What can I say about L’Arc-en-Ciel’s 20^th L’Anniversary Lives? For starters, all the proceeds are going to relief for the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake, which is beyond charitable and they should be worshipped for that alone.

Also, it rained. Hard. The band sounded great. Vocalist hyde’s eyeliner and cornrows made him look like the illegitimate lovechild of Boy George and Jack Sparrow. Bananas are nutritious and erotic. That’s it. Sign it, lick it, seal it with a kiss.

No, readers, I can’t leave you with a long-winded version of the paragraph above, filled with flowery commentary and pseudo-analysis of the music.  I don’t feel right pompously praising the unadulterated balance between gruff, unbridled vocals and near-perfect instrumentations.  It’s simply not fair. Oh, not to all of you. I’m talking about how it’s not fair to me.

Sitting down at the open-air Ajinomoto Stadium on May 28, I immediately remembered why I even write about Japanese music to begin with. Let’s skip the suspense. It’s because of L’Arc-en-Ciel. No one had heard of them in the US at the time I discovered them. They were already venturing into “aren’t they kinda old?” territory in Japan, and jaded rock fans were beginning to write them off as more pop than anything else. But I didn’t know any of this.  Even if I did, I wouldn’t have cared in the slightest. This was the first band whose music I found by myself, without any preconceived notions or outside influences telling me what was cool and what wasn’t.

Over the years, my affection for the band has fallen more into the realm of nostalgia than the girlish giddiness of getting my hands on a new release. I will never forget listening to their 1998 album Heart on repeat with a sense of high school awkwardness mixed with the slightly rebellious feeling of listening to music that was different from my peers. Or when Smile came out in 2004 and how my best friend and I did interpretive dance in my parent’s living room to it.

Lately, I’ve felt that I needed a walk down memory lane and I needed one bad.

And nothing addressed my need for a flashback more than the May 28 show, which featured the giant sweater-wearing, bowl cut-sporting, bright red lip-smacking glory that was L’Arc-en-Ciel from 1991 to 1998.

Japan of the early 1990s was riddled with bands whose hair knew no bounds. High-toned wailing was in its heyday, black was the new, well…black, and everyone’s guitar made the sound of Styrofoam brought down about ten octaves. The faster and more melodramatic the music, the better.

Then along came this L’Arc-en-Ciel band clad in, of all horrors, white. The vocalist let his hair flow down naturally while the drummer mostly wore plain tank tops. Sure, the bassist and guitarist put on ruby-red lipstick, but it was more of an accent than a bold statement of men reclaiming makeup.

Regardless of image, it was the sound that made this band different. Opting out of the speed metal that was popular in the day, L’Arc-en-Ciel turned toward something risky. When the simple bass line from their 1994 song “In the Air” opened their first show of 2011, it was hard to forget why the band stood out back then. The root to all their songs is tetsuya’s melodic bass. If you pick apart each layer of nearly all of their tracks and only leave the bass line, you have melodies that could easily stand on their own. This is consistent throughout their music even today, and the immense complexity of tetsuya’s work takes a careful ear and hours of practice to even begin to imitate.

But perhaps the most remarkable aspect of L’Arc-en-Ciel’s early work is the use of a vocalist who rejected the shrill, vibrato-heavy style of the day. Hyde is a master of all-out belting, letting his tone loose like a wild horse that refuses to be broken. His voice is unmistakable in a sea of shrieking rock vocalists, ranging from a deep, beastly bellow to a rich, high-range shout. He can be gruff and mean, or clear and serene, or anywhere in the middle. As nice it is recorded, it takes a live performance to fully appreciate the force of his natural gift.  No filters, no touch-ups, just pure voice.

As tetsuya’s bass reverberated off the vinyl rain ponchos of the audience and hyde’s voice challenged the rain to drown him out, I knew May 28 would be the day L’Arc-en-Ciel reminded all us nostalgic saps why they got to where they are now.

The set list consisted of good mix of singles, album tracks, and even a b-side, all of which seemed to strike a chord with the audience, but more importantly, with the band themselves. Songs like “Blurry Eyes” are the staples of most L’Arc-en-Ciel tours – audience pleasers that even the most casual fans might have heard. But bringing out the nearly-forgotten, untouched old favorites changed the usual demeanor of the band. The enormous jumbotrons on either side of the main part of the stage zoomed in at each of the member’s faces, revealing a sparkle of emotion in their eyes. By the time they reached the chorus of “White Feathers”, I could have sworn I saw a couple of tears. I know I was getting blurry eyes (note: I have been dying to do that pun for years, so let me have it).

As they thanked the audience after the final song, “Niji”, I quickly swallowed the lump of welling emotion that had formed in my throat, applauded, and realized I didn’t want it to be over. They had played some of my favorite L’Arc-en-Ciel songs, but there was still so much more they could do. I knew May 29 would bring the latter half of their two-decade career. Still, I couldn’t help but feel like there was something missing. It wasn’t until the second day that I realized what that was.

To be continued…