Believe this or not, we this weekend started at super-early on Saturday, when I took literally the first bus out to Madrid, and I think I was there around 7:30 or something to meet my friend. She had been having a rough time and she had asked me to “keep her head off things”. Up until a couple of days before, we did not even know whether she’d been able to come to the concert, so I had a whole plan up my sleeve. Unfortunately, a couple of steps backfired (^◇^；)

First we had breakfast at the coach station where we met, to catch up and to give shops and so on the time to open up. When it was a decent hour we took the underground to drop our luggage at the hotel (the lovely EXE Moncloa, even if I’ll be forever traumatised that the terrace was not open ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡). Then we took the underground again towards the neighbourhood of Chueca, and I had looked up a bunch of Goth apparel shop that… did not open at 10:00 as expected, but at 12:00 (≧▽≦).

Fortunately, some make-up shops were already open and we were able to pass the time amicably before we ended up at the TeamLab exhibit – that I had already seen, yes, I know, but she had not ☆⌒(ゝ。∂)

After playing out in the exhibit for a while, we moved onto the Callao Gourmet Experience for a snack. I wanted to introduce her to the Niji Mochi shop, and we also shared a chocolate ice-cream shake.

Afterwards we were shopping for a little before we moved on to have lunch. I had a surprise for her. While I care little to nothing about Korean food, she is a fan of everything Korean, so we hit one of the best Korean restaurants in Madrid, called Seoul. I gave her free reign to order for both of us and we shared. In my not so humble opinion as blog owner, the best was the green tea at the end.

Once fed, we went on and found an underground station and we rode towards the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, National Archaeological Museum, although we had not realised that it was museum day so instead of a quiet exhibition we had to deal with a ton of families!

After that, my friend was tired from spending all night in the bus, so we went to the hotel to finish our check in process. On the way we stopped and bought a few snacks for the following day because you always have to be ready for a post-concert low.

We found out that we had not one but three Japanese restaurants in the area where we were staying, and we happily went to have dinner in one of them, called Naniwa. We had some decent sushi and takoyaki, and ordered takoyaki seconds because we had a discount (≧▽≦).

The next morning we went to the venue door around 9:00 and upon seeing nobody queueing yet, we went to have breakfast, then walked around the Moncloa park area, mostly chatting, until we went back to the venue. And went back to the venue. And went back to the venue again, just to find there were still no people in the queue.

In the end we ran into the supporting bands went to have lunch in a second Japanese restaurant in the block, Morikaen. On our way there we walked past a family all clad in “Sunday clothes”, and their little girl wearing aaaall white who just stared at us – in rock-goth black – with pure envy in her eyes. Here’s to you, little one. You’ll get there too.

After lunch, I decided that I was too tired to go up and down the streets and we stayed back to wait for the venue to open before we got into the chaos that was the concert. Honestly, I think this has been the worst-organised concert I’ve ever attended. My friend C***** and I had Premium tickets (there were five of them on sale), which included a handshake with the band, a picture with a member, autographs from all, the opportunity to purchase a Polaroid with the whole band (well… and either a backstage or soundcheck pass that never happened).

Jupiter is a Japanese heavy metal band with a very distinctive visual-kei style, and honestly we only decided to go because it was… easy and convenient, well-communicated and an opportunity to spend a weekend decompressing somewhere. As the time drew near and we could access more stuff, the excitement built up – I also managed to find the album they were promoting and it sounded really well, actually.

There were two support bands, a German one called VII ARC, and a Japanese one. As we went in, I sent C***** to the first row to save my spot and I tried to find out whatever was going to happen with the VIP extras because communication seems not to be the promoter’s first language. It turns out, the experience was throughout the supporting band’s act. Good thing I had asked, else we would have missed it (as someone did! One of the Premium tickets did not show up, and most VIPs never got their chance to even buy the Polaroid).

I got to talk to the support bassist as we waited for the picture, because the had been kicked out from backstage for the pictures – poor guy. Then I had my picture taken with Teru, my favourite member (I swear that if I ever get to do this again, I’m choosing Hizaki cause he’s just amazing). The problem with placing the experience there was that… well, we lost our spot and missed half of the Japanese support band’s acts – fesFe[M], who in the half concert I watched blew my mind. I mean, absolutely blew my mind. They are also a V-kei band, and they’re currently running with a “doll” theme and they were just fantastic.

The Jupiter concert was as expected, very energetic and fun. Even if we had lost our spot, the venue has some lateral raised spots, and I found a good place at a low staircase that allowed me to lean back and not be in too much pain – basically we watched the concert next to the fesFe[M] bass (≧▽≦). Kuze, Jupiter’s vocal, was really good live, more than expected.

After the concert, we bought fesFe[M]’s autographs and got our pictures with them, when we headed back to the hotel and had some dinner, and the following day we parted ways, a bit sad but happy that we had had the chance to meet up and have a fantastic weekend!