Plastic Tree in Helsinki, Finland. July 11th, 2006

Plastic Tree, 11th July 2006 at Nosturi / Helsinki, FINLAND


The whole day had been very sunny and warm, making the gathering fans feel uncomfortable. The opening of the doors was planned to start at six o'clock in the evening, but it was delayed due to a technical difficulty in the sound check. Finally, the fans were allowed to move inside to the live house Nosturi, but the heat situation wasn't any better inside. I decided to stay in the middle part of the audience, about where Ryutaro's mic stand was waiting for him. I noticed the people around me were complaining because of the heat and some tried to cool themselves with fans. I was surprised to find that I felt thirsty already, but I didn't want to leave my spot. We were waiting for the rest of the people to arrive inside by and we listened to the instrumental music coming from the speakers. Behind me a small group of friends started a JRock related word game in order to kill some time. I was happy to see so many fans wearing Plastic Tree's Chandelier tour t-shirts. They were sold in the lobby along a few different singles and other items of theirs.

Everything was ready around 8 and the members of the band started to arrive on stage one at a time. Ryutaro was the final one to appear and he was wearing a nice jacket and managed to receive the loudest applause and cheering, which wasn't very surprising. A part of his hair was dyed blonde and that, combined with the way it was styled, make his hair seem like it was glowing due to the stage lighting.

After the first song, Crack Pot, had ended, Ryutaro lifted his hands up by his head with his palms stretched upwards. He stayed this way for quite awhile while the audience cheered on. He did it again for several times during the concert but for not as a long of duration as just then.

Ryutaro moved close to Hiroshi's drum set in order to spray himself with cold water. This caused a huge amount of screaming from the audience, which seemed to amuse Ryutaro. He turned around a bit so that we could see the bottle clearly and then sprayed some in the air before turning back around and spraying Hiroshi.

The audience started feeling too hot and all the jumping and yelling wasn't really helping. They kept asking for water and the staff kept sending it throughout the hall in paper cups. After taking a sip, they gave the cup of water to the next person and so on; this was also used in the previous concert as well. Some people also decided to throw water into the air. The band members and their Japanese staff were also drinking a lot of water. Akira's outfit seemed to work nicely with the climate as he was wearing a sleeveless shirt that nicely revealed his tattoos.

Ryutarou announced that one of their most well-loved songs, Harusaki Sentimental, was up next and everyone applauded and screamed. After the awesome performances of Monophobia and National Kid, things started getting wild. Not just the audience but the band as well. Ryutaro's nicely styled hair was now messed up in a rockism manner thanks to all of his spinning, jumping and swaying. Often, he reached his hand toward the audience and they immediately reached back towards him.

Then, Ryutaro spoke some Finnish to us. One time, he was saying that he had a nice time here. His pronounciation wasn't perfect but his accent was charming and everyone appreciated the fact that he was actually attempting to speak our own language back to us. On the stage, he walked around in a circle many times and always in a clockwise manner. I wondered at how he managed to not get dizzy. One of the greatest moments was when the three front members came to the very edge of the stage. It felt grand. Sadly, Akira and Tadashi never switched places and stayed in their own areas. During the concert, I drifted more and more towards the right edge of the stage so I didn't see Tadashi that much. Ryutaro was also the only one to talk and we would've all loved to hear the others say something as well.

One thing that I thought was interesting was how often the band's staff appeared on the stage. Every now and then someone fixed the stands, brought guitars and took them away, moved Ryutaro's mic stand, etc. Everything went as smoothly as possible this giving me an image of real professionalism. It was amusing to see how many fans thought it was, for some reason, adorable when a random staff member handed Ryutaro a guitar. At some point during the live he held his guitar pick in his teeth for a brief moment while he adjusted his guitar. That made the audience react with a happy sigh once again.

At the end, Ryutaro told us "See you again" in Finnish. Then he changed back to Japanese, telling us that the last song would be Ghost. After the song finished they disappeared from the stage and left us all begging for more. At his point, the yelling was too loud for my ears. At first the crowd screamed "We want more!" in English, making it a very rhythmic chant. After a while of that, the audience seemed to change it into an equally rhthmic "En-co-re! En-co-re!"

After quite a long while, three of the members came back. Tadashi showed us his new shirt. There was an illustrated moose with text beneath it that said "FINLAND." Obviously, the Finns were very pleased. The members played us a solitary melody, again and again, while we all waited for Ryutaro. Finally, he came back with a new outfit. Now he was wearing a red traditional-style Japanese outfit. He had also tied his hair back, leaving only the dyed part to fly free. The band then played hate.red dip.it, a cover from The Cure, and everyone started screaming again.

In the second encore, the rest of the band came out wearing the same "FINLAND" shirts that Tadashi had sported earlier and the audience yelled louder than ever and even more agressively started rushing the stage. Because of this, I ended up really close to the stage and got pushed even more when the band started throwing picks and other items out for us. During the break, a group of fans had started yelling "Baka ni natta no ni!" again and again and when the members came back, the audience continued and made sure the band heard them. We saw Ryutaro and Akira talk to each other and then the concert continued. Sadly, we did not get to hear Baka ni natta no ni this time.

At some point toward the end of the concert, I remember Hiroshi standing up and drumming powerfully with just one hand. I admired him greatly and made sure to remember that sight because it seemed very stylish to me.

During a few of the songs, Ryutaro even pointed the mic towards us, hoping we'd sing along but most people preferred to yell and or squal. The same happened during the many MCs. The clearest singing I heard from the audience was during the catchier songs like Ghost, Namida Drop and Psycho garden, which was their very last song.

Before Psycho garden started, we yelled and throwed our fists into the air for a rather long while, doing it with great excitement. This final song indeed worked well as the ending, giving the concert that one last final rush. Ryutaro yelled things about Helsinki and went low on the floor for awhile. I didn't get to see him and not many others on the first floor did either but everyone started to scream when he got back up.

It was well after 10 and the concert was about to end. Ryutaro thanked is in Finnish then in Japanese. He kept bowing with his palms pressed together before he stayed bent over for quite a long time. It made us feel truly loved. I saw Akira and Ryutaro touch a few people's hands in the first row. Ryutaro was the last one to leave the stage. He waved at us one last time before exiting behind Hiroshi's drum set and disappearing behind the curtains.