Visual Olympics 2008 Report

Vidoll’s band members came on stage one by one while riling up the crowd. The most notably dressed was Rame who sported a maid like dress with white netting on the bottom. Once all the members had their live instruments in position, they opened with their hit song. The band was very kinetic for the opening. They were jumping around on stage and at one point huddled together in an intertwining jungle all while playing without fail.

However, this energy was short lived. During the intermission between two songs, Jui talked for a bit. Here is a transcription:

“Today is Visual Olympic 2008. Thanks for coming. This stage is very slippery and it’s impossible to jump around.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “we don’t want to do it, but we’ll take off our shoes. Besides, shoes are for the outside.” He then lamented about how noisy the semi (locust) were. Since today’s venue was outside in Hibiya park (Tokyo), the semi were omnipresent. The 3rd song was from their newest single Blue Star which is for sale at HearJapan. Even though the shoes were off, the movement of the band was at a minimum.

It wasn’t until the last song that the band started moving around again. Rame came up to the front, giving the audience a peek up his skirt. The guitarists stood on a pedestal together soloing and barely avoiding a catastrophic crash.

The bands performance for the night was quite good. The sound engineering was solid with all of the instruments well synced. Jui’s singing was top notch and the guitarists relentless and unwavering screaming was impressive. There were a few times in the show where the mic acted up and released excruciating high pitched noise. The bands lack of movement also put a damper on the evening.