It’s Thursday night at the Wiltern theater in Los Angeles, and a line of goth rockers winds down Wilshire Boulevard. Some arrived this morning, a handful spent the night, and all are decked out in their ghoulish best: studded belts, tattered overcoats, heavy black eyeliner. When the doors finally open at 8 pm, 2,200 devotees rush in. They’re soon met by blinding flashes of white light and a wall of sound best described as Marilyn Manson meets Megadeth – a speed-metal onslaught of barely distinguishable melodies. Onstage, the lead singer claws at his chest, drawing streaks of blood as he howls the lyrics to “The Final”:
Suicide is the proof of life
None of the members of the Japanese band Dir en grey speaks much English, and until this spring they had never played in the US. They’ve had no airplay here, no presence in any mainstream media, and have never released an album in North America. And yet tonight this crowd of twentysomethings is singing along, mouthing every word in Japanese.
“Half the songs, I don’t know what I’m saying,” admits Joy, one of the diehards. She’s attending the show despite warnings from her doctor – a recent injury has left her confined to a wheelchair. Lauran is equally obsessed: Pulling her striped socks up above her shin-high combat boots, she recounts how she took the red-eye to New York to see the band on Tuesday, flew back to the West Coast on Thursday, and joined the queue outside the Wiltern eight hours before showtime to secure a prime spot in the mosh pit. Lauran got hooked on Dir en grey five years ago when she stumbled across an audioclip on the Web. She bought her first Dir en grey DVD on eBay – a Chinese copy that required a region 1 decoder. Others discovered the group through its videogame music or merchandise displays at anime conferences. The band also maintains a popular MySpace page with blog entries and videoclips.
Whatever the vehicle, word of Dir en grey’s US arrival got out – big-time. The group played in Texas first, where the Austin police had to block hundreds of fans from the already packed venue. In New York City, $29 tickets were scalped for more than $100 apiece. When the band performed one of its signature songs, half the audience hoisted blue glow sticks in unison, a stunt arranged entirely via the online community site LiveJournal. Presale interest in tickets prompted promoters in LA to move the concert to the Wiltern, which has more than twice the capacity of the original venue (and the 2,200 seats sold out in 36 hours). For just those three shows, the band raked in more than $80,000 in tickets and another $65,000 in posters, T-shirts, CDs, and other merchandise – sales that most US indie bands don’t see in a year.
After the show, group members graciously stand in a VIP receiving line in the theater’s basement. Mingling among the stage techs are a few groupies, a documentary film crew, and industry insiders – including Peter Katsis, Korn’s manager. (The next day, Katsis signs Dir en grey to open for the alt-metal band on its summer tour.) As a cart of Budweiser and Coca-Cola is rolled through the crowd, Kyo, the lead singer, awkwardly fields translated questions. At less than 5 feet tall and stripped of his stage persona, he looks like a kid who’s anxious to get back home. There is no more screaming, no blood, no talk of death and despair. And when the opportunity arises, he simply bows politely to his guests and slips out the back door, leaving the screaming to the fans that remain behind.
– Robert La Franco
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Japanese Invasion
