“Yuki plays the drums, tetsu plays the bass, hyde sings, I play and the audience listens to us. That is just great.”
How wonderful are his words? The joy of performing as a foursome, the ultimate trust for band members and the audience, who takes them to their heart with a smile. Ken might be embarrassed by the words that I will use. But I’m still going to write it down.
He is currently in love with L’Arc~en~Ciel.
In whichever hall they’re at, there is always a burst of smiles. At the stage of Fujikyuu Highland Conifer Forest, it was also possible to see his trademark 'running arounds' on the runaway with great energy. His heart is dancing. His energy can be felt directly from his performance, facial expressions and body movements. In short, he’s in top condition!
Ken as a sound maker is the same. His touch of guitar, amongst the light and breezes, produces a vivid, sensual scenery in the previous single MY HEART DRAWS A DREAM, from which I personally recognise a Laruku-like characteristic that can be found in Vivid Colours. But he also writes strong rock tunes that are full of innovative creativity like the new single DAYBREAK’S BELL, which employs arrhythmic drum patterns.
Starting with Pretty girl, which became the new crowd-starter at this tour, there are a few wonderful ballades that appear to be written by him. As a guitarist, he is now able to create sounds which range from the tonality of a man’s sorrow to a clear tone that encompasses both transparency and lament at the same time. He can make the listener empathise and cry at individual phrases or the tones within each song.
“With all these changes that's taken place, let's just make him a guitar hero!”, the editor of this magazine exclaimed. Taking this stance, I explored into ken’s great condition.
We are using the phrase ‘guitar hero’ to describe you.
k: That can't happen~, and it doesn’t suit my personality.
But your guitar was so moving at this tour that our editor wants to call you that. Did you change the equipments or something?
k: I did. I changed the amp. And when I saw U2 play, they were adding delays here and there, of different kinds. But I had used one and I only changed the time of the song. So I thought I should really try out different stuff and I tried it out during the recording. Then, the sound became different. I thought I understood how it worked and added a few more. So now, I’m using delays depending on the song.
Your current sound is so awesome.
k: I like it too. I’d always given up on something at live performances. I’d think this amp is…like, an amp I used previously would give good distortions but not many clean sounds, so the solo parts were hard for me to perform. But I thought it’s a live performance and there aren’t lots of amps, so I had given up. But this time, I had two amps set out.
If your sound changes this much, then as a player you must feel different too.
k: I do. There are sounds that I personally don't expect to hear and I can actually hear it through the ear monitor as a severe sound. But the sound this time is totally different. I had thought putting up with the noise was a fan service, like “I can deal with this”. (Laughs)
At this tour, where you have renovated the equipments as you have just mentioned, you seemed so happy and excited on the stage every time.
k: Well first of all, the sounds were great. I had grasped a prior hearing of what it will sound like in the rehearsals and not just the guitar, but the drums, the bass and the keyboard too. We made precise adjustments like the ones you make during recording sessions. So for me, rehearsals were more like a rehearsal for the musicality rather than for the performance. So we were complimented that our sounds got better compared to our previous live performances, when we played at a dome. I thought that our sounds would get better at lives from here on. Also to give more details, I also changed the PA as well from this tour. So, I am able to pack more sound where I want to and by doing that, I am able to create a better sound and do a better performance. When you make that happen, wouldn’t you feel good? Because these things are figured out, I can have fun on the stage.
How do you feel about going around lots of small-sized halls in nine years time?
k: Lately, I don’t get the difference between small and big halls. I know the visual and physical difference are there, but I don’t feel any different. We have done lives in China, Korea and the US. But if you ask me now “How was the live in the US?”, I don’t really feel any different about it, about the different places or the size of the halls.
Was it different before though?
k: When we were playing in a big hall, back in the days when ear monitors didn’t exist…it might be due to the ear monitor. Oh, yeap, that’s probably it. In those days, the size, PA and speaker positions determined the sound, so I would feel that one hall is hard to play in or that another hall has good echoes despite being small. So that affected me a lot. But since those issues have now cleared up, I am always in a good mood.
So that would be the main difference between the current tour and the "Tour ’98 Light my fire!"?
k: Yeah, in terms of the equipments. Also, we have of course had more practices during the nine years gap and I think our relationship as a band has developed over that period. So those aspects are different as well.
Adding a lot of new songs into the set-list was also something that happened for the first time at this live tour. How did you feel as the performer?
k: Well most of them had been recorded, except for the minor bits such as the chorus. So I could continue to play the songs in the same positive mood I was in during the recordings.
So there were no pressures from having to perform lots of new songs?
k: Nope, actually I didn’t even think about it. (Laughs) I mean, I enjoyed playing because of all the changes that I’ve mentioned. If those things hadn’t been sorted out, then the quality of sound would have been so bad that the audience wouldn’t have had a clue as to what I do even if I perform new songs at a live. But this time, I thought the audience would be able to hear the songs even if they didn’t know what it was. I thought it’d be alright because of that. In addition, hyde’s lyrics for the new songs seemed quite straightforward that it would become a ‘bridge’ which would also allow the song to be communicated to the audience. So I didn’t worry too much.
You also picked up some old songs and performed at the lives this time. Was that influenced by the fact that you played those songs at the dome?
k: It might be so, particularly for the Fourth Avenue Café. When we played it because of the 15th anniversary thing, it was surprisingly interesting. It was hyde who put it in the set list, so hyde might have his own thoughts about the song.
Isn’t it right that you had not seen the audience this close in a while too?
k: It was close, but there were mainly two types. There were the “WAH! I’m so close to the stage. Let’s rock!” and “I’m so close to the stage, it’s a bit embarrassing.", so that was interesting. In a hall this small, they can reach me if they put their hands up, but some were just fidgeting. (Laughs) But like hyde said in an MC, we can see the faces of people even at the back. It’s really good because we can really feel the atmosphere. I get happy because the audience is excited to see us up-close. Many of them are having fun and I don't want to lose against them when it came to having fun. So I also get hyped up too, since the audience is going crazy thinking “Laruku’s concerts are fun!”. And I want to say “I think Laruku’s concerts are fun too!”.
Zdroj:https://larcenciel.livejournal.com/869898.html#cutid1
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