Live Report of D'espairsRay at Islington Carling Academy, England

D'espairsRay are definitely not newcomers to Europe, so it amazed and gratified fans when they announced the news of a solely European tour that featured the United Kingdom. Holding the live in Islington at the Carling Academy, which holds a capacity of 800 people, D'espairsRay did well to sell what appeared to be at least half of the tickets for the night despite a miniscule amount of publicising.

Due to the formation of the crowd outside of the venue itself, many passers-by seemed curious to know exactly what the occasion was that had drawn so many people to be queuing at such an early time, some of whom had been standing in line for 5-7 hours. Naturally people had dressed in clothing befitting to the band’s style and whilst waiting to be allowed inside, I spoke to some fans who had flown all the way from Vietnam just to see D'espairsRay.

The doors opened at just after six, yet from a brief conversation with the staff behind the ticket office, word quickly spread around the venue that D'espairsRay were actually not due to start until quarter past eight. The stage itself was of a decent size, the rear wall covered in a banner that officially declared the tour as being ‘Live Tour 2006 [LIQUIDIZE].’ With the stage set, all that everyone was waiting for now was the band itself.

At around quarter past eight, D'espairsRay finally made their entrance amidst great cheering from the crowd. Dressed in rather sombre clothing in comparison to other events, the band wasted no time in throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the set that they had prepared for the English audience.

Despite being stuck at the rear of the hall for the vast majority of the performance, D'espairsRay gave an enthusiastic performance despite some complaints floating around the hall that they couldn’t hold an audience’s attention very well.

For any exhaustion that the band might have felt after travelling from the Netherlands the night before, they certainly made an effort to please. Karyu appeared to be the most energetic of the four, encouraging the crowd to make more noise and generally appearing to enjoy himself - even his red top hat made a brief appearance! Thankfully it did appear that D'espairsRay were enjoying themselves despite the fact this was their first performance in the United Kingdom.

Overall the band played a varied set that pulled songs from Coll:Set to old favourites such as Garnet and they even threw a new song into the mix. The band did interact with the crowd to a certain extent, most obviously at the conclusion of the performance where the obligatory spitting of water into the crowd was indulged upon. Hizumi even at one point asked whether we were all having a good time to which he got a lot of screaming as a reply.

D'espairsRay’s first concert in England was definitely an experience not to be forgotten, and one that I hope that will occur again in years to come. People that I spoke to after the gig that had never even heard of their music before told me that they were now fans and would definitely come and see them again.