Earlier this year GRANRODEO announced the release of their 24th single “Trash Candy,” featured as the opening theme of the anime series Bungo Stray Dogs. But when they announced their long-awaited national tour, Honey-chan couldn’t be more excited. She fell in love with GRANRODEO from the first note, when she listened to the song “Can Do”, the opening theme for Kuroko’s Basketball.

GRANRODEO’s members, vocalist KISHOW, and guitarist e-ZUKA, are well known for creating several anime soundtracks, including the opening themes of anime series like Togainu no Chi, Needless, Karneval, and the ending theme of The Seven Deadly Sins in collaboration with the alternative punk rock band, FLOW. Recently it’s been officially announced that GRANRODEO’s new single will be featured as the second ending for the upcoming second season of the fall anime series Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans.

For this tour, GRANRODEO performed a total of 14 shows on different kind of stages in 6 cities around Japan, including live houses, Osaka Castle Band Shell, and Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall. This is where Honey-chan dragged Bee-kun to with her, because apparently he was feeling down and not in the mood to go see a rock show. But when they arrived to the Hibiya Park, Bee-kun thought he was seeing things, having some kind of an optical illusion produced by the heat and the humidity of the afternoon, as he looked around the entrance of the hall he noticed that the audience was almost all girls, yes, girls everywhere, wearing short shorts and… bikini tops.

As they entered, a huge double deck stage filled with a wall of amps reminded them that GRANRODEO is a hard rock band, and that this show was going to be loud!. Honey-chan and Bee-kun arrived to their seats, and while Bee-kun was happily scanning all the girls in the audience taking their GRANRODEO’s t-shirts off, Honey-chan was piercing the stage with her eyes.

It was still sunny, when 4 girls entered the upper stage carrying flashy outfits and pom-poms and started dancing to the rythm of the heartwarming intro. Drummer, Ichirou“VAL”Nagai, entered the stage, followed by bassist, Isamu Takita, who started jamming until, finally, appeared guitarist e-ZUKA, and vocalist, KISHOW, and of course the crowd went crazy.

They opened the show with “bararai” a single released last year to celebrate the 10th anniversary of GRANRODEO's first album debut. This is the perfect summer tune, catchy pop verses and funky guitars, this song got the crowd dancing all along. Then suddenly, transitioning from funky to a harder and faster sound they performed “tRANCE”, which many remember as the 2nd opening theme for the Black God anime series. More heavy guitar riffs kept coming with the song “Outsider” which triggered a massive headbanging, and the whole park sang along the chorus as if it's a war cry.

Isamu Takita slapped an intro on the bass to introduce “Nichijou Horizon” and again the funkyness was back. KISHOW not only has the voice to go up and down in a variety of tones from song to song, but also his stage persona changes according to the song, we can see him dancing, headbanging, being silly, or “kawaii” according to the song. So he transfromed into a passionate performer while singing one of his hit song “Darlin'”.

The heat and energy on stage was such that they all had to leave the stage to grasp for some air backstage, but wait!, the drummer was still on his drums set and he kept performing alone. After an impressive drums solo, Isamu Takita came back on stage and started to jam, was that a fluffy white tail attached to his bass?

The song “SEA OF STARS” brought back the four nice-looking dancers on stage. Yep, they were the eye-candy for the almost imperceptible male audience. KISHOW and e-ZUKA came back on stage re-energized and from that moment on, the show got darker and louder. Well, literally the atmosphere got darker, the sun was completely down and the lighting show began. One of the highlights of the night was the performance of the song “Summer GT09 Koi no HEAT WAVE” with a guitar solo that seemed endless. Yes, e-ZUKA we get it, playing the guitar comes to you as natural as breathing, but we, simple mortals, can’t help but to hold our breath till you finish your epic long guitar solos, give us a break.

Time to chill, e-ZUKA was handed an acoustic guitar and a chair, and KISHOW also sat down to sing “Ima Yori Saki Wo” where we could appreciate his superb singing skills. Exit acoustic guitar and enter the mean and heavy riffs of the electric guitar, everyone screamed their lungs out, is “TRASH CANDY” and of course everyone knew the lyrics. Not time to rest, they melted our faces with “Rose Hip Bullet”, the heaviest song of the night, followed by “Kanariya” and “Go For It! “style EDGE””, and it was in this song where out of nowhere water was released with high pressure to the whole audience.

In order to help the crowd shake off the moist of their bodies, they played “modern strange cowboy” and the massive headbanging continued non-stop with the catchy riffs of “memories”. They left the stage, crowd started calling them in perfect synchronization, while the male voices screamed “gu ra n”, the females voices finished it up with a “ro de o”.

They all came back on stage with the dancers!, all of them looking fresh in their colorful outfits. They performed "Y・M・E", one of the favorite songs of the audience as they knew exactly what to do and what to say, GRANRODEO's fans club are well trained!. “Shanimuni” and “Can Do” were the two final songs, but thi is not over, to wrap up the night, KISHOW climbed the stairs to the second deck, and half confident half hesitant he jumped off.

GRANRODEO's concert was not only about playing music, this was a very entertaining show where many things happened on and off stage. Starting with the sexy dancers who were excellent!, the many outfits and instruments changes during the whole performance. KISHOW interacting with the crowd inside and outside the hall. They even brought on stage a birthday cake with Gra-P written on it, and everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to KISHOW whose birthday was a couple of days earlier. KISHOW telling the everyone that he was turning 17!

Isamu Takita catched a cicada that was on stage and threw it to the audience. KISHOW, even dedicated a song to the people who were still working in the surrounding buildings as he noticed that many office windows were still lit on a Sunday night.

GRANRODEO’s music is anything but boring, they have it all, from ear-catching songs to hard rock faster tunes. Not being bound to a specific genre, from animation songs to rock music, GRANRODEO keep attracting many fans. So don’t miss the chance to see their performance!