BAND-MAID Summarize Their United States Tour Attended By Over 20,000 Fans:

■We all grew and the band itself got better during the tour

──Every day of a tour brings a different performance environment. Ordinarily, you'd try for stability by sticking to a fixed set list, but even in those circumstances, BAND-MAID would rather continue to experiment, making minor changes to the set list every time. I find it really impressive that you maintained that aggressive attitude.

SAIKI: It wasn't about maintaining anything as much as it was about our desire to stay flexible. Before the tour, we decided to use the set list from our OKYUJI in Japan as a foundation, but since the US is such a large country and we'd feel the differences in culture as we traveled across it from west to east, we talked about how to adapt it for that purpose. Plus, we had other concerns, like whether we'd have the stamina to carry us through the whole tour, so we decided on some backup songs beforehand. In the end, though, we didn't need to play any of those backup songs.

──There was no need to. In other words, everything went fine, both in terms of stamina and song selection?

SAIKI: Right. We had some idea of which of our songs were popular based on subscription numbers and view counts online, but we wanted to confirm for ourselves whether those numbers were right, so we incorporated more and more songs based on that. However, as we kept trying out different songs and experimenting with them, our set lists got way harder and more befitting of BAND-MAID. To be honest, there were a lot of songs we couldn't do at the pre-OKYUJI in Japan because of the limits on shouting and cheering, and that made us feel a little constrained. We couldn't really feel the crowd's excitement as much, either, but in the US, the audiences welcomed us with everything they had, so I wanted to deepen our communication with them. All the members of the band were unanimous on that point. We'd say "I think we can pull this song off, don't you? " and "I want to see even more smiles on their faces out there," so...

──The more OKYUJI you performed, the stronger the urge to give even "more!" became, huh. But I think the fact that you never needed to play any of the backup songs you chose means that your advance information was correct, and in the best sense of the words, everything went just as planned.

MIKU: It was even greater than planned, po. Of course, there were times when a song didn't get as big a response as expected, so we changed it out for a different one, po. The reverse also happened, po.


──I see. We touched on this earlier, but MIKU-san, you also had your birthday during the tour, correct? The day of the Dallas concert. How did it go?

MIKU: Really, that whole day was one surprise after another, po. We'd played Dallas three years ago, but our venue this time was much bigger, so that made me happy, po. When we got to the venue, we found out that our masters and princesses had sent me a cake the same size and design as my signature guitar. I was amazed by the details; it was such a work of art, I could barely believe it was actually a cake, po. Then my bandmates surprised me with another cake and a card with handwritten messages from each of them. When AKANE and I went shopping for MISA's birthday, I said "I bet it would make MISA happy to get a card with messages from all of us, po," but I didn't think they'd make one for me too, po.

KANAMI: What, you didn't?

SAIKI: Don't be ridiculous [laughs].

MIKU: I did think that, so it made me incredibly happy, po. It had been ages since I got to celebrate with everyone and all our staff, too. And then, during the show... I should tell you that on MISA's birthday, the audience held up towels with MISA written on them, so I wondered what might happen on my birthday... I mentioned this on the commentary track for our Line Cube Shibuya concert DVD, but in Play, there's a scene of my face drawn in a very dramatic manga style yelling "Say!" for the call-and-response, and I knew people liked to make GIFs out of that image and things like that, but I never expected to look up during Magic Time and see towels with a woodcut-style version of that image on it rising out of the audience all around me...

SAIKI: I loved the buzz that we heard once people started raising those towels!

MIKU: Right, right; they didn't all appear at once, but one by one as a murmur rose in the venue [laughs].

SAIKI: I looked out and saw the MIKU faces beginning to multiply [laughs].

MIKU: It took me a moment just to realize it was my own face I was seeing, and even when a few towels were visible, "oh, they're holding something up" was all I thought, po. But as more and more rose, I realized they had my face on them. It was such a surreal sight, po. I wondered if it was a candid camera prank aimed at me, po [laughs].

SAIKI: MIKU's reactions were a trip. I think the surprise was an enormous success [laughs].

MIKU: Needless to say, I was happy, but it almost felt like they were teasing me instead of celebrating me, so I wasn't sure whether I should be glad about it or not, po [laughs].

──I think you ought to take it at face value and be happy [laughs]. But it sounds like you'd better be prepared for surprises the next time you're performing overseas on your birthdays. Also, there's one notoriously grueling aspect of USA tours: travelling from show to show. Time has a way of feeling longer on a tour bus.

MIKU: Yeah, you're not wrong there, po.

SAIKI: Although, we had a really nice tour bus this time.

MIKU: The bus was incredible, po. We had so much fun there, we never got bored, po. On previous tours, we'd traveled in vans, po, but due to the big scale of the OKYUJI this tour, we toured only by bus for the first time, and slept there, too, so the whole month felt like a super large-scale bus touring vacation. We really enjoyed it, po. Everyone brought Japanese food onboard, and we cooked rice on the bus's stove, and just had a great time, po. It made for a very pleasant journey, po.

SAIKI: It was one nice bus. Not that I had any problem with what we had three years ago [laughs], but the accommodations this time were so good that there was a feeling of "we have nothing to worry about now." Although we did get tired, it wasn't the kind of tired where you feel like you've been ground down to a stub, but the way you feel worn out from doing a good day's work.

AKANE: The bus was very comfortable. Most importantly, it let us get enough sleep. And since we slept well, we stayed in top form right until the end of the tour, and it made me reflect all over again on how important sleep is. The mattresses were nice quality, too [laughs].

KANAMI: On our overseas tour three years ago, AKANE and I would both put on athletic tape before OKYUJI. AKANE especially would get physically drained on stage. This time around, neither of us felt the need to do that, and as a matter of fact, when we got back to Japan, she had more energy than any of us.

MIKU: Yes, AKANE really was energetic, po.

AKANE: I was incredibly energized [laughs].

KANAMI: We hardly ever felt tired, and we'd talk about how we had the comfiness of the bus to thank for that.

MIKU: Due to the time zone differences, we were able to sleep through the night, and I think that helped, po. After an OKYUJI, we would shower, then go to sleep while the bus took us to our next stop. It's a big deal to be able to get a good night's sleep, po. On previous overseas tours, we'd barely have time to nap a little because we had to be up by 5 AM to leave for the tour's next destination, or only get three hours to rest before we moved on, so compared to that, getting a good night's sleep is truly a huge plus, po.

──In other words, it wasn't how many hours you slept, but that fact that you got to be active during the day and sleep at night, even in regard to the time difference with Japan, that made a difference. But even though you came home rested and in high spirits, I didn't expect you to perform at Saitama Super Arena right afterward!

SAIKI: That was crazy. It was literally right after we got back to Japan.

MIKU: I looked for you in the audience, Masuda-san, since I saw you mention on Twitter that you were coming to watch us, po.


──To tell the truth, I was there - dead center of row 6.

SAIKI: Seriously?! I saw you'd tweeted that you were changing into a green BAND-MAID T-shirt, so I kept an eye out for you, but I couldn't spot you.

──In those huge arenas, even the first row is pretty far from the stage, so the front few rows are actually harder to see. I'm sure that made it difficult.

SAIKI: That's exactly what I thought. It was our first time playing an arena, and I did notice that we were far from the front row.

──Your January concert at Tokyo Garden Theater is set to be the biggest OKYUJI in the history of BAND-MAID, but it's interesting how you ended up playing at an even larger venue before that.

MIKU: It was a very rare experience for sure, po. But I think we all felt like our USA tour wasn't over yet, and that day was an extension of it, po. Like that was where our trip back home ended. Even then, I have to say, it was too huge in scale, po.

SAIKI: Hey, that was no trip back home [laughs]. But that show did feel like the final part of the US tour.

MIKU: It was great for us that the slot was 30 minutes, rather than an hour or more, po.

──You started with a 30-minute performance at the Aftershock Festival as the prologue to your US tour, and ended with 30-minute performance before the Guns N' Roses show, then.

MIKU: Yes, that's true, po. It bookended everything very nicely, po.

──But at a festival, though the audience is varied, your own fans are sure to be there too. By contrast, your slot opening for GN'R was decided pretty suddenly, so you played to an audience of almost all GN'R fans. In that situations, you'd ordinarily expect a set of hard-driving songs to grab the crowd's attention, but you decided to include Manners and Daydreaming, which I thought was a fascinating choice that really left an impression. I heard the GN'R fans in my row saying the same thing.

SAIKI: That's really good to hear. I mentioned that we tried out different songs in the US, adjusting the set list as we went. That improved our abilities at predicting set order, in the sense that "this song should get a good response here," or "it looked like this song was popular here." We decided the set list for our GN'R opener during our US tour. I remember that during our discussion, "GN'R fans like ballads, too" was mentioned, so we added Daydreaming to the set, so hearing that response from the audience makes us very happy.

──There are different things you need to keep in mind when you're playing a metal music festival, right?

SAIKI: You said it. We went for a " wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am" approach like we did at the Download Japan festival last summer [laughs], going all out with an aggressive set.

──There was a "hurry up and get in here!" ambiance to that performance.

SAIKI: Yeah, that exactly. We were saying "hey you guys, you're missing out!"

MIKU: In a way, it was the opposite with our opener for GN'R, po. We went on two hours before they did, so we didn't expect many people would be there yet.

SAIKI: We'd heard that the merchandise long was really long, too. We pretty much went, "I know lots of people won't even see it, but this is our first time playing an arena, so we're doing this thing! Thanks in advance!" [laughs]

MISA: It's true that the crowd was thin, and the majority of them weren't fans of ours, but we came into it with the confidence that the US tour had given us. If it had been me before the tour, I'd have been really shy, with my heart in my throat the whole time [laughs], and been discouraged, wondering if anyone would even listen. But the tour renewed my self-confidence to the point that I could take the stage with strength and give a "hey everyone, listen up!" It gave me a ton of composure.

SAIKI: I think we all feel the same way. We were really relaxed for that performance.

MISA: I almost feel like that was our best OKYUJI to date.

──That feeling ought to carry you through to January on the right note. What are you hoping to accomplish at your Garden Theater OKYUJI, where you'll be starting off 2023?

MISA: I want to make it an unforgettable memory for everyone who comes to see us. As for myself, put simply, I really just want to have a good time. If I can pull off a performance to my usual standards in that big venue, I think that alone will be an amazing feeling.

AKANE: I just got back from an overseas tour and opening for GN'R. I'm in invincible mode now.

KANAMI: Awesome!

AKANE: I feel like my drumming is the best it's ever been. I'm so happy to be celebrating our 10th anniversary in that mood. I'm going to inject some new spirit into our 10th year right from the start, and I'm really excited to showcase what I can do now that I'm at a new peak in my career as a drummer. I hope to keep on growing more and more from here.

KANAMI: We'd love to debut a new song at the Garden Theater, one that we were able to create because of our US tour experiences, so I'm going to do my best to bring that to our audience. I think our groove, the harmony of our sounds with each other, and our unity as bandmates has really grown because of the tour, and I want the Garden Theater to be where we showcase all of that.

──That sounds very promising. It seems like the band is in a great place.

SAIKI: Every international tour makes us stronger physically and emotionally, and we come home as a bigger, stronger BAND-MAID [laughs], but this time in particular, I feel that we all grew and the band itself got better during the tour. That's a great thing, and being able to take the same stage as GN'R while that feeling was fresh was a real achievement. You know, on the tour, we had a Japanese lesson section each time...

MIKU: Those are so much fun, po!

SAIKI: At our last date, in Chicago, we wondered what topic to choose for final last lecture, and in the end we chose "un aru waa" ("that's some luck"). It's supposed to mean "you have good luck" or "you've got something special there." I thought it was a little like a miracle that BAND-MAID pulled off a US tour like the one we just had. So "un aru waa" seemed like the right choice.

KANAMI: Yeah, that's some luck.

MIKU: I wasn't really sure we could pull it off, po. We did wonder if something might happen before we reached the end.

SAIKI: We did wonder. But in the end, we made it without any problems, with nobody sick and everyone basically healthy and in good physical shape, so "that's some luck" were the words we chose. The GN'R guest spot was "some luck" too, and 2023 is going to be our 10th anniversary, so we truly feel that we've got "some luck." I want to put our good fortune and the fruit of our efforts on show next year, and really flaunt what we've got. It's really difficult to continue something for ten years, and I think it's a wonderful thing, even a miraculous thing, that we've managed this. Keeping a band going is hard. But we're here now - we made it to our 10th anniversary, and even though circumstances won't let us welcome everyone back to our OKYUJI yet, little by little the pandemic is starting to let up. In that, too...

AKANE: That's some luck [laughs].


──It feels symbolic that you chose those words to end the tour's last concert in Chicago. You definitely wouldn't have wanted to choose "shiran kedo" ("well, I guess") instead.

MIKU: Absolutely not, po [laughs].

SAIKI: That being the case, I want everyone to come see us while we're on a roll, and not miss the chance to see the current form of BAND-MAID.

MIKU: That's right, po. At a time when we weren't able to tour in Japan, to go overseas and tour there, and return in an environment where there were no vocal restrictions and we could let loose for the first time in ages... thanks to that tour, I'm confident we'll be able to put on some great OKYUJI, po. So it's certainly true that "that's some luck" we have, po. Completing a US tour and returning to Japan to start our 10th year of OKYUJI is going to give us a really positive frame of mind to work from, po. So I really want to bring the power I brought back from the US tour and give it to our masters and princesses in Japan, or to show them what we can do with that power, and say "Here goes year 10!", and "Look at us now!", and "Let's make our 10th anniversary the most exciting yet!" At our next OKYUJI, I want us to take a running start, po.

──I hope you'll start the new year off with a festival.

MIKU: Me too, po. I think it really will be a festival, po. Ringing in the new year with an OKYUJI is a rare opportunity, and not only that, but it's our 10th anniversary, too. We're going to aim for a total success that will make everyone believe that this year's going to be a great one for sure, po!


interview: Youichi Masuda
translation: Natalie S. Hadjiloukas