27.10.22

Buck-Tickets

Hey, y'all. We're very sorry we've been so lax with the blogging... our personal life circumstances continue to be very tough and it's been difficult to find the time and energy to update. However, there's something a lot of you have been asking about, that we want to address: namely, tickets to B-T shows.

So, what's up with the tickets?

Now that Japan is finally reopening borders to tourists, a lot of y'all are wanting to come to Japan to see B-T live... and we have some very bad news for you about that, for which we sincerely apologize, though if we had our druthers it wouldn't be this way.

The news is this. Since 2020, Buck-Tick's management have instituted a ticketing system whereby you can only purchase e-tickets via your smartphone. The tickets are non-transferrable, meaning that if you buy a ticket, you can't gift it to anyone else, even if you become unable to attend the show. It goes without saying that the tickets can't be resold, either. This frustrating system was ostensibly introduced to prevent ticket scalping, but ticket scalping was in fact never a major problem with Buck-Tick shows. This reasoning feels a whole lot more like a glib excuse for mass surveillance.

How so? Well, not only do you have to register all your own personal information, but if you buy more than one ticket, you are required to enter the name, birthday, and other info about your plus one. Not only that, but in order to claim your tickets, you are first required to register an account on TixPlus, the extremely dodgy, shitty excremental, incompetent company that currently manages B-T's fanclub and ticketing (blame Victor for this one). You then need to download the TixPlus app - but you also need to download the official Buck-Tick app, because, though TixPlus administrates the ticketing, all B-T concert tickets, whether you get them through Fish Tank (Buck-Tick's official fan club), Love & Media Portable (Buck-Tick's official mobile subscription service) or general sales, I repeat, all Buck-Tickets can only be accessed through the Buck-Tick official app. Last time we checked, this app wasn't available to overseas fans, but if this has changed, please post a comment and let us know.

Once you download those apps, you also have to register a photo of your face on their facial recognition software, because apparently posting really shitty poopy, ugly selfies on a buggy app that doesn't work somehow prevents Covid (!?). Don't ask us why. At the concerts we've attended since this system was instituted, the venue staff have barely glanced at the photos. Oh, and it doesn't help that the facial recognition algorithm is so bad that there's a long line for the tech support booth before every show. The only plus side: the tech support people are the only people in this whole shebang who've actually been professional and helpful.

We don't blame y'all for not knowing this stuff, because the wall of text of disclaimers, rules, etc. that you have to scroll through before even applying to buy a ticket now amounts to at least 20 solid A4 pages in point 12 font. This is not an exaggeration, we actually measured it ourselves. Does anyone read this shit, you ask? Even people fluent in Japanese don't want to read 20 fucking pages of disclaimers just to buy a concert ticket! The disclaimer bullshit horse manure used to be around 1-2 pages, tops! Where did this shit poop come from all of a sudden? Well, kids, we don't have an answer, but we did read through all that garbage, last year, when we first tried to get a ticket under the new system and the app didn't work, and then the facial recognition didn't work... and then at the 35th Anniversary shows at Yokohama Arena the app didn't work again... and we had to stand in line for the tech support booth outside the venue in a rather long line of fans who were in the same fucking copulating pickle. 

Apps: kill them with fire, please. We politely tell them to piss urinate the hell underworld off.

Edit: something one of our lovely commenters brought up that we neglected to mention: if you uninstall and reinstall the Buck-Tick app more than once, you will become unable to use the app. This is supposedly to prevent fraud but seems in practice to be for giving fans headaches, toothaches and buttaches. However, the latest problem we had with the app was solved by a tech support official at the venue uninstalling and reinstalling the app in an official capacity. Basically, you can trust the tech support people (though since we have a Japanese phone we can't vouch for what happens with overseas phones). 

About the delay in two-step verification codes: DO contact Fish Tank and TixPlus about this. You paid for that Fish Tank membership. They owe you. Sure they suck at their jobs, but they are still obligated to fix the issue. In Japanese business, the customer is supposed to be always right.

Anyhow, the real kicker here for overseas fans is that the Japanese ticketing services, Ticket Pia and Lawson Ticket, only allow you to register on their service if you have a Japanese address AND a Japanese mobile phone number starting with the digits 070, 080, or 090. Furthermore, the phone number you register when you buy the tickets is the ONLY phone number through which you can claim your tickets - it's prohibited to buy tickets from a different phone than the one you intend to use at the concert. You have to physically bring your phone to the concert and present your e-ticket as displayed on your phone screen to the venue staff. We made several enquiries with Ticket Pia about this and they confirmed, in a maddeningly obnoxious fashion, that "Ticket Pia is a service only for people in Japan." Yeah, thanks Ticket Pia. Fuck fornicate you very much, too. You racist assholes anal orifices.

However, if you join Fish Tank (for only 6000 yen per year, how cheap that seems now that they raised the price of Buck-Tickets to 10,000 yen or more per show!)... if you join Fish Tank, it's theoretically possible to get tickets even if you're an overseas fan. We're not sure about Love & Media Portable - last time we checked, LMP was only available to fans in Japan (Fuck you very much, too. You racist assholes engage in sexual tacos with your own anal orifice, you discriminatory nationalists) but if anyone here has confirmed that that has changed, please do post a comment. Since we're located in Japan, with a Japanese phone number, we can't actually check ourselves to see if the service works overseas.

Note: if you buy tickets through Fish Tank, you need to write 000-0000-0000 in the Japanese phone number field, and fill in your overseas phone number in the field below.

The bottom line: we wish we could still help you get tickets to concerts, but the new ticketing system has made that pretty much impossible. The only ways you can get B-T tickets now, as an overseas fan, are:

1) Join Fish Tank and get tickets in the fan club lotteries. Is this a money-grubbing strategy by FanPlus to get more people to pay for Fish Tank memberships? You tell us.

2) Get someone in Japan to rent you a Japanese mobile phone to take to the concert, and use their address and the rental phone number to make an account on Ticket Pia to buy tickets through general sales.

3) Wait till you get to Japan to buy the tickets, rent a phone at one of the rental kiosks at Narita Airport, and use the address of your hotel to make a Ticket Pia account. Buck-Tick shows have been seriously undersold since the pandemic - almost none of the tour dates are selling out, and at every show we've attended since 2021, large sections of seats have been cordoned off, unused (what a crying shame! If they'd only issue paper tickets at more affordable prices, maybe they could still fill the venues!) Anyway, it's likely that you would still be able to buy tickets once you get here.

4) Last-ditch measure - go to the venue early and buy same-day tickets. Since the shows are no longer selling out, same-day tickets have been on offer at most shows, and the next kicker here is that the same-day tickets are real paper tickets! (If we could lock whoever designed this system into the old-fashioned Medieval stocks and pelt them with rotten tomatoes, you betcha, we'd do it.)

However, we did a little digging and it seems there are some services available that will let you either create a virtual Japanese phone number, or rent a Japanese SIM card from outside Japan. We're not sure if any of these services will work for this ticketing system, and we can't vouch for their credibility, but if you're very desperate, we encourage you to search around and see what you can find, using keywords such as "rent Japanese phone from overseas" or "get Japanese phone number from overseas." Since we live in Japan, we can't verify that any of these services work, so keep on alert for scams and misinformation and read all the fine print. Getting a phone number won't get you around the address problem, but since none of these services are ever going to send snail mail to you anyway, we offer the trollish suggestion of either registering the address of the hotel where you'll be staying, picking an address at random from Google, or just making something up. We can't be entirely certain of this because we haven't tried it, but we're pretty sure they won't know and they don't care.

Very unfortunately, since Buck-Tick became slaves to The Evil Empire (cough, Victor Entertainment, cough), they have done away with their general enquiries email address. Now, if you want to contact them, you have to do so through the Fish Tank web site, which you can't access unless you join Fish Tank (is that a money grab? You tell us). Those of you who are members of Fish Tank already know that the current Fish Tank web site is a mire of un-navigable gobbledygook and garbage machine translated Engrish, and it's very hard to find the enquiry page, but if you scroll through the help sections, you'll find a link to click on at the bottom, which will send you to an enquiry form. We highly encourage any and all of you to write to Fish Tank and complain about the fact that overseas fans are barred from getting tickets. They have been known to respond to feedback in the past - back in 2017, I encouraged all Blog-Tick readers to write to Fish Tank and ask for Buck-Tick's music to be available for digital download internationally, and within two months, they actually made that happen - they did listen to us! So probably, the best thing you can do is write to them and explain your situation. The customer support from TixPlus/FanPlus is absolutely terrible, but this is all we've got, in this modern world of increasingly crappy feces-covered software updates and separate apps for each of your toenails (too bad the bugs in the app prevent your little toes from logging in! And the app for your big toes painted your toenails orange overnight, without even asking you! But you can't complain, because by agreeing to this Terms of Service agreement, you waive all your civil and human rights forevermore. Fun fact: the German industrial rock band Rammstein have a song called "Buch Dich," which means "bend over" in German. Does that **** in your *** feel good? No? What's wrong with you, we thought you just love yaoi manga! And in yaoi manga, everyone knows that no means yes and yes means more b*tt**x!!!!!11)

You can also consider writing to the B-T members directly and letting them know how sad it makes you that you can't get tickets just because you live overseas. The post-show feedback questionnaires have even been eliminated now, so at this point, anything's worth a shot.

So yes, this situation sucks. We are very sorry. If someone would just tell us us who we could pelt with rotten tomatoes... we'd be on our way there now...

But, in conclusion, we'd like to say the following. This new policy is not, and we repeat, is NOT the fault of the band members. This is a management decision. The band members actually have limited control over these things. In fact, Sakurai has very gently hinted a number of times that he is dissatisfied with how things are going with the management, though of course he can't come out and say it. But Buck-Tick aren't unique in this predicament - since the pandemic, most major label Japanese artists have instituted systems like this. In Buck-Tick's case, this was likely a management decision by TixPlus, which is a shady umbrella company that manages a lot of ticketing services and band fan clubs (very badly. Atrociously. Come at us, TixPlus, we've got a big basket of stinky, moldy tomatoes right here waiting for you.) Buck-Tick switched to having Fish Tank managed by TixPlus after they switched their label back to Victor, so this was also a management decision on the part of Victor. (Rumors of yakuza connections are currently unconfirmed, but it's been the way of the world forever that the relationship between organized crime and the media and entertainment industries is, shall we say... hygge-transcendentally cozy. A laundromat to wash your money in! Who doesn't want one of those!?) 

Anyway, do not assume that the band members are xenophobes or hate foreign fans - all the evidence points to the contrary. The band members have consistently looked visibly pleased by seeing foreign fans in the audience, and before all the pandemic stuff happened, Sakurai had even taken to addressing the crowd in English and Spanish at certain shows. Never fear that the band members hate you! They love you. For any artist, getting fans from around the world to love your work is a dream come true. Furthermore, the band members, Sakurai, Imai, and Hide in particular, have worked with foreign artists on numerous occasions (see Schaft, Schwein, Ai no Wakusei, and dropz). Sakurai still talks about how he loves to travel abroad and how much he loved recording in London. This is not, I repeat NOT, the fault of the band.

Rather, upper management at large, stodgy Japanese companies like Victor tend to be extraordinarily ignorant of how things work in the rest of the world - sometimes it feels like they don't even know there is a rest of the world. These are supremely imbecilic, ignorant people who are making these decisions. Not only can they not manage to build apps that work, the thought that overseas fans might want to attend concerts in Japan has probably literally never crossed their minds - that's the kind of small-minded, self-centered world of the Japanese corporation. I worked with people like this for years in my stint as a Japanese office drone, and talking to most of them was like talking to one of those creepy Japanese Pepper robots most of the time. They don't care about you. They have no idea what your difficulties as a foreigner in Japan might be. They can't even conceive of it. They have no idea what things are like elsewhere in the world. They have zero imagination and little empathy. It's not even that they hate you. They are just, pardon my French, dipshits a la fuckee I ran out of censored swearwords so fine, I'ma just go with fucking dipshits here. 

Anyway, to reiterate, don't blame the band members. They're not the ones betraying you. Instead, if you can, send feedback to these corporate robots. The more of you send feedback, the more likely they'll rethink their asinine system. (Please note that the Japanese postal service prohibits the sending of rotten vegetables from overseas, but if you send us donations, we'll buy extra rotten tomatoes for you).

.

So, I'm sorry. I really don't like to take such a negative tone on Blog-Tick. I want this to be a place where fans can gather and enjoy themselves while learning more about B-T. But... this shit poo-poo is bollocks buttocks. I am so, so sorry that after 35 years, this is what Buck-Tickistan is coming to. Tonight, we're going to go drown the Victor offices in rotten tomatoes, so just wait for us in that shelter. 

I feel sorry for the tomatoes, though. They didn't do anything to deserve this crap.

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Note: This is NOT Greatest Site is currently frozen due to the updates in the Google Sites platform, and we haven't yet been able to port it to another platform. Until we do so, all information on Blog-Tick posted after 2020 takes precedence over the information on NGS, which is now out of date. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Sayonara Shelter

Here it is, the song you just knew was coming - Mr. Sakurai's "I AM VERY ANGRY ABOUT THE WAR IN UKRAINE" song. Honestly, we suspect that there will be more after this one - B-T are currently on tour to support their 35 anniversary best-of album, but in between tour dates, they're also in the studio, recording a new album, which is due to be released in spring of 2023. This song was released on Buck-Tick's 5-disc 35th Anniversary Best album, appearing on the first disc, "Ribelo," which features Toll on the cover. This English translation is singable with the original melody, but as always, we strove to be as faithful to the original Japanese as possible. 

If you appreciate this translation, please consider supporting us on Ko-fi. We know we haven't been posting much lately but your support always means a lot. We've also recently heard from some newly-minted B-T fans from the younger generation... welcome, y'all! Please, don't hesitate to write to us, or to leave a comment, if you feel so moved.


Goodbye Shelter
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Hoshino Hidehiko

Ephemeral candle
In the bunker, dancing and flickering
(1)
A lamp with a genie (2)
Flaming in your eyes
Reach out your hand now
You've almost got that love love
At your fingertips
Playing with shadows
Oh my darling princess

Endless rain now
Pretend it's a dream now
And all I want to do is hold you tight
But someone's coming to kill us all... tonight (3)
It's senseless oh, it's senseless, I know

Tonight, I promise that I'll come to meet you
While you're sleeping safe and sound for me
Just wait for me in that shelter
Tonight, the Earth is a like shooting star, so lovely
I want you to bathe in the beauty
Just wait for me in that shelter

A colorless landscape
In a world with no sound, my love song
In trembling soprano
A little girl singing

The rain is so cold now
I wish this were all lies
And all I want to do is hold you tight
But I've got to go off and kill somebody... tonight (3)
It's senseless oh, it's senseless, I know

Tonight, I promise that I'll come to meet you
While you're sleeping safe and sound for me
Just wait for me in that shelter

Tonight, the Earth is a like shooting star, so lovely
I want you to bathe in the beauty
Just wait for me in that shelter


Note: Sakurai stated in Ongaku to Hito and PHY magazines, as well as on his radio program The Music of Note with DJ Chiwaki Mayumi, that he was inspired to write this song after watching the viral video of a little girl Ukrainian girl singing the Ukrainian version of "Let it Go" (from the Disney film Frozen) inside a bomb shelter (it doesn't hurt that she's an excellent singer despite being so young). Sakurai has been an adamantly anti-war activist for his entire career, but he stated that at first, he felt hesitant to write this song, due to the pressure on Japanese musicians to not express political views in an artistic context. However, he stated that he ultimately decided that he's old enough at this point to say exactly what he wants to say, and not worry too much about whether it might make some people uncomfortable. Tanaka, Buck-Tick's long-time album director, encouraged Sakurai to pursue this creative direction, and suggested that, due to its highly topical nature, this song be released with the 35th anniversary best-of box set, rather than waiting to release it on the 2023 new album. You can watch Amelia's video here. In perfect synchronicity, this video was uploaded on March 7th, Mr. Sakurai's birthday.

Sakurai also made reference to the word "shelter" in his song "Barbaric Man," from his side project album I Am Mortal. In both these songs, there is an implicit reference to the Rolling Stones hit "Gimme Shelter," which was partly written in protest of the Vietnam War.

(1) This is a reference to the bunker in which the little girl, Amelia, gave her performance of "Let it Go."

(2) This is a reference to the story "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp," a Middle Eastern folktale which is commonly associated with the 1,001 Nights/Arabian Nights tales, but was in fact added at a later date to the 1,001 Nights manuscript. Sakurai has been incorporating Aladdin imagery since the release of the single New World in 2016. Buck-Tick made heavy use of Arabian Nights imagery in the visuals and performance for their Abracadabra tours, as well as in the tag line for the 35th anniversary concerts at Yokohama Arena on September 23rd and 24th, which read, "New World For You." In this sense, "Sayonara Shelter" is a bit like a continuation of "New World," dealing with the same theme of the pain and senselessness of living as a human being in a world that is often violent and uncaring.

(3) Sakurai stated in PHY magazine and his radio program The Music of Note with DJ Chiwaki Mayumi that he included the line "but I've got to go off and kill somebody" in reference to the fact that in many Ukrainian refugee families, the men saw their families to safety, then returned to Ukraine to enlist in the military and defend their homeland. Sakurai has never shied away from assuming a certain responsibility for the violence on planet Earth in which all of us are often complicit. (See Guernica no Yoru for more on this.)


Sayonara Shelter
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Hoshino Hidehiko

Hakanai kyandoru     chikashitsu de dansu dansu     yureteiru
Mahou no rampu     hitomi ni wa honoo
Sono te nobashite     yubisaki de Love Love     ato sukoshi
Kagee asobi     saa ohimesama

Yamanai ame     yume nara ii ne
Anata wo dakishimeteitai kedo
Dareka ga bokura wo koroshi ni     kuru yo
Kurutteiru    kurutteiru yo

Konya     shizuka ni nemuru     anata ni ai ni yuku     kanarazu
Ano sherutaa de matteite

Konya     chikyuu wa marude     utsukushii nagareboshi     kirei da
Ano sherutaa de matteite

Iro wo nakushita     oto mo nai sekai     ai no uta
Furueru koe de     ano ko wa utau

Tsumetai ame     uso nara ii ne
Anata wo dakishimeteitai kedo
Watashi wa dareka wo koroshi ni     iku no
Kurutteiru    kurutteiru yo

Konya     shizuka ni nemuru     anata ni ai ni yuku     kanarazu
Ano sherutaa de matteite

Konya     chikyuu wa marude     utsukushii nagareboshi     kirei da
Ano sherutaa de matteite


Sayonara Shelter
作詞:櫻井敦司
作曲:星野英彦

儚いキャンドル 地下室でダンスダンス 揺れている
魔法のランプ 瞳には炎
その手伸ばして 指先でLoveLove あと少し
影絵遊び さあお姫様

止まない雨 夢ならいいね
あなたを抱き締めていたいけど
誰かが僕らを殺しに 来るよ
狂っている 狂っているよ

今夜 静かに眠る あなたに会いに行く 必ず
あのシェルターで待っていて

今夜 地球はまるで 美しい流れ星 奇麗だ
あのシェルターで待っていて

色を無くした 音もない世界 愛の歌
震える声で あの子は歌う

冷たい雨 嘘ならいいね
あなたを抱き締めていたいけど
わたしは誰かを殺しに 行くの
狂っている 狂っているよ

今夜 静かに眠る あなたに会いに行く 必ず
あのシェルターで待っていて

今夜 地球はまるで 美しい流れ星 奇麗だ
あのシェルターで待っていて

Buck-Tick 35th Anniversary @ Yokohama Arena

Amazing shows. Amazing set lists. Lasers all over the place. Insane LED stage effects. An anti-war/goth theme to the songs (hmm wonder who chose that?) Happy 35th anniversary to Buck-Tick! We wish we were able to write a live report, but the whole experience was so overwhelming, the little details are still swimming around in our heads like all those fish in "Aikawarazu no Are no Katamari." In the meantime, enjoy some pictures. With everyone in masks, unable to shout or cheer, was it really a Buck-Tick show? Yeah, it was. But we miss y'all, and we miss the good old days.


Set Lists:

2022-09-23

01. Iconoclasm
02. Babel
03. Uta
04. Gekka Reijin
05. Maimu Maimu
06. Kyouki no Deadheat
07. Kinjirareta Asobi -Adult Children-
08. Aikawarazu no "Are" no Katamari ga Nosabaru Hedo no Soko no Fukidamari
09. Rakuen
10. Revolver
11. Guernica no Yoru
12. Sayonara Shelter
13. Go Go B-T Train
14. Memento Mori
15. New World

encore 1

16. Django!!! -Genwaku no Django-
17. Aku no Hana
18. Illusion

encore 2

19. Koi
20. Yumemiru Uchuu
21. Solaris

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2022-09-24

01. Elise no Tame ni
02. Babel
03. Tight Rope
04. Mienai Mono wo Miyou to Suru, Gokai Subete Gokai da
05. Moonlight Escape
06. Dance Tengoku
07. BOY septem peccata mortalia
08. Aikawarazu no "Are" no Katamari ga Nosabaru Hedo no Soko no Fukidamari
09. Rakuen
10. Revolver
11. Guernica no Yoru
12. Sayonara Shelter
13. Go Go B-T Train
14. Romance
15. New World

encore 1

16. Angelic Conversation
17. Aku no Hana
18. Heaven

encore 2

19. Boukyaku
20. Yumemiru Uchuu
21. Kodou








Yokohama Arena is Arena as fuck.




All the fans seemed to agree that Cali-Gari's bouquet was the best of the bunch (no pun intended)... but it's rather touching that Hiroshi sent nothing but red roses as a token of his love for Acchan-chan.

Happy 35th anniversary! Mr. Sakurai keeps saying that he can't feel the time passing and he doesn't understand what 35 years even means, and on our part, we tend to concur. Here's hoping for a more open world and many more years of B-T tours to come!