new years monetary gift. There’s a weird stuffed animal at my goods booth. Find it. In January at Shinjuku Loft, a band I’m producing is having an event. I’m thinking of making that live a free event. I’ll gonna give those tickets out after I sing, so go to the goods table. Just because you’re here, we are. Because bangya who buy cheki exist, we can… Oh, enough about cheki. I want you to buy CDs. Now, the next song is another boring number,” he reiterated at long last. “Here we go, last VK band of 2011. Actually, I don’t know if we count as VK or not but this is a sad song written when we weren’t sure if we’d break up or not.”

Just as YUKIYA said, “TRUTH” was a very depressing number and he continued to drive that home over the opening bass line. “Bands will always break up. No matter how much you love them. They can’t go on. They think they can go on forever when they’re young but this is a song written when I realized it can’t go on forever.” The dark lyrics about the coming day when it all ends were yet attached to a beautiful melancholy melody sung out in YUKIYA’s strong, smooth voice and performed by highly talented musicians all around. It was all the more impressive for its simplicity.

“Wait, I need to check how long I have to say interesting things,” YUKIYA said after the short blackout. “Oh, not much, so I think I want to say bye. Okay, fine. I’ll do a slightly fun song so just pretend to have fun, OK? I’m probably the oldest musician here, so you just remember that your favorite bands are here because of me,” he added, bitter for no apparent reason. However, the atmosphere changed with a cry of “Shibuko! Bangyaru!” Very fitting for New Year’s, “VANITY” was a little more lively but just as nice to listen to. YUKIYA seemed to think the set was over with that, but then synthesizer played in. “Apparently I’m doing another song. This song was pretty popular back with JILS did onemans,” he said before singing out the opening of “Innocent Cry.” “Thank you for letting me have fun every year. No, let your fists fly!” he cried, and the crowd shouted along, this song even livelier than the last. With another word of thanks, YUKIYA was about to wrap it up, but the band simply played on and he was forced into singing a wordless vocal line for the final, short, “endroll.”

In conclusion, he had some final words of advice for the crowd. “Please go to the goods table, and please support your favorite bands with all your hearts from start to finish. Thank you. This was JILS.”

Set list

1. Birthday
2. TRUTH
3. VANITY
4. Innocent Cry
5. endroll.