Some time ago it was announced there would be a L'Arc-en-Ciel concert in the Tokyo National Stadium on the 21 and 22 of March! Unlike last time Michelle had a fan-club membership so we hoped that this time getting good tickets was a bit easier. Michelle entered the lottery via the Le-Ciel fan-club website for 2 tickets on January 15 and waited anxiously for the day of the results. We were very happy to receive the confirmation email on January 23 saying we won the lottery! But then nothing came in the mail, nothing was charged on the credit card, so we started to doubt everything was alright. Eventually when March arrived we decided to call to one of the numbers mentioned in the email they send us for more information. We then heard that the tickets would be sent on March 10; they probably waited so long to prevent re-sale of the tickets but it was a bit frustrating because you can also enter other lotteries for the tickets in the time in between. So we needed a lot of patience. On March 12 Michelle received the tickets (and had to sign for it) and everything was finally final! The tickets were well designed: a picture of all band members and some sort of holographic decoration was printed on top of them. Last time we had a ticket printed by the Seven Eleven konbini and it looked more like a receipt than a real ticket.

Finally, the day of the concert arrived! The stadium opened very early so it could process the massive amount of people who were coming to the concert. The stadium could fit 80.000 people so a lot were expected! We came quite early to prevent us from being squashed in the train like last time. But it turned out that the trains were not busy at all, probably because we decided to take a station a little further away and walk the remaining distance. There were not so many people on the streets going our way but eventually we spotted some people with already a big bag of goodies from the concert. When we arrived at the arena we first practiced the favourite hobby of Japanese people... waiting in line to go to the section were they sold the goods/souvenirs of the concert. It was actually quite fun to do so. Many people were dressed up and we even spotted a big group of guys all dressed up as Hyde. And there were people with the most ridiculous outfits (Monster inc. pajamas, really???) just to stand out. It was very amusing to see and it made the waiting a lot more pleasant. The line went very quickly, after only 15 minutes we reached the stands with the goods. We bought a thermos, a poster, a book and some sort of leather bracelet. There was also a stand that sold the just released Blu-rays of the past concerts of L'Arc-en-Ciel among some other stuff like CDs and books. We were surprised to see the Blu-rays were sold so easily for full price (+tax) because if you looked on a simple website like amazon.co.jp they were around 2000 yen cheaper each...

We continued our way to gate 12, we needed to take to get to our seats. When we entered the arena we received a program booklet and a poncho. Apparently they were taking measures just in case it rained. The Tokyo National Stadium has no roof to protect you from the weather. Although they predicted rain, luckily the weather was very clear and, more importantly, dry. We went to our seats to check out where we were sitting and what our view was. We were on the left side of the stage near an aisle and the view seemed at least better than last time in Yokohama. They made the stage "360 degrees" so all sides of the Stadium could be used to fit everybody in. As always with Japanese concerts, the center field was filled with seats as well instead of a free-standing area. Not that those seats are used, since for the entire duration of the concert everybody is just standing in front of his/her seat…

We noticed something stuck to our seats. It was a LED light you could wear around your wrist, a nice bonus. But our place, and many others, in the stadium was very cold due to the strong wind that was blowing so we decided to go back to the outer ring and get some popcorn. Of course not without waiting a couple of minutes in line. Going to the toilet was another challenge. Most of the concert-goers were female and although they changed almost all the men's toilets to woman's toilets, it was still a challenge to find one non-Japanese style one. Eventually Michelle had to wait twice in line to get to a proper Western style toilet. When we finally finished we went just outside the gate to stand in the sun and out of the strong wind to get some warmth. Most people did so. The concert would begin at 5 o'clock so we went inside just before. Eventually we waited another 30 minutes in the cold wind before the concert finally started.

As always the beginning of the concert was carefully planned and organised to be amazing. After some intro movie four pods appeared from inside the stage. Each contained one of the band members. Everybody was shouting when they saw each member on the large screens because they realized then that the band members were in the pod and because each one was wearing a complete restyling of their clothes. The stage was equipped with black light because you could see Tetsuya (bass) blouse light up bright red. The rest (Ken, guitar, Yukihiro, drum) were more wearing black so they were less visible. Hyde (singer) was the least visible of all. In the beginning you could even wonder of it was really him. He was wearing some kind of head and face-cover which he did not remove while starting the first song (the song: get out from the shell). We were happy he removed this weird outfit a few songs later.
Before and during the concert it was not allowed to take pictures or video and they were checking strictly. When Dennis took out his binoculars three people came running to him to verify he wasn't taking video. We wondered how they would react to Google Glass.

Because the stadium was used during the Olympics, it has an Olympic flame as well. After a few songs, there was a dramatic countdown and not only at the stage and in the arena, but also the Olympic fire was ignited. The podium was designed very well too. They could walk around the full 360 degrees, which they only did a few times, and the base of the podium was a screen surrounding the entire podium. There were a few big screens at the top where you could see the band better. The show was also live broadcasted to several cinemas around the world. They sure know how to make money. Every song had its own show, very nicely organized but the star of the show was the LED light we received. We already tried them before the show but they did not work. When we asked our neighbors (two girls) they said the people of the show controlled them! Very surprising! And halfway the show it finally happened (song: winter fall) , all lights of everyone in the stadium was turned on and it was really an amazing sight! It was "better than Christmas". The concert could control the power, brightness, blinking frequency and the color (all rainbow colours) and thus used the audience itself as part of the light show of the concert by continuously changing the LED lights. They even displayed the text "L'Arc-en-Ciel" with the LEDs of the audience. This was the most amazing sight we ever saw! Hyde even tried to let everybody believe he was controlling them trough his "lamp device" he carried, I'm sure a few people believed him as well.

Halfway, the band changed to a small podium on the other side of the stadium but for us it was not much of an improvement. When they switched back there was some kind of break where we were shown commercials of the stuff you could buy at the goods-stand. Not some standard commercials; some were more ridiculous than others, very amusing. Then we got a movie about the poncho we received, apparently you were instructed to put it on. Why? No idea, it was not raining and the provided no warmth but EVERYBODY put it on without question (this would never work outside Japan…). Even Michelle eventually put it on in the hope it provided some warmth and because some guy to the left of her was nagging about it... Eventually we thought it was because at some point they were projecting all kinds of sea-animals on the public. So maybe it was more visible with people wearing poncho's? No idea! Near the end they played a new song called Everlasting, which sounded like a drama ballad with a beat. Although everyone was really excited when Hyde announced it. when they finished there was only a lukewarm applause. Very strange. We did enjoy the rest of the show and after the final song (Song: Niji) which concluded with a huge firework show, we were sad it was over but longing for some warmth because we cooled down a lot in the 2.5 hours of the concert. But if you thought getting out was easy, think again.

Three people appeared on the stage announcing which gate was allowed to exit. Although it looked very structured it was a bit frustrating to wait another 60+ minutes because our gate was almost the last one... after that we really were frozen solid! We warmed up a little bit when we decided to walk back to the train stop we got off and on our way we saw it was a good idea. The closest JR station was swarming with thousands of people, all trying to get in. It was awfully quiet at our stop and it was only a 10 minute walk... We got home without any trouble, and took Tora out for his walk and finally got our nice cup of warm tea!