“Sakurai-san, today I want to see you all the way up the front.”
I stood towards the back, somewhat reserved at their Beijing performance, but after being urged on by guitarist, Hiroto, I spent most of the first day of the Shanghai concert, two days later, taking photos from what was roughly a 50cm space between the stage and the audience.
I got to experience the emotions of both the Chinese fans and Alice Nine with my entire body.

▲Live performance in MAO, Shanghai.

Tora “To be honest, before the tour, I wasn’t all that interested in China. I guess it had a lot to do with the media and the way they only focus on the negative aspects of Japan-China relations. But seeing the place for myself, everyone we’ve met have all been really nice. It’s taught me not to have a prejudiced opinion about anything.
The fans also all seemed to know our songs and study Japanese. I was impressed and we can feel that they’ve really been waiting a long time for this.”

Saga “There’s not much of a rock scene in China, so the live house environment still seems to be developing. I hope that that environment expands further as the rock scene continues to grow. But what I discovered was that people and the things we're all looking for really aren’t any different. There were fans that told us they’d been waiting 10 years for us to come and visit and those feelings came through to us during our concerts.”

Nao “The people in China were far nicer than what we imagined – that left a big impression on me. They were really friendly when we asked for directions, and some even came up to us and asked if there wasn’t anything we were having troubles with. One of the most memorable episodes was in Guangzhou, though. In the middle of our performance, the airflow to the stage just stopped, so we weren’t getting any oxygen and I started to get this really intense headache. It came time for our encore, so I went outside and I was puffing and panting when someone from one of the nearby restaurants came over looking concerned and asked me in broken Japanese, “Nani ka irimasenka?” (“Can I get you something?”) So I asked for some ice and they brought it to me straight away. This really made me happy.
The temperature on stage is high no matter we perform and as our bodies heat up, it’s like we’re all possessed by this thing that pushes us past our limits and that’s what I saw from my position at the back of the group. This tour has made me want to aim even higher, learn more about other countries, and perform more concerts all over the world where our fans are waiting for us.”

Hiroto “Our Japan Tour ended and I began feeling anxious knowing that our next leg would be China. We had a lot of stuff to take with us and I was worried that we wouldn’t like the food – things like that. But with each day we spent in China, I learned that the people are nice, they’re polite, and my impression of China changed completely. For me personally, China was a very easy place to be in. What tastes good, tastes good. What's cool is cool. I learned that there aren’t any national borders if you go through a particular door. You shouldn’t judge a country just based on the rumors you hear or what you see in the news.”