At long last, the Lunatic Festival is now only a day away! And for those of you who were wondering if you would be able to view streaming footage from the festival on the Internet, the answer is yes! A 33-hour program devoted to the festival will be airing on NicoNico starting from 10:30AM on Saturday, June 27th (that's tomorrow, folks!) The program will include interviews with all the performers by NicoNico MC Yamada Hisashi, as well as candid camera fan interviews from Hamaoka Reira, a roving reporter who will wend her way through the crowd to see what the fan enthusiasm is like on the ground! Presumably, since this program is 33 fucking hours long, ample footage of the performances will also be shown.
Everyone who wants to experience the festival vicariously through the internet should access the following URL to watch:
http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv224370854.
http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv224370854.
Anyone who records the footage of Buck-Tick, minus, or Kafka gets publicly celebrated on Blog-Tick!
In addition, a more detailed venue floor plan has been released. Though there are still some unclear elements, it certainly seems as if the Moon stage is separated from the Fate and Shine stages - but if that's not the case, you all have my permission to feel cheated, because what's the point of having three stages if none of the bands overlap?
Next door to the stages will be a separate hall called Eden containing a food court area, a bar, and booths from the festival sponsors. The food court will include booths from Unagiya (selling limited edition Luna Sea meat buns, jumbo sausages, and other sexually suggestive meaty foods), Matsuri yakitori and kara-age, Tenraiken (spicy cold noodles and shaved ice desserts), Egg Rainbow (hamburg, rice, and "wild turkey"), Tacodelia (organic taco rice, organic brown rice steak donburi, and churros - and Luna Sea is copying B-T here because Tacodelia was totally at the B-T 25th anniversary fest back in 2012), Tokyodu (garlic soy sauce soba noodles, pork donburi and kara-age), Kebab Istanbul (Doner kebab, kebab rice, and Turkish beef sausage), Hanna Okonomiyaki (pork balls, cheese takoyaki and yakisoba balls with mayonnaise), and Maguro no Uoni (seafood donburi, marinated tuna, marinated pork donburi, and cold tuna tea soup.) Between all those edible balls and sausages, who needs rock bands anyway?
Festival sponsors Tower Records, Slave (the Luna Sea fan club), Fender Guitars, Pearl Drums, G-Life Guitars, ESP Guitars, the Japanese goth fashion label h. naoto, Clair accessories (who will be selling a limited-edition pendant), Nerds hair and nail art (where you can get your hair and nails done on-site at the festival!), Hills Avenue (which sells additive-free cosmetics and supplements - this one has Sugizo written all over it!), Kiyorabi (which sells suspicious hippie "health" foods, including items they call "hydrogen water" and "hydrogen-containing jelly"), and a partnership between Brother technologies and Guitar magazine, where you can reserve your copy of an on-demand limited edition t-shirt and/or document book of the festival. Sheesh, at this rate, you'll be so busy shopping you won't have time to watch the show at all!
But really, if you have a free moment, feel free to join me while I drop by the Kiyorabi booth to remind them that anything that contains water contains hydrogen by definition. Hydrogen: putting the "H" in "H2O" since approximately the Big Bang! This has been a public service announcement. You're welcome.
In the hall next door to Eden, there will be goods booths selling festival goods, Luna Sea goods, goods from the other artists (including B-T!), and gacha-gacha prizes. Goods will go on sale at 8:30 AM, so get there early! The doors don't officially open till 9AM, but I'm sure the venue staff won't mind if you forcefully barge in half an hour too soon.
And finally, fans are reminded that staking out a spot in front of the stage and guarding turf there all day is strictly prohibited. Chasing the artists or waiting for the artists outside the venue is also strictly prohibited. Pitching tents outside the venue and camping out overnight is also prohibited, as is harming the plants and trees in the vicinity of the venue. Furthermore, if you look like a yakuza, the venue staff reserve the right to refuse to let you in, so if you're missing a finger or two, I suggest you wear gloves at the door. The venue staff also reserve the right to refuse to let you in if they deem your appearance to be "unsuitable" for the festival, whatever that is.
Fans may leave and re-enter the festival at any time.
Happy fangirling!
I eagerly look forward to future NGS coverage of the Fest in lieu of being able to attend. It's the next best thing!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this! I have already timeshifted the thing but I look forward to your report!!!!
ReplyDeleteCayce what do you think about the choice of bands in this festival? I only noticed that there aren't any "younger" bands besides Mucc or some other. I mean there a lot of bands out there who cite LS as their major influence, including The Gazette, Alice 9, Kagrra, Lynch, etc.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part I think they did a good job of selecting bands who are popular with people in the same age group, who like similar music. There's a lot of overlap between fans of Buck-Tick, D'erlanger, and Luna Sea, and GLAY and Mucc aren't far off the mark either. It seemed like a lineup where there was a high probability that each individual fan would like more than one band. If younger bands had been involved I doubt the older fans would have been interested.
DeleteAlso I'll note that Sugizo has either said or heavily implied in past interviews that he's quite choosy about current generation bands working under the VK descriptor. I was a little surprised Gazette weren't on the bill because I seem to recall they were one he picked out as a band he enjoyed, but last I saw they were in the middle of working on a new album so it might have been a case of bad timing.
DeleteI went to both days of the event. I had been a Luna Sea fan until they disbanded then rebooted 10 yrs later and I remember feeling fooled (cuz I was so naive and did cry so hard when they ceased activities as a group) and still am not ready to let go of that mixed feeling for Luna Sea. But indeed the lineup selection of this Fest is really nice. I thought I'd only be interested in BT but many bands were quite intriguing. And yes, I did take a shine to many of them & their music. Nice Fest. & I didn't know I was able to head bang so hard at this age. :D
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