Oh, man….

So this is going to be long and if you want to skip around, that’s fine. I am going to give just general impressions and shout outs to people, but keep in mind, I just got home from the tour and am feeling all kinds of emotions. It’s pretty overwhelming, actually. Also, there is so much that happened that I can’t talk about, not that it’s anything bad… I simply do not want to discuss the private lives of the idols I was fortunate enough to see very up close and personal. It’s not something I feel needs to be shared. I mean, honestly, do you really want to know if an idol goes to the bathroom or not?

So keep that in mind… this is pretty much me doing my best censorship of one of the best experiences in my entire life. Also one of the hardest, mentally and physically, as well as one of the most emotional. I mean, SO much happened in the past ten days or so that it’s unbelievable I think years from now I’ll STILL be thinking about what just happened. This tour will stay with me much longer than it will for most, I suspect. And again, I wish I could say a lot of the reasons why that is the case, but it’s just not going to happen. Idols are private creatures, and I want that boundary to stay in place between what the public knows about idols and what the public doesn’t know. It’s important, for too many reasons to even get into in this report. But if you know anything about the idol universe, then you’re probably nodding your head in agreement with that last statement. Or at least I hope you are.

Anyways, I’m going to give my impressions on each show, some in between stuff that happened, and at the end of this report, I want to go over in depth what I am considering to do next. I am actually going to completely leave it up to all of you to decide that. There are several options on the table, so essentially what gets the most feedback will be what I end up doing. You get to decide who I’m bringing next to the USA, and also about what Necroma will do next in the USA as well. It comes down to timing and money, more than anything else, but also on who you all really want to see and who I can actually get. I’ll explain all that though, so just do me a favor and read this report CAREFULLY and THOROUGHLY. And I need feedback. LOTS AND LOTS of feedback. Remember, YOU guys are going to decide what’s next, so if you decide NOT to comment, then I’ll do nothing. So be in depth as I am, give me YOUR ideas, suggestions, and also general feedback on this tour, what worked, what didn’t, and so on. I’m game to hear it all, as long as you’re not a dick about it. Just be constructive in your criticisms, if you have any. I got a really great impression of what worked and what didn’t on this tour, since this was truly a huge test run and Necronomidol and Zeroshiki were willing to let themselves be part of the grand experiment. But we got it figured out now, and I know how to proceed with the logistics a little better the next time. IF there’s a next time… that is truly up to all of you.

Okay then… shall we begin?

LOS ANGELES

So Necronomidol and their manager and producer, Ricky, got into LAX a little later than I had thought they would. Or rather, they arrived on time but then the girls couldn’t find the baggage carousel with their luggage. This created quite a delay that had me on pins and needles thinking something bad had happened to them. Their flight got cancelled perhaps. Or God knows what. Thankfully, it was a simple error that got fixed pretty fast.

Zeroshiki had arrived much earlier in the day, so I had picked them up and taken them back to my home and together, we hung out at my favorite restaurant, Ten Ren Tea Time, in Alhambra. We had a nice brunch and also got to packing the 15 passenger van up. Lots of merch, guitars, and suitcases. Altogether, it’s a miracle we fit everything in the van, given that the girls and Ricky also had suitcases. That’s 11 people (with myself included there) who had luggage, plus boxes of merch, and music equipment. It was like we were a studio apartment on wheels. Somehow, it all worked out though, and everybody was super happy to be in the United States. Tired from the crazy ass long flight, but happy all the same.

I had taken them to a place way the fuck in the middle of nowhere in Los Angeles to a family who had no problem hosting all of us. They had a house that was really the size of a small mansion. Like at least 9 or 10 bedrooms, plus huge living room and dining room areas, and even a library and office and outdoor pool. I found this person on Craigslist, which was incredible. The lady who owned the place made everybody food and also really opened herself up to us and shared why she wanted to help Necroma and Zeroshiki with what they were doing… turns out she had been an immigrant who came to the US with next to nothing and built herself up to who she is today. I really enjoyed talking with her over the few days we spent there, and she definitely helped us all start off the trip in the best possible way.

Also, Zeroshiki and Necroma began the bonding process, as did I with Ricky and the girls. I have known most of Zeroshiki for a few years now, so it was like seeing old friends. My best friend, Chocchi, is the guitar player in the band (one of them), and it’s like we don’t need to be formally polite with each other or anything. We bust each other’s balls all the time and just get along. Kind of. I usually butt heads with him on things, but in only the way good friends do, you know? At the end of the day, I love him like a brother, and I love that he listened to my crazy idea of putting this whole tour together, back when I told him about it in August. Both he and Ricky put their entire trust in me to make it all work, and somehow, it all did. I still can’t get over this in my mind.

Anyways, Necroma were, understandably, rather quiet at first, but very grateful and appreciative towards me putting the tour together. In fact, the entire trip, they thanked me more than anyone has ever thanked me perhaps in my entire life! Every time they stepped out of the van, they thanked me for driving them to wherever we were heading. That’s true idol style, and that’s one of the reasons why I did all of this for them. I knew they weren’t going to be jerks. Turns out they were the most adorable and kindest girls I possibly have ever met in my whole life, especially when they weren’t being idols with me but just themselves. They were truly awesome, and more on why they were later.

The girls spent that first night busting their asses working on the chekis they were going to sell at the shows. I was in awe because they could’ve taken it really easy but they got right to work on what they were here in the States to do, which was to spread some idol goodness. Let it be known that Necroma also is one of the hardest working idol units in the underground idol world. They never stopped wanting to perfect themselves on this trip. I can’t tell you how many times they practiced their songs and dancing wherever we were at. Even in the van while driving. Also, they really did their best to make sure they could provide a top notch performance every show. Ricky did as well. Speaking of Ricky…

So over this trip, me and Ricky got to know each other, I feel, fairly well. We opened up to each other about our lives, and he also taught me so much about the idol industry. We had a lot of hours driving together and we engaged in some pretty memorable conversations. And somehow, we ended up during our discussions coming up with no less than twenty or so phrases we said that could be names for death metal bands. Don’t ask, just take my word for it. I think when Ricky got tired, his mind started to go in this whole other direction of weirdness that was an absolute privilege to watch unfold. I laughed so much because of him and his incessant references to everything from old school TV shows in the 80’s to Japanese manga and some obscure shit that I still have no idea what he was talking about. The more Ricky talked, the more I was blown away by how fucking incredibly smart and well-educated this guy is. I guess you would have to be pretty smart to learn a language like Japanese, move to Japan, and end up managing every aspect and nuance of one of the more successful idol groups working in Japan. I mean, that’s not easy at all to do. Especially for a white guy in Japan (although Ricky very astutely pointed out that it doesn’t matter your skin color in Japan. All that matters is if you can get the job done or not. That’s all anyone cares about in Japan. Point taken).

Ricky also is fiercely protective of Necroma. I can understand why. He’s put a lot of time and money into creating something amazing with the idol group, but what I think most idiots out there who think idols are just processed meat and have no say or rights, well, that’s not what I saw at all on this tour. The girls called the shots. They were treated with absolute respect and and kindness the entire time. By Ricky especially. He was so beyond gracious to them that I couldn’t even understand how one person could be THAT nice! Seriously, if you ONLY knew the things he does for them. I’ll just say he really, really cares about them and never once, talked down to them or made them feel like their feelings didn’t matter. That’s not saying that the idol world is perfect or that there aren’t idol groups where the girls are treated like dogshit. The idol industry is very far from being perfect. But it was nice to see at least with Necroma, that was NOT the case at all. Ricky explained to me that he has a healthy respect for them and they have for him too. They trust him and his guidance and also have no problem telling him when they need something or want something done. This is how the group has stayed around for so long, which as Ricky also pointed out to me, is kind of rare these days for idols. The turnover rate is very large in the idol world, particularly in the underground scene. I think this is because of mostly bad business decisions on the part of managers or producers or even the idols themselves. I think this is why Ricky is so awesome at what he does… he manages everything, to the point of micro-managing even, and makes sure nothing gets missed. I mean, even during soundcheck, he wanted to make sure nothing was overlooked or disregarded. And when something didn’t go right, it really aggravated him because he demands perfection. That makes sense, given he’s in a business where perfection is on display pretty regularly.

It was unfortunate that the Whisky Show did not allow Ricky this kind of chance to get everything just how he wanted. Being the first show of the tour, it really was a case of getting all the kinks worked out with doing the live portion of the show with Zeroshiki and also the Karaoke portion of Necroma’s set (without the band), as Chocchi referred to it. That wasn’t going to be the case, as the show would get all fucked up right from the beginning.

Heather from the Whisky was kind enough to squeeze Necroma and Zeroshiki onto the already existing show that night, which was with Iron Butterfly and a few other groups. Technically, we were our own show, but we had to wait for Iron Butterfly to soundcheck. They took like a fucking hour and a half to do it. So that meant Necroma had to do a soundcheck after the doors opened to the venue. Zeroshiki barely had time to turn on their amps and play them before the doors opened as well. The wireless mics for Necroma weren’t dialed in properly because there was no time to do it, so yeah, things got screwed up because Iron Butterfly needed a ridiculous amount of time to set up. They also didn’t move any of their equipment out of place onstage when they were done, so that meant Zeroshiki had to do it. I honestly hate to say this because the dudes in Iron Butterfly were cool as hell that night, but they might want to have a little more regard for the people working at the Whisky who was soundchecking them and also the other bands playing with them.

Whatever though. Once the show started, I think the overall excitement of having Necroma FINALLY here in the United States took over. Everybody who came to the show seemed to have a great time, despite the sound difficulties. And I also think that the Whisky did the best they could given the fact that we were all pressed for time, and also one of the backline Guitar Amp heads had blown before Zeroshiki could plug in and play it, so they had to spend a huge amount of time finding a replacement for the head, then dialing that in. Shit happens like that, so what can you do?

I’ll back up and say that prior to the Whisky Show, we all went to a police station, where one of Necroma’s biggest fans, a sergeant at the police station, was kind enough to give the girls a guided tour of the station. The entire station welcomed the girls with open arms. I was really blown away by this. We even got to meet a real life undercover DEA cop, and he was bad ass.

The entire force were fun to talk to and hang out with as well, and they had even brought their public relations dog in to play with the girls. That was funny, given the girls all generally didn’t seem to know how to react to the dog. Some of the girls were genuinely scared of it, even though the dog was incredibly friendly and playful. Oh, and Himari (I’m just going to call her Hima for the rest of this report) was able to put on a bulletproof vest and utility belt, and everybody was treated to a chance to sit in an actual SWAT vehicle and also a cop car. The girls are really good at striking poses, so everybody did just that. Like a million times over. It was a blast.

Seeing so many people already at the show, waiting for Necroma to arrive, was also a blast. I finally got to meet many of the people who I’ve been speaking with the past few months about the tour. All of the fans who came were genuinely kind and sincere and also had come from very far away places, in most cases. Arizona, Mexico, Seattle, New Jersey, Cleveland… so many people who made me want to go find a quiet spot someplace in the Whisky and bawl my eyes out at how grateful I was for their support. This was something I wasn’t sure could be pulled off or not, and seeing all the fans already buzzing at the doors of the Whisky… it made EVERYTHING worth it. The girls were SO happy to see the fans too. They even came out to take pictures in front of the Whisky billboard that had their name on it, and they were saying hi to the fans and doing a little chat with some of the fans. That was really nice of them to do. Most of the fans there couldn’t even believe that was happening… it was like… oh, I just flew all the way across the country for this group, and there they are, right in front of me. And what was cool was that ALL of the fans out front understood the boundary rule with idols. NOBODY rushed the girls or tried to really speak to them unless they were spoken to first by the girls. And everybody gave the girls their space. THANK YOU so much for knowing to do this and not crossing that boundary. I didn’t want to have to crack anyone’s skull open if they did cross a line.

By the way, just for anyone who was at any of the shows and who is reading this, I want to name so many of you, but I’m terrible with remembering names, and also there are simply too many to do a roll call. BUT please know ALL of you are in my heart and I thank you deeply for what you did to make this tour a success. You showed up, you did your idol thing when the girls played, and you bought all the merch your backpacks, suitcases, and arms could hold. I was mesmerized by how supportive so many of you were, and I also appreciated all the chatting I got to do with many of you. I felt bad because so many times I could’ve chatted with all of you for probably HOURS about idols but was running around like crazy doing shit for everybody. But I’m here via email, so just drop me a line if you want to continue our conversations. I would very much love that.

So yeah, the Whisky show turned out to be a good time, warts and all. After the show was done, we stuck around a little longer than I thought we would for some extra merchandise sales, and then it was off to Soundbite Studio for the ULTRA-VIP SHOW!

ULTRA-VIP SHOW

This was slightly more chaotic than the Whisky show, but in a good way. I had a translator present to help out with the girls, though by the end of the tour, I realized that I didn’t really need one. My Japanese started to kick into high gear, and between me, Chocchi from Zeroshiki, and Ricky, we could all understand everybody just fine. But for the evening, it was nice to have her along. Also, Soundbite was kind enough to let us use their office space for free to have the girls do interviews and other fun stuff with New School Kaidan and Josh Box. From what I’ve seen of that footage, expect hilarity to ensue.

The people who had VIP tickets were incredible. I mean, absolutely awesome. Nobody gave me any problems or complained that we were running incredibly late with the show, and that we had to cancel the janken tournament between the girls and the other variety stuff we wanted to do as part of the VIP package deal. I really, really am grateful to everyone for not giving me a hard time about that. Once again, not to shift blame onto anyone else, but the Whisky’s sound check being completely taken over by Iron Butterfly threw the ENTIRE night off track. This included.

Ricky is a sound guy, somebody who used to run a PA back in his younger years. He wanted the sound to be dialed in just right. Lucky for us, the band Mirrors was already set up and had the PA dialed in fairly well, and so they played for everybody while we got the girls and Zeroshiki loaded into the place and also the interviews set up and taken care of. We also took time after Mirrors played to do a proper sound check so it didn’t sound like shit. That took forever, but in the end, I think it was worth it. Nobody complained whatsoever. And while we were all waiting in the lobby area, I passed out all the VIP swag and got to talk to everybody and shake their hands and thank them all for coming to the show. It blew me away how many people flew from all over the US and even the world to come to this show! I felt incredibly happy in this moment. There is nothing like seeing somebody happy when they know they are about to watch idols do the idol thing. And MAN… Necroma CRUSHED it at the VIP show!

Zeroshiki played first and did a fantastic job. For not really having much time to prepare or even play together while in Japan (busy schedules and all, plus playing with Yuji, who they had never played with before), it seemed like they had been playing for years together. That was pretty awesome. Also, as I would learn later on in the tour, Zeroshiki learned ALL of Necroma’s songs by just listening to them! No tabs, no help… nothing. They just figured it out. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it certainly worked well enough to make the show a reality. I was really impressed by Zeroshiki, as I knew I would be with their songs. They are exceptional musicians, all of them.

When it was time for Necroma to play, the entire room was at fever pitch. The room is super small, even has a couch, and is basically a rehearsal studio. I purposely picked this place because it’s so intimate. To see an idol group in this kind of environment…. I mean, I’ve seen some idol groups in Japan in small ass record stores and other assorted Tokyo shitholes, but this was beyond small even by Japanese standards. What a great way to say hello to America, you know? I knew that there would be a core group of fans who would come to this show, about 40 or so, that I’ve seen on Facebook a zillion times, and I calculated that this would be the exact kind of small showcase show that would work for all these die hard fans. I was right too. The show was heartfelt, emotional in only the way an idol show could be, and afterwards, Necroma seemed to be VERY happy with their second performance in the USA!

The meet and greet portion was rather fun, as all the fans lined up at first in the direction I thought it would be, which was right outside the rehearsal room, in the long hallway in front of the rehearsal. I had set up some tables at the end of the hallway, but then after discussing it with Ricky for awhile, we thought it might be better to do the Meet and Greet inside the rehearsal room instead. That actually worked out rather well, but I felt bad for those who had lined up and would’ve been first in line and then suddenly became last in line. STILL, not a single soul complained about it to me. It was like this… overwhelming sense of gratitude was the predominant emotion being felt the whole night for having Necroma at this intimate show.

The actual Meet and Greet? Well, many gifts were given, discussions were held, the girls signed posters and made sure every fan got paid attention to and treated, I felt, very well. We had fans taking pics with their phones and lots and lots of laughing and smiles. I can’t really say more about it because you just had to be there, you know? I was also really busy running Necroma’s merch table, since Ricky was busy running the meet and greet. Necroma sold so much stuff that first night. It would prove to be really helpful for the rest of the tour since gas for the tour absolutely crushed Necroma’s and Zeroshiki’s wallets. So the fans, once again, helped out in a tremendous way by being so supportive and buying so much stuff. Thank you so much for that.

PORTLAND

So after the LA show, it was back to where the girls and guys were staying for a well deserved night of rest. All of us were pretty hyped up though from the show, and hungry too. So we made sure to get something to eat before going to sleep. The trip the next day would prove to be a very, very long drive, and one that kind of sucked the energy out of all of us, myself included.

We didn’t drive straight to Portland, of course. We did do our best to make it to at least the outskirts of Portland. I forget where we ended up exactly, but I think it was somewhere outside Redding, California. One of the absolutely amazing things that had happened on this tour, right at the beginning, was that a fan from Sweden had provided a VERY generous amount of money to help with the shows and the tours. He also was responsible for some free tickets I gave to some fans for the VIP show. The fan doesn’t want to be named but what he did was extraordinary. It allowed us to eat well for the first days and also get hotel rooms.

I believe we ended up at a Super 8 near Oregon and all of us kind of hung out, though I wanted to go to bed. I was so tired, but the room I ended up in kind of became the room where me, Ricky, Yuji, and Chocchi all sort of stayed up and bullshitted for most of the night. Well, they did. I kind of just listened and gradually found a way to fall asleep while they continued to talk. It still felt really surreal to me that I was even in the same room as all of them, being that this was the actual “tour” part of what I had set up, and so far, it was going so well that I was expecting something terrible to happen at any moment. Nothing ever did, except maybe my gradual slide into delirium from driving thousands of miles on this tour. No complaints though.

One thing that happened that night was Ricky and me got to talk about idols and the idol industry too. He also opened up to me about his family life, which was pretty awesome. I did the same. We definitely bro-bonded. Ricky also showed me a girl in an idol group who had decided to split her own tongue. Does anyone know who that was? The name escapes me. We both discussed how it was kind of sad that she didn’t have that many views on her video, but that’s how it goes in the idol world I guess. You can do something that extreme… and nobody seems to care.

So the next day, I managed to get us to Portland fairly close to being on time. When we arrived, I was a little surprised that there were very few people there. And the attendance didn’t exactly improve by the end of the night either. That was rather disconcerting. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the fans that WERE there I was very grateful for. As were Zeroshiki and Necroma. But I guess I expected the kind of zealous fans that were in LA to be there. I don’t know what our final count was, but it wasn’t that much. Some of the Portland fans that actually were from Portland had told me that their city is rather odd. You could have a show with 200 kids there, and a show with nobody there. Portland was fickle like that. The opening band for the evening, when I had saw them on Youtube at the same exact venue we were at, had a massive crowd for them. Our night though, yeah, very few people showed up. Again, not complaining, but it did help me see more where I need to focus next time for bringing idol groups to the USA. I have to go to where the market is sure to be there. Portland might not be that market, unfortunately.

BUT I have to give it up to the Analog and their staff and especially Donnie, my contact for The Analog. Easily these guys were the nicest people EVER and totally allowed us to take time to get the sound right in their venue, as well as cater to us and anything we needed. They also hooked us up at the end of the night and let us keep our merch percentage split with them and also helped us with the money at the end of the night. I truly couldn’t have been more impressed with them and if I DO bring an idol group to Portland, I will NOT bring them anywhere else except the Analog. I wouldn’t even dream of it. They are the best, hands down.

The meet and greet in Portland was kind of the saving grace of playing this poorly attended show. The few meet and greet VIPS that we had were exceptional and kind to the girls, but one fan in particular from Virginia, asked me if it would be okay to have the girls sign their names on his arm. I told him to talk to Ricky about that, since that kind of was an unusual request and sort of outside the idol rules. Ricky, being that kind dude that he is, said sure, no problem. Well, little did ANY of us know, that fan went back home and got the names TATTOOED on his arm the next day!!!!! Just… WHAAAAAT??? The girls were BLOWN the fuck away by this! All of us were! It kind of made the Portland show be thought of only in a positive way, as far as who was there, because that is true dedication. I mean, just… WHAT THE HELL? The fan was super nice too, somewhat starstruck when he met Necroma as well. That was fun to watch him try so hard to talk to them but was like… overwhelmed by the girls. We’ve all been there dude. But at the same time, I can safely say that 99% of idol fans have NEVER got a tattoo of an idol’s autograph, and in this case, an entire idol group’s autograph! That’s some fan hall of fame shit right there.

After the show, we all ended up at some Chinese restaurant in a sketchy ass part of town. But it was lots of fun. We had an entire room to ourselves since it was so late in the evening. The girls found a bunch of nice places in the room to do some poses and shots. They also recorded a special video for the fan in Sweden, as a way of saying thanks to him, and also Zeroshiki did the same too. Zeroshiki and Necroma started to talk a lot more to each other at this dinner, which was nice. It was like they were getting closer, but the one thing that was kind of interesting was that Necroma are very quiet when they are around each other, or when they eat. Maybe that is due to being tired, or just being contemplative, but they aren’t the type of idols who jump up and down and are genki every millisecond of their lives. That’s not a negative at all, by the way. It’s just another thing that sort of when I saw was kind of showing me that they are human beings after all. It was kind of refreshing, though it was in these moments sitting at restaurants where I wanted to talk to them and ask them all a million questions and just bullshit with them. My lack of Japanese had prevented that from happening up to this point. I really did want to reach out to them more, being that most of my time was spent driving and so I wasn’t in any of the seats for all those hours with them and I couldn’t really talk much with them like I had hoped. At least up to this point. By the end of the tour, that would change.

SEATTLE

When I woke up the next day and we prepared to drive to Seattle, John Winner, who had been at the Portland show and the LA show and is from around the Seattle area, had shot me a text saying to check out the news. Turned out there was a horrible accident with an Amtrak train in I-5. I had two immediate thoughts in that moment. First, I hoped there weren’t too many hurt or killed. Second, I hoped it was not on our side of I-5, as in heading northbound. Thankfully, it was Southbound, but still, traffic slowed to a crawl around the accident area. We actually drove past it and saw the whole thing. All of us were very sad about it too. Chocchi even had dedicated a song to the victims and the families during their performance in Seattle. We just all really couldn’t believe our eyes.

The drive was supposed to be an easy one, but between the accident, the rain which instantly started pouring the moment we crossed into Washington, and Seattle’s God awful traffic, the trip was an all day affair. I was so depressed by this and also kind of grouchy about it. I didn’t expect it. When we got into Seattle, I dropped Ricky and the girls off at their Air BnB, and then me and Zeroshiki headed out to Chocchi’s friend’s place, which felt really far away. It was in Kirkland, I believe, but man, did it feel like it took forever to get there. Add to this the fact that when we actually arrived, the place had no fucking address (I’m not kidding about this), and I was pretty bummed. I had wanted to try and sneak away to see Star Wars this day, but I couldn’t even get an Uber to take me anyplace because there was no address where we stayed to tell an Uber driver. Plus I was absolutely exhausted from driving all day in very difficult conditions. And if that wasn’t enough, we were all staying in a barn converted into a chill pad. This would be fine except there literally was no heat except for a wood burning thing that you had to constantly feed wood or else you froze. The place itself was awesome, even had a piano in it to play, and we could be as loud as we wanted in there, but it felt just really depressing to me. I think it was because it didn’t stop raining the ENTIRE time we were there.

Chocchi and the guys in Zeroshiki took mercy on me and let me sleep in the adjacent house, which had a room that had some heat in it. I passed out pretty fast once I hit the couch in that room. Not before hanging out at least a little though with the guys in Zeroshiki. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, by any means, but I think the rain and everything else had gotten to me. So it was time to get a good night’s rest and forget all about it. Nothing destroys a tour faster than a negative attitude.

I slept too. Like ten hours or something! So I woke up feeling completely genki and almost like… high. I mean, I really felt energized and ready to do whatever we were going to do this day! Turns out we would head to Pike Place Market to do some sightseeing, and then have a party later on in the evening at Chocchi’s host family’s house.

This is where the tour, I think, really started for everybody.

What I mean is that, up until this point, it was playing two shows right away in LA with barely a chance to talk or get to know each other, and then we jumped in a van and drove a fucking ridiculous amount of hours to Portland and then Seattle, and our only real chance to get to hang out was not without pressure. Until now. This was just going to be a day of us all hanging out and doing nothing that would require worrying about playing a show and all that goes along with a show. I just knew today would be the most memorable day of the tour, as far as all of us being together. And it was.

We visited the first Starbucks at Pike Place, and Yuji got asked by some fish market guys to catch a rather large fish that they threw to him, much to the laughter and enjoyment of all of us watching. Passerbys all stopped to watch Yuji miss and drop the first fish they threw to him, but the second time, he caught it, and people were clapping and whooping. Most of all Yuji. He seemed so happy! It was too funny.

After this, Necroma and Zeroshiki did some shopping in the marketplace. They bought all kinds of souvenirs. I talked to the girls finally at various times, as I would run into them here and there, but mostly we all kind of split off. I stuck with Ricky and Okaki. I had a chance to talk with Hima and help her look at rings though before that. She asked me to ask the lady if they had different size rings, so I was able to do that and also help her with understanding their cost. The rings looked awesome on her, but she ended up passing on them. We finally got a chance to bullshit a little too. She told me some stuff about her life, her family, and so on. For some reason, out of all the girls, her Japanese was easy to understand. Rei chan’s Japanese was second easiest to understand, since Rei chan when she spoke to me always used super easy Japanese. Anyways, me and Ricky eventually ended up getting into a total nerd conversation about Star Wars, comics, and this game we found at one of the shops which reminded us both of Dungeons and Dragons. I bought some fucking awesome playing cards, since I thought it might be fun to teach Necroma how to play some games with them. Ricky agreed that would, at the very least, be interesting to see unfold. The cards I found also doubled as Gypsy Witch Fortune Telling cards. Ricky was pretty stoked that I chose them instead of normal cards. They only set me back about 10 bucks, so fuck it. Why not?

After we found everybody, the girls and Zeroshiki hit up some Clam Chowder, which I believe Sari or Okaki had wanted to eat at? I can’t remember who wanted it, but since I can’t eat anything fish-related (allergies and what not), I decided to go find another place to eat. As it turned out, both me and Toki from Zeroshiki didn’t want the Clam Chowder, so we both wandered away from the group and found a Thai place. Awesome. I ordered Green curry, and so did he, and then the lady who made it for us talked our fucking ears off for like a half an hour. I just started to eat my curry right there at the counter. So yeah, they weren’t busy.

When we were able to escape the Thai restaurant, we ended up outside sitting at a table, nearby the Clam Chowder restaurant. Everybody wanted to walk around since they were all finished with their food, so we agreed to meet them at the van. Hima ended up with me and Toki and the three of us talked for a little while. We then went to the van and tried to warm up since it was getting really cold by this point. Everybody else found us at the van shortly after we got there and then the girls all wanted to go to some makeup place. Sephora, I think? So me and Zeroshiki hung out in the van. I went quickly to a nearby Target to pick up some shampoo and soap. Right before I got out of the van, some guy in a nearby alley decided to whip his dick out and just take a piss right in the middle of the alley. Thank GOD the girls weren’t there to see that, but yeah, unfortunately for my eyes…

Once Pike Place was in the rear view, we headed to a grocery store to pick up stuff for the party, and then headed to Chocchi’s host family home. There were some people there who I didn’t know, but I guess they were friends of the host family. Plus the host family was doing what they are named after… hosting… a Japanese dude. He was there, along with his girlfriend. So the place was already kind of full. While Yuji and Chocchi and the guys all started to cook, I decided that would be a good time to teach Necroma how to play Four Kings in a Corner.

When Ricky sat down and tried to explain the rules to the girls, they all had a look on their face like there was no way in a million years they would get this game. Even Ricky was like, “dude this game isn’t easy at all,” despite me reassuring both him and Necroma they would catch on pretty fast.

Did they? Well, kind of. I did several demo games with just me and Sari to show them how to play. They all kind of got it, but the problem was that the one demo game with Sari went FOREVER. Four kings can go super fast, or it can be something that takes the entire deck of cards to complete, and yeah, the girls were growing impatient watching just me and her play. But to their credit, they still stuck it out with me showing them how the game is played and learned the game in this fashion.

Sort of, I mean. A funny incident happened right away. I was still helping the girls when it was their turns, and that was very welcomed, until it was Himari’s turn, and I helped her win. Instantly, Rei Chan was like, “HORA! HORA!!!” and Sari started going crazy saying something in Japanese, which I think was telling me to stop helping them,” and then, in pitch perfect timing, Okaki looked at me and said “You fucking idiot!”

I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes! She had heard me swearing earlier in the day, and Yuji too (since Yuji basically was a swear machine this entire tour and improperly used swear words to accent his Japanese when he spoke. Too funny!). I mean, Okaki couldn’t have had better timing though, you know? I think this also kind of made the girls kind of lose interest in the game. They played I believe it was like one more round or two and then they just sort of was like, Fuck it, this is boring. Well, they didn’t SAY that, but I mean, some of them just got up and walked away. I wanted to teach them poker too, but I guess that wasn’t going to happen (at least not this evening).

It worked out okay because Sari and Okaki had let Ricky know that when we were grocery shopping, we forgot to get the girls anything to drink that they would like! So me and Ricky went back to the grocery store, along with Okaki, to get drinks for the girls. I felt so bad and so did Ricky… I dunno how we missed this! But somehow we did when we had went shopping earlier.

No matter. We fixed this. By the time we got back, everybody was eating. A HUGE feast had been prepared too. I was lucky… Chocchi made me my favorite salsa. Every time I go to Japan and stay with him, he makes me this INCREDIBLE salsa that, turns out, was something his host mother had taught him how to make. I practically ate all of it myself. It was too good, and super healthy, since Chocchi eats like a squirrel and only eats necessary foods. He hates junk food and always eats really good anytime I am around him. That’s probably why he’s physically pretty slim and built and makes me feel like absolute shit because I eat so much garbage food! But whenever I stay with him, I always end up eating more healthy than when I’m back home in LA, so I figured at some point on this tour, Chocchi would convert me over to his dark, evil nutritious ways. He succeeded with his salsa. So thanks Chocchi, you fucker!

Pretty much after we were done eating, something amazing happened. Everybody really started talking and bonding together. It was like the floodgates busted and out came the personalities, the laughing, the joking, the in depth conversations between all of us. It was incredible. Like Zeroshiki and Necroma, me, and Ricky all didn’t want the night to end. The host family kind of had to kick us out, because we were all just being loud and crazy. Yuji especially was going nuts. He was also getting incredibly DRUNK, so the more drunk he got, the crazier the night became. I was laughing too much at him because he is the kind of guy that seems like he has this nonstop rave going on in his head at all times. I mean, at one point, he started doing that EDM horn blast you always hear at raves… how does it go? Like… DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUNNN!!! When he did this, I really thought I was going to piss myself. He kept doing it too. All fucking night, and then in the van when I drove everybody back.

We all kind of paired off as well during the party. Daisuke hung out with Rei chan and talked with her. Sari and Chocchi kind of talked a lot, and Okaki just sort of did her thing and talked to everybody. She also paid a lot of attention to the dog that was there, since they seemed to get along well. Ricky and Yuji also were talking, and then me, Mugi san, and Hima all hung out at a table and bullshitted about anime and life. I kept wanting to drink and Hima kept making sure I didn’t because I had to drive. It was funny. She got really Tsundere on me, and then kept making me play janken with her, which was funny because she plays a super advanced janken and I didn’t catch on to it right away, so every time I fucked up, Hima would crack up laughing at me. So did the other girls and Mugi, since for some reason, I just couldn’t figure it out. Hima and Rei chan demonstrated it to me later on and it was scary how fast they were at it. Their game got faster and faster and faster and by the end of their janken game, I was, once again, crying laughing. Just too much fun.

This night was one of the things I had desperately hoped would happen. I wanted us all to just have a chance to hang out and talk with each other. Even though I didn’t know a whole lot of Japanese, everybody made sure to include me in the conversations this night, and that felt really good. I also think I kind of broke through the barrier of me just being somebody that booked all these shows for the girls and was driving them everywhere to actually getting to be friends and know each other on a deeper level. Sari talked with me too and that was awesome, since she is kind of intimidating, as is Okaki, but even Okaki shared about her life with me a little this evening. Told me about her home life somewhat. I couldn’t have been happier about how this night turned out. It would make the next night playing in Seattle, as the last night of tour, kind of painful for us all.

So, Studio 7 is run by a guy named Tracy and his wife. Their staff are incredible, and overall, the place is an incredible live venue. Seriously, any bands who call Seattle their home are damn lucky to have a venue like Studio7 and more importantly, a guy like Tracy helping them. There’s even practice rooms for bands on the side of the building, and that makes sense because the venue is pretty much away from everything, yet still part of the city. Hard to explain past that. But yeah, we met Tracy, as he instantly warmed up my heart. I felt bad though because he had lost his best friend recently and was dealing with some pretty heavy issues relating to that loss. He was somewhat emotional, which was totally undestandable, and yet he was extremely kind to us. Definitely one of the individuals I can’t ever forget after meeting. He really wanted to make sure we were all well taken care of. His wife had made tons of food for the girls and Zeroshiki too. Lots of pasta!

The show started off with interviews, actually. So before doors opened, we had a few interview requests which I managed for the girls and for Ricky. Also, John Winner did an interview here too, which was fun to watch unfold. John is a really, really nice guy, and I know how much he loves Necroma, so I kept thinking that this had to be a huge thrill for him to sit down with the girls and ask them some fun questions for his Straight Outta Japan site. It’s because of people like him that I wanted this tour to happen. So this was a nice moment for me to experience.

So the first band went on and the place started to fill up, mostly with Chocchi’s friends and the people who were at the party the night before. Plus some other very special guests too. I saw one guy with a Guso Drop shirt and that instantly sparked a conversation, which was fun to engage in. Also, I got to meet the legendary MANIAC who runs Homicidols. I probably scared him with how much I turned into a huge fanboy, but seriously, so much of my underground idol knowledge came from his blog and reading it pretty religiously for so long. He turned out to be a very nice guy. We talked absolutely forever about idols and everything in between. Turned out this was his first time seeing Necroma and I believe seeing an idol group of any kind! That blew my mind. Here is a guy so incredibly astute about his understanding of the idol world, and I was there for his first time really experiencing an idol group! I felt completely overwhelmed by this, especially since I’ve looked up to him so much. He is truly amazing for all the stuff about idols he’s put out online. Same with John. I had two of the biggest international idol promoters in the world at this show, so that totally got me pumped about the show.

Also, my friend Yeyoh, who I do the blogcast 48 Talk with, had told me that his friend from Canada might be coming to the show. Turned out he did, and he totally did the wota thing during the show. He also knew really great Japanese, so when he did the meet and greet with the girls, he surprised us all by busting out the Japanese in full force. Good job my man!

Zeroshiki did a great job this evening. They had a blast onstage, and you could tell Chocchi really enjoyed himself. He usually smiles a lot when he is onstage. It was funny because Okaki came out of the Green Room to watch him. She is like me in that we both get a huge kick out of seeing Chocchi have so much fun onstage. I felt bad though… Toki had gotten sick, so he was struggling onstage somewhat. He still did a great job. Everybody did. Yuji crushed it too, and especially because earlier in the morning of this day, we had breakfast together, and Yuji was blasting MAN O WAR for us at the table while we ate. We were enjoying all the insanity of the legendary Man O War song library, and during the live, he referenced MAN O WAR as well. Not sure if anyone caught it while he was playing, but it was funny to see him doing the Man O War fan poses. Total Metal bro!!!!

It was time for Necroma to take the stage, and Ricky had done his best to dial in their mics as perfectly as he could. It was so funny because I had kept John and Maniac inside while the girls did their soundcheck, and Maniac couldn’t even believe what he was hearing. Same with John. Their faces showed just how powerful the girls could sound even with their sound levels all over the place, getting dialed in. In fact, everybody inside the venue, from the first band to the staff, all stopped what they were doing to watch the girls on the stage. It was so awesome to see! And when the girls took the stage to play to the people who had shown up (which was a much better turn out than the Portland show), it was about as epic as you might expect it would be…. the girls ran through a blistering set, and when Zeroshiki joined them to close out the show, it was both powerful and bittersweet, since this was the last time they would be sharing the stage. The question was and is… would it be TRULY the last time? I hope not. They worked well together, and by the time they had reached Seattle, they had enough times playing together to really start meshing and bringing out the best in each other onstage.

The meet and greet was fun because, again, the fans who had bought the VIP package for Seattle were SUPER respectful and really huge fans of Necroma. They had brought the girls SO much food and gifts, including one fan who had bought the girls a Hershey’s Kiss the size of my head! It was funny because after the show, Okaki was trying to figure out how to open it up and she had us all in tears laughing attempting to break a hole in the chocolate. We all had some too… totally delicious!

The VIP guests really had fun with the girls talking to them, and the girls were really overwhelmed because seriously, there were SO many gifts for the girls at this show that they didn’t know what to do with them all when they got back to the Air BnB. But that is a good thing… the kindness on display here was another reason I decided to try and make these shows happen. I wanted to see if people would really respond to my request to show the girls how much we appreciated them coming to the USA. Well, Seattle, you succeeded completely. We were ALL blown away by the gifts and the meet and greet session. Thank you so much!

After the show, we all went out to eat, again, and this time, sitting down at the restaurant was super lively. Everybody was talking, having a good time, as the night previously had really opened up everybody to talking and getting to know each other. It made me sad because if Zeroshiki had actually stayed on and played San Francisco, I can’t even imagine how much fun that show would have been with them! I mean, it was still one of the best shows on the tour, easily, but it would’ve been TEN TIMES better if Zeroshiki had stayed. They were support for Necroma, they all spoke Japanese so Necroma weren’t so alone in that sense while in America, and most of all, the music had started to really get perfected with them while onstage together. Saying goodbye to Zeroshiki was hard for us all. Zeroshiki stuck around in Seattle for a few more days before heading back to Japan. And off we went to San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO

The night before we left for San Francisco, I had stayed with the girls and Ricky at their Air BnB so that it would be easier to get on the road and drive down to California. It was the longest stretch by far for us, and believe me, we all felt every inch of that trip. That night though, Okaki gave me some kind of heated eye mask so I could get some rest, and when I woke up in the morning, one of the girls (not sure which one) had set out some towels for me to take a shower. That was awesome of them. I mean, this is why they rule not just musically but as people… they didn’t have to do anything for me, but they were concerned for me, you know? How cool is that? I had passed out on the couch, as did Ricky (on the other couch), as we had an early morning schedule to get on the road and get going towards San Francisco.

We kind of took our time and tried to split the trip up best we could though. That first day, we headed to Target to do some shopping, and I was happy because I found a Jersey Mike’s sub place to eat at! Hanging out at Target was fun with the girls, since they hadn’t ever been inside a Target before. They couldn’t get over how huge the department store was. I sometimes still can’t get over it myself!

When we finally arrived at the Bottom of the Hill venue, I knew it was going to be one of the best shows, if not THE BEST show of the tour.

For starters, Mirrors was supposed to play but had dropped off. I ended up replacing them with a group called BITCH, PLEASE, which has a cross-dresser for a singer and is all about promoting differences in who we are. I don’t want to say anything bad about Mirrors because it wasn’t their fault they had to cancel. Basically, they have a drummer who they pay to play with them and he decided to take a gig that would pay him more instead of keep his commitment to play this show, which put me in a huge bind for a moment. Thankfully, Jeremy from the band NAME, who also played the show, recommended the insanely great BITCH, PLEASE as a replacement. I suppose I could say that it was a shitty thing for the drummer of Mirrors to do what he did, but you know what? That kind of shit catches up with you, because if you are a drummer for hire and you develop a reputation for being the kind of musician who does not keep his commitments, then I think he may have a very hard time finding work as a drummer for hire. Karma spins its wheels like that, you know? So that’s all I’ll say about that. It was unfortunate but ended up in the end not mattering much at all.

Ricky and Paul, the sound guy at BOTH, instantly geeked out on soundboard discussions. Ricky went to town with getting the sound absolutely perfect, which was admittedly a lot easier without Zeroshiki to deal with. I got to work setting up the merchandise and taking care of the usual show logistics. The fans outside the venue had flower bouquets for the girls, but I had explained to them to wait until after the show to give the flowers to the girls. I told them they could keep their gifts and things with me behind the merch table. BUT when Hima stepped out of the van and I believe Rei Chan (or was it Okaki?), somebody gave them flowers. It wasn’t a big deal, because Hima had gone up to them and talked to them and said hi, but for a brief moment, it was kind of tense. Sari wanted to get inside since she doesn’t like to be really seen without her Shironuri, so I ushered her inside as quickly as I could, and the rest of the girls too. Then I joked about this with the fans outside about it and no harm done. It was a SWEET gesture on their part to have beautiful bouquets of flowers that we took with us to LA and that made the van smell really great too. Thank you so much for them!

The show.. wow. There are no words. I feel like I wouldn’t be doing the show justice to really get into detail about it here. I’ll say that the place had the most in attendance. I think around 100 plus or so showed up. The place was PACKED, from front of the stage to the door. I met so many awesome fans that night and talked to so many people. It was incredible. Daichi, the fan from Japan, also was here, as he was in LA. I gave him a big hug and thanked him for his long trip to the States. I hope he knows how much he’s loved. I hope all of the fans did. BOTH’s staff was incredible too, and by the time Bitch, Please took the stage, the place was already at fever pitch. Those guys destroyed on stage, were funny, and just great to see perform. Total San Francisco style. Even Ricky was rocking out to them, and I did too.

NAME took the stage and literally blew the place in two. They played songs from their new album they just released and it was nice to see a band I played in (for live five seconds, but still). Wes and Jeremy, the brothers in NAME, just… I dunno. They matured over the years into this huge force of awesomeness onstage. I couldn’t even believe what I was seeing. The whole place was captured in their set. Just… incredible stuff and I can’t thank them enough for playing the show. Another one of San Francisco’s finest. I’m proud to have even been part of them years ago.

Necroma was up last, naturally. Before they took the stage, they had been rather busy doing an interview for JPOP ROCKS, with my friend Elmer and his staff doing all the interviewing, videotaking, picture taking, and translation work. Props to Elmer and his crew for doing the interview too.

I wanted to actually watch Necroma tonight, since the whole tour I hadn’t really had a chance to actually watch them fully. I ran to the front of the stage and with the fans who had the flowers earlier, totally did the wota thing and went crazy for them. The girls got a kick out of this, since I think they probably didn’t realize how much of a fan I had become of theirs. Every day, they kept checking to see what shirt I was wearing and if it was a Necroma shirt. I wore my VIP Necroma shirt for the show, which made them happy, and especially when during Dawnslayer, I had some of the fans hoist me up so I could be right in front of Okaki during her solo bridge part. It was so much fun!

Also, not just saying this, but out of all the idol shows I’ve been too, Necroma’s set at BOTH was probably one of the top ten most blistering and powerful shows I’ve ever seen. EVER. It was like, everything just came out of them this show. It was their last show, and during the MC Rei chan kind of choked up and Hima fought back her tears too, and the girls just said fuck it and started talking in full Japanese to the audience. And their actual set…. MY GOD. Just had every single person in the venue enthralled. When they did my favorite song, Sarnath, I almost got a little teary-eyed. That song is so fucking evil and just heartfelt, and I knew it would be the last time I would hear them play this live for at least awhile. That kind of hurt, but in a good way, you know? The girls put on one HELL of a performance, and the entire night just hit all the right notes for everybody. It was truly a perfect night.

After the show, we just did normal Buppan, and quite a lot of fans lined up to do chekis. When they were all finished, I pretended like I was a fan meeting them for the first time, and started fanboying over them super hard. They all seemed to enjoy my attempt at humor. I have my moments I guess.

It was really hard to leave and we didn’t, in fact, leave, until super late in the night. I think it might have been after Two, actually. We drove all the way to LA the next day, arrived fairly late in the evening since we took our time getting down to LA from SF (and had a super late start), and then stayed at an Air BnB after hitting up Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in Hawthorne, near LAX. I had a chance to talk with Sari a lot this evening about her life, which was awesome, and me, her, and Hima played cards while the others tried to get a little shut eye. They all had to be at LAX super early in the morning, and us three couldn’t sleep at all. I taught them how to play Poker, and we played Four Kings in a Corner as well. Sari kicked our asses, as to be expected from the Queen of the Scene.

Dropping them off at LAX was really hard for me. I know they were all super tired and their day was just beginning, as they had a VERY long flight back to Japan, including a layover here in the States at another airport. I just couldn’t believe I had actually went on tour with an idol group, and it was all because I made it happen, the fans made it happen, and so did Ricky and Zeroshiki. So many people made this possible, and it actually worked out really well. There was never a bad night on the tour, or a bad show. But seeing the girls leave and Ricky as well… maybe that was the only negative on the tour for me. I felt like I wanted to fly back to Japan with them right then and there, and continue working with them to help spread Necroma’s awesomeness to the world. I’m sure they’ll do just fine without me, but I feel like I can call them my friends now. At least in a business sense. I prefer to keep a professional distance too, since if I’m working with them, getting too close to them could cause conflict, and plus, they don’t have time anyways! They’re idols!

WHAT IS NEXT

So this tour had me thinking about so many things, in regards to doing this again. I have several things figured out, especially because now I know what works and what doesn’t. If you are an idol fan and you want to see more idols play in the USA or other parts of the world, please read carefully my proposed ideas below. Also, please note that there was enough support for this tour that I have decided to do this again in some fashion, but HOW is ENTIRELY UP TO ALL OF YOU. I mean that. Your comments and actions will dictate what idols I’ll bring over and where and when. So please make sure you give me every single opinion, thought, and idea you may have about these options below. Also, feel free to offer me a NEW idea if you have a better option you think I should consider. Also, I hope this tour inspires somebody out there to do the exact same thing I did. I don’t mind being the guy who sets this up, but I certainly don’t have to be the ONLY guy who does! By all means, go to Japan, make the connections, and get the ball rolling! That’s really all that I did. I stayed with it to make sure it all happened as I wanted it to happen, and well, Necroma got their first US tour as a result. You could easily do the same.

But first things first… here is what I’ve come up with. And again, COMMENT extensively please! I will take everything into consideration. Comment here, or message me on FB, or directly. I really want to get something figured out soon, preferably before I head to Japan in March to live. So the sooner you read this and give me the feedback I need, the better.

So, my thinking is this:

BRING BACK NECROMA PLUS ANOTHER GROUP OR GROUPS: I want to do one show or maybe two shows but in one place. It will be LA, more than likely, since I live here and it would be easier to do everything from a logistics standpoint. I am not sure I want to do the show at a venue though because I think just renting out Soundbite would be easier and make more sense from a financial standpoint. Also, Soundbite has a bigger room so we could hold probably like a 100+ people this time. The idea would be to have time to do a meet and greet, maybe some fun games, but the appeal this time would be TWO idol groups, or maybe three. I really want to bring Hanako San with Necroma, and possibly the There There Theres. This is one idea, just a straight up idol show, nobody added extra, and kind of all day to give us time to do everything. No rush this time.

DO AN ALL DAY IDOL FESTIVAL WITH THREE OR FOUR GROUPS: I could go bigger and bring back Necroma, plus add this time maybe four groups. My targets would be Hanako San, TTT, and ideally Yanamute and Migma Shelter. Bringing them all over or at least some of them would be ideal, and I could fill out the rest of the festival with local idol groups and Japanese acts and some metal acts too. So more of an actual festival. I would want to rent out the entire Soundbite Studio for a whole day and have each room full of shows all day until the final acts from Japan in the evening. I like this idea too because we could do some more stuff with Japanese culture here too. Maybe invite some Japanese cultural groups even. Do you guys like this idea?

As for groups, I had asked last week on Facebook who a lot of people wanted and got some great responses. I have connections and I’m actually going to be in Japan for the Burst Girl debut show, so this is why I need a fast response. These are the groups I think I have the most realistic chance of bringing over, in order of certainty:

Necroma (my Kami group. They have no comparison now)

Hanako san

There There There’s

Yanakoto Sotto Mute (my current favorite group)

Migma Shelter (my second favorite group)

Gang Parade

Cy8ber

Burst Girl

Pikarin

Oyasumi Hologram

So just in terms of logistics, one person groups like Hanako San and Pikarin would be the easiest to transport and set up here. But I’m all for bringing over any of the other groups I just listed. They are my targeted groups, and I think I just might be able to bring any of them over. The Necroma tour opened the doors for me to go to Japan and have a name recognition factor that Ricky will back up saying I did it right for them. Or so I hope.

What it comes down to is money, overall. Plane tickets aren’t cheap, and neither is Visa processing. And how willing and serious the hardcore idol fans are to come out to a show in LA if I put it on. I mean, we had a great turnout in LA, so I am not worried about that at all, but could you do it at a larger cost? That would be the issue. And what would you want for that cost? Would you all be happy with paying a large sum of money if it meant just seeing the groups here and no other major amenities like a T-shirt?

I was thinking of doing a Kickstarter, in which we could do some kind of special perks for each level of contribution. That could work I suppose. But right now, what I need to know is… how big can we make this? Are there any fans out there who have deep wallets and want to offer to pay for plane tickets for any or all of the groups they want to see? Because if you can, that would help tremendously sway these groups to come over and play. A group like Gang Parade is going to cost a fortune to bring over in plane tickets, housing them all, feeding them, and so on. That doesn’t even count what they need to get paid for the show. So, are you all willing to pay for this? Because if you are, I’ll set it up. But that is what this comes down to at this point. I have the connections, but the money has to be there for me to be taken seriously by these groups.

How much money are we talking? Well, that depends on how big you want to make this. If you wanted just Pikarin, for example, you would need to pay for her plane ticket, her two dancers, and her sound guy/manager. So you would be looking at around four or five thousand just for that. So if you want me to bring over more than just one group, keep adding costs in this way. I would say that a good number to shoot for would be around 20,000 for two groups, maybe three, depending on if we do like one bigger group and two smaller groups. That would cover everything. But anything less would be pushing it.

So this would mean then that we would need to do a Kickstarter, I’m guessing, to make happen. The tickets would also be limited, as I want to keep this low key as possible, as in only advertised to the idol fans that are international. So you would be looking at high priced tickets as well, all of which would hopefully translate to a unique VIP experience. The flip side to this is that if we did something all day, the groups could perform twice in that day, like once during the day, once at night. Or we could do two days and have them perform both days. This would depend on the group and what they wanted to do in terms of being tired from the flight, so maybe it might be better to do just one performance and then use the rest of the day to do meet and greet and some fun stuff with the groups.

Anyways, your thoughts? Let me know. I’m open to seriously anything at this point. If you don’t think we can raise that kind of money for a show like this, then the other option would be to just make it one group and do kind of something similar to what we did with Necroma. I can just repeat that exact same process again with them. The difference is that I’m not touring in a van this time. It will be one location and a lot more time to do everything. We would be looking at around 10,000 for something like that, as I would want to go a little more expensive on everything if it’s just one group. But at the same time, Necroma 100% wants to come back and play the US, so I don’t want to exclude them in any of this. So I would want there to be a new group to join them, or a solo artist at least, like Hanako san, or Pikarin, or even both (that would be a nice package to bring over, since it would involve one group and two solo artists and less people to pay for plane tickets overall, since Ricky could do the sound for all the groups).

The future is exciting to consider. And if it keeps working, I can keep doing it, even from my position in Japan. I would love to keep connecting idols to others overseas. I’m also considering doing something in Europe (just waiting to hear back from somebody about this idea) with some idol groups, and possibly a NYC show too. It just depends on what you guys can actually support from a financial perspective. And who you want to see and how bad you want to see them. That is important too, of course.

Thank you again. All of you. It was truly incredible what this tour ended up being for me and for everyone involved in it. None of it would be possible without all of you, so that is why I want this to be YOUR decision. I believe idols can bring us together, and this would be a great way to keep doing exactly that. All of you that I met really made me smile and I’m still thinking about so many of you now. I want to keep making these kinds of memories with you. And I’m sure the idols I’ll bring over will want the same.

So… you tell me… what is next?