I literally just wrote about how I'd make posts about recent events. But instead I'd like to start with something very near and dear to my heart that just came up. Do you have something in your life that should be trivial but brings out more emotions than anything else? So important that it's like your best friend, your lover, even your family?
That's what Dir en grey is to me.
I know it sounds stupid. But hear me out.
I first learned about Dir en grey when I was living in Arizona, during the beginning of eighth grade. I'd moved to Arizona a few months earlier because my parents were getting a divorce. It was a really horrible experience. My brothers and I went down to stay with my dad's parents for the summer to help out, and we were supposed to go back to Washington for the school year. My mom called one day in August to tell us we weren't going home, we were staying there permanently. So basically we didn't get to say goodbye to our friends or anything. To make matters worse my grandparents were less than desirable. Don't get me wrong, I love them. But they are very set in their ways. And my grandma just doesn't like anything I like, or want me to look the way I want to. They grew up in hard times in England, and it showed. My grandma has a history that makes her the way it does. I just don't know it. And I was young, trying to become my own person, and angry. A lot of little things happened down there. To name a few: I had no friends outside of school, my dad called my grandma drunk and yelled at her til we found her on the floor crying in her house, and I found out my dad put our 20 year old cat to sleep because he wasn't willing to put the effort into caring for her anymore. All in all it was a bad time. But I had good friends who I talked to online and they helped a little. But it made me really homesick.
I learned about Dir en grey from my friend Jeanette-Lynn around the same time we found out my grandma on my moms side had cancer. A few months into the school year we moved back to Washington. I basically had two days notice to grab my things, then we were driving home. We moved back into my grandma's house and stayed with her and her new husband. To help take care of her, and until we found somewhere. A few months into knowing she had cancer my grandma had to have her leg amputated, because it was becoming gangrenous. To make a very long painful story short, because that's definitely for another day, my grandma didn't survive cancer. Before her passing we moved out, and into the town I live in now. I was starting high school, and that has it's ups and downs.
High school has a lot of pain for pretty much everyone. I'm no exception. It leaves you with abandonment, discouragement, basically every negative feeling you can think of. Of course, there are ups and definitely wonderful times. But not always.
After High school my life hasn't changed much. There's a lot of downs to go with it. Those never go away.
But through all of this and more Dir en grey has always been there for me. The first song I heard by them was Garden. I was hooked. Their visuals were beautiful. Are beautiful.
And of course, being a pre-teen/teen I was definitely in love with their physical beauty. To this very day no matter what Toshiya does I can't help but love him. He's my perfect man, through all the bad hair ideas and weird outfits. There is not a member of that band that I do not find attractive. But that's not what I love about them. They're so much more than that.
When I was hurting they gave me something to be obsessed with. I spent so many nights trying to find music and videos and new pictures. I know it wasn't long ago, but it was back in the day when these things weren't easy to find. Japanese music was still underground to America. I could find a few things on limewire (back in it's height) and a few specialty sites here and there. It was like some epic quest to find the music I wanted to hear and I loved it. It took my mind off of things. When I was sad I'd put my headphones in and listen to the new song I found. Old song, really. Nothing too current when it started. But eventually I got better at finding things. I found people who liked the same music. Shortly after finding them I introduced Syl to them and we were both in love.
Beyond the chase that excited me there was the sheer beauty of the music. It touched my heart. It made me smile. It could drive me to tears. Eventually it became the CD I listened to to fall asleep at night.
Japanese music lead me to take Japanese in high school, which was one the best decisions I've ever made in my life. If it weren't for that I would have never met Amanda Leigh. I would never have made so many relationships with exchange students. I would have never gone to Japan. Twice.
Through learning Japanese I began to understand the lyrics better. I began to understand why, without knowing the language, the songs connected to me so much. All the lyrics mirrored my own pain. Kyo was singing about the same things I was feeling. He felt it too. As corny as it sounds, it was reassuring. Knowing someone felt the same hurt.
As I grew, so did Dir en grey. They went out of fashion, as it were. The new little bands were getting bigger and they were being pushed to the side. They stopped being so visual. The genre they helped create hardly considered them part of it anymore. Fans came and went because of their progressive style. No CD ever came out the same. Dir en grey evolves as it goes. It's own entity that can't be kept down. I can't count the amount of people who tell me they hate the style of such and such CD. I don't care. I love all of it. Not all of it is my favorite, of course. But how can you hate it?
I'm going all over the place. But it's hard to talk about because I don't think people will ever truly understand it.
When I was eighteen I finally got to see them in concert. I almost got to see them in the Family Values tour, but missed the opportunity. (I heard they walked off stage or something, so I'm glad now) They were headlining and had the Human Abstract with them. Amanda and I got in line around nine in the morning to wait. By eleven they told us we were blocking the street, so the venue (Showbox at the Market) gave us all place holder tickets and told us to come back later. We went to the Asian market with some of the girls in line and had a great time. Some of them I still talk to. Some of them are still great close friends of mine. Others were passing. We went back at night and got into the show. I was in the second row behind amanda, holding behind her so she wouldn't be crushed. We suffered through the openers (They were great really, but it was anticipation killing us). At one point I looked towards the green room and caught my first real life glimpse of Die. He was watching the band play, looking so happy. I made the mistake of telling someone and a whole group of girls looked and started screaming. Eventually Dir en grey got on stage.
If I could bottle the feeling of seeing them for the first time...It was the first feeling of religion. I have never been a very religious person, but I finally understood the feeling that people get when they kneel down, close their eyes, and give God all their emotion. No, they aren't gods to me. They're normal people, who let their feelings out through music. But standing there is the closest I've ever gotten to Nirvana. And those shows are church to me. The feeling I get standing in a mosh pit with my closest friends and complete strangers is incomparable. So many people with one emotion. Honestly indescribable.
Kyo stood, at one point, without music playing. He screamed. He made awful terrible sounds, like those from a horror story. No one spoke. No one made a single sound. Kyo just let out energy and emotion into the air and left it there. It was chilling. It somehow turned you on, scared you, and left you speechless all at the same time.
I've seen them twice since. At the second two shows there was nothing exactly like that scene. Both shows were different and amazing. But that will always be burned into my memory.
At the second show I met Calah and Savanna. At the first I met Rose and Shelby. Some of the closest and sweetest people I have in my life. And at the third, we traveled all the way down to Texas to see them, and I got to spend the time with two of my best friends and see a friend I never get to see at all.
Dir en grey has given me friends I never would have met. Whom I hold more dearly than practically anyone else. I've had hard times they helped me through. I can honestly say they've saved my life more than once. Their dedication for their country and the truth they need is inspiring in ways that are impossible to understand. Dir en grey give me inspiration to be truer to myself.
I know not all my friends like them. Some hate them. And that's fine. We don't have to agree. You don't even need to respect any of this. But it's how I feel.
If I ever meet them, and have a chance to speak with them, I would like to let them know how much they've made my life something worth living. I will thank them some day.
♥ Myshappy
The final was the first song played on American television my Dir en grey. When you're at an American show the air shifts when this song starts. The whole crowd sings and dances. It might not be this way for the rest of the world. But every show I've heard this at was the highlight. Not your favorite song, but a significant memory burned into their history.
