This story actually begins long before May 2026, forging behind the scenes sometime in 2023. On the 13th of November that year, the Austrian Embassy in Tokyo held a ceremony to appoint Japanese singer Hyde as “Ambassador of Tourism for Austria”. Technically, a “tourism ambassador” is a trained professional who deals with tourist experiences, but in this case, Hyde’s job was promoting a country he had never visited and encouraging his fans to travel there. And he did the work so well that the assignment was extended. He later travelled to Vienna and Salzburg to make whole photo books and film promotional music videos. He also promoted trips from Japan and popped up into the Austrian pavilion in the Osaka Expo.
Hideto Takarai, known artistically as Hyde was born in Wakayama, Japan, in 1969. The year 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of his music activities, either with the rock band L’Arc~En~Ciel [ラルク アン シエル | Laruku an Shieru], VAMPS, or on his own. He has sporadically collaborated with other artists such as Starset and Yoshiki, with whom he also worked on the the failed “supergroup” The Last Rockstars alongside Miyavi and Sugizo. In 2019, Hyde became the Tourism Ambassador for his hometown, and in 2021 he received a commendation for his activities (maybe that inspired the Austrians?), and he seemed pretty comfortable promoting the place. The city even opened a commemorative gallery in the town hall to thank him for his efforts (which included his own train).
During the European leg of the Hyde [Inside] Live 2025 World Tour there was a lot of speculation and questioning about no stops in Austria. I mean, they must have some live houses, along with all those amazing classical music halls, mustn’t they? Even before the [Inside] tour was over, on the 26th of October 2025, a new one was announced – Hyde Orchestra Tour 2026 JEKYLL. It was an acoustic tour, with classical arrangements of his greatest hits and new songs. Right up Austria’s alley, don’t you think?
Any rumour of an Austrian concert was, however, met with a firm “no” at first. Until on the 23rd of December, it turned out that… yes, there was a concert scheduled for Vienna, the capital of Austria – a special live named Hyde Orchestra Tour 2026 JEKYLL in Wien. And it was, I kid you not, aimed at Japanese fans, to the point that there was an organised trip from Japan that for around half a million yen, which provided tickets, hotel with breakfast, basic airfare and transfers airport-hotel-venue. There were a lot of “not included” items, one of them being a day trip from Vienna to Salzburg, (three hours each way. I toyed with doing something similar, but changed my mind) to visit some of the spots chosen for photos and videos.
At 00:00 on the 13th of January 2026, tickets went on sale through the Wiener Konzerthaus website, and by the time I managed to get through the “buy tickets” English page, my friend D****e had already succeeded in securing seats for both of us in the first row on sale (115 € per person), using the German version. I was extremely impressed.
As soon as I had dates locked, I booked my plane tickets and blocked those days out of the calendar, then got the hotel room. Since D****e and I had decided to bunk together, we had a virtual planning meeting in early April. I was tasked with buying train tickets, she was with booking restaurants, as she wanted to try places that Hyde had visited beforehand. We also agreed that we would not do everything together, but split up for a few hours both Sunday and Monday – as we had some different priorities. Hence, the weekend before I left, I got myself some tickets and made my own plans, which would also give me some time alone to get into my head space and recharge.
We would both arrive in Vienna on Friday the 22nd, meet at the hotel, and plan the day from there, depending on how jet-lagged she was. On Saturday the 23rd, we would take a day trip to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Back in Austria, on Sunday we planned to take a short trip to the Alps, then split until the evening. The concert would take place on Monday – assigned seats meant no need to queue up, which is always good news. We left Tuesday rather open to see what we felt like.
It was going to be an intense few days and a couple of early mornings, but she was going to be in the wrong time-zone and I would be in early-morning mode anyway.
