On April 22nd, all-female Visual Kei band exist trace made their debut in the United States at Seattle�s Sakura Con 2011.

Fans started lining up for the concert about an hour before the concert, and there were two lines: a priority line for those that had special pink wristbands, and a line for convention attendees. Everyone was getting pumped up, especially because they could hear the band doing their sound check right next door. The sound check actually seemed to have taken longer than expected, which resulted in doors opening 30 minutes later than scheduled.

As once the doors opened at 7:30 PM, fans rushed in to the front of the stage. The area was set up with lots of seating surrounding a standing area, and many fans, ranging from teenagers to even middle aged adults, rushed in to either grab a seat or a spot in the front of the standing area. While waiting for the actual concert to begin, some staff members were selling orange and red glow sticks along with earplugs.

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At 8:20 PM �or so, the concert began as the lights dimmed down, fog machines released a screen of smoke on the stage, and images of exist trace began to grace the screens on stage. The band walked on the stage, and with strobe lights and bright lights beaming, the concert began with loud thumping noises as their opening number started: "JUDEA".

At the beginning, vocalist Jyou�s microphone seemed to not have been working, as on the screen you could see her singing and belting out notes, but the bass, drums, and guitars of the other members seemed to have been overpowering them. The crowd wasn�t sure how to react to it, and they seemed dead and confused. However, during the middle of their second song, "VANGUARD", Jyou�s microphone came back up, and as soon as that happened, the crowd cheered even louder than you could have initially anticipated.



Throughout the concert, the middle screen featured the band�s name in the center, while the two side screens showed close up shots of each member and even spanned the whole stage once in a while. You could see how detailed their make-up was, and that they have very unique and cool senses of style. There was constant white and bright lighting that made their skin seem really clear and a cream/pale color, and their style of clothing was like punk rock meets Harajuku girl, which was very cool.

Their songs themselves had awesome beats and passionate lyrics. All of their songs had strong bass and drumbeats pounding out the songs� beats for fans to rock and bob their heads to, and there were moments in their set where the guitarists had amazing solo rips and features. For the most part though, the songs were very powerfully loud and blew the crowd away. So loud enough, you could hear the performance clearly even with ear plugs on. Nonetheless, their performance was well rehearsed and was a very powerful statement that they were ready to go global.

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Jyou, the vocalist, did a good job in pulling the crowd in and getting them pumped for their performance. Most of the speaking was done in Japanese, enough so that it was easy to understand for the crowd. At some parts of the songs, words weren�t needed to get the crowd to sway their hands to the beat or jump up and down to the beats. It was a great example of music being a universal language where you don�t need spoken words to understand one another.

As the concert came to an end ,with Jyou screaming out, �Seattle, Domo Arigatou!�, the band walked off stage, and as expected, the crowd immediately called for an encore performance.

To meet the expectations of the crowd, the band came out and vocalist Jyou spoke for a moment. Drummer Mally and Jyou carried a US flag and a Japanese flag with the word "KIZUNA" written on them.



It was at that time that Jyou spoke in Japanese about her gratitude towards the US people for their support following the tragedy that struck Japan last month. She explained that the reason why they wrote the word "KIZUNA" was because she felt the strength in the heart-to-heart relationship between the US and Japan. She constantly said thank you and expressed her deep gratitude for the US fans and people for their support for their country. At times you could hear fans in the crowd shouting, �Doitashimashite�, and cheering for the band and Japan.

Following Jyou�s heartfelt speech about the bond between the US and Japan, exist trace finished off with their encore number, �RESONANCE�. During the song, Jyou introduced the band members giving them time for a small but featured solo, as the crowd continued to bob their head and jump up in down in support for the band.

After the song ended, the band member through their water bottles out into the crowd, drummer Mally threw out her drumsticks, and the guitarists threw out their picks for fans to catch. As they left, guitarist Miko took a picture of the crowd with her camera phone.

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With quite a great deal of anticipation loaded onto their backs, it's safe to say that exist trace made a great first impression on fans and proved to everyone that they are indeed ready for a major label debut!

Check out the Photo Gallery from the event!

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<exist trace Sakura Con 2011 Set List>

JUDEA
VANGUARD
(New Song) TRUE
Ambivalence
Requiem
Cradle
Orleans no Shoujo
DECIDE
Liquid
Owari no nai Sekai
(Encore) RESONANCE

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Photography by:�Kevin Chang