MUCC kicked off their Asia tour with an ecstatic performance in Taipei.
In a renovated and much larger The WALL live house in Gongguan District, Taipei, MUCC started the Asian leg of their Chemical Parade Tour. It was their first return to Taiwan after headlining the Megaport Festival in Kaosiung with Jealkb. The venue was fully packed and as fans waited for the performance to start, they talked cheerfully while listening to the background music, a remix of some electro and rock songs.
The performance started right on time with Chemical Parade. The members came onstage one by one, and they followed up with the performance of Falling Down, a song that immediately put the fans in a trance. Everyone was synchronized: cheering loudly, jumping and waving their hands, even in the back. This atmosphere stayed just as wild the entire performance.
The tracks from the latest album were under the spotlight during the concert, and to be honest, most of the tracks took up a whole new dimension live; they ended up being very enjoyable. A good example would be Chemical Parade Blueday, which was good on the CD but even better in its live form. Even those quite repulsed by the band's latest works would change their minds at least a bit after hearing the live versions. However, classics never die and were still the fans' favorites. FUZZ made the entire crowd scream from the very first notes, and everyone jumped happily along with Tatsuro's harmonica during the highly appreciated Saishun Ressha.
The band was full of energy - smiling, natural and very close to the fans, especially Tatsuro who was seen climbing on the drum set and running his leg over a high mic stand. He also blew up a condom and dropped it, gave high fives to a lot of people in the first rows, and took glasses from a fan and tried them on before giving them back. And despite being a real livewire on stage, his vocals remained at a constant technical level and did not even seem to suffer a bit throughout the whole set, even when songs were quite demanding. Miya, YUKKE and SATOchi also did their jobs perfectly and put on a great show. The devastating guitar riffs during Ageha and SATOchi's great drum solo during Shiva showed the other members' skills.
However, the best evidence of their natural, down-to-earth and quite surprisingly adorable attitude towards the fans - which contradicted with their fierce looks and stage ego - remained the moment Tatsuro attempted to speak Chinese, a tradition for any band coming into town. This led to a hilarious moment as he was trying to read his notepaper and sighed loudly when words were hard to read and pronounce. The other members also tried and failed; YUKKE had to repeat sentences for the fans to understand what he was saying: that he thought Taiwanese girls were really cute. Nevertheless, they looked happy to be there and were overwhelmed by the fans' warm reception.
After the encore, the band returned once again for an unplanned second encore by popular and highly determined demand! However, Tatsuro warned the spectators: "Last song, ok?" before performing Daikirai as their goodbye song.
The fans left the venue smiling, and surprisingly, the few non-fans that were there - despite not being familiar at all with the band and their songs - did not feel left out because MUCC had made it so easy for them to enjoy the concert. Everyone agreed to wait for MUCC to come back as soon as possible, and they knew their wish would be fulfilled because as Miya said in Chinese: "Xie xie, wo hui zai lai Taiwan. Thank you, I will come back to Taiwan again."
Set list:
01. Chemical Parade
02. FALLING DOWN
03. Chemical Parade Blueday
04. Zeroshiki
05. FUZZ
06. Daraku
07. Ageha
08. Circus
09. I Am Computer
10. Polaris
11. Hane
12. Yakusoku
13. Utagoe
14. Shiva
15 . Houkou
16. Lion
Encore 1
17. Saishuu Ressha
18. Ranchuu
19. Freesia
End. Karma
Encore 2
20. Daikirai
