In April of 2025, after nearly six years away, DIR EN GREY made a powerful return to the U.S. with a sold-out, three-night run in Los Angeles and Anaheim, California. Drawing a combined crowd of approximately 6,000 fans across April 8, 9, and 11, the performances reaffirmed the band’s enduring legacy and the fierce devotion of their North American audience.

The tour, TOUR25 WHO IS THIS HELL FOR?, featured two distinct subtitles: “[mode of VULGAR]” and “[mode of Withering to death.]”. Each performance highlighted the band’s latest material alongside selections from one of the two landmark albums. The result was a setlist that honored their legacy while reinforcing the thematic cohesion of DIR EN GREY’s dark, evolving sound.

This report focuses on the April 8 performance: TOUR25 WHO IS THIS HELL FOR? [mode of VULGAR] at The Belasco Theatre in Los Angeles. We hope you enjoy reading about the throwbacks, the twists and turns in the setlists, and the visuals we will never forget.

The Waiting Room

Entering The Belasco feels like stepping into a manifestation of DIR EN GREY’s world. The lighting is dim and restless, sliding across worn surfaces that remind me of weathered skin. Red lamps cast a brooding glow over vacant bars; stairwells twist into shadowy corners like dark arteries into unseen chambers. Erected in the 1920s as a performing arts theater, the venue has been both “a house of God” and “a den of debauchery”, hosting everything from Broadway to burlesque to Pentecostal sermons. It’s a space steeped in contrast, a perfect analog for DIR EN GREY’s duality.

Inside the auditorium, the floor slopes gently toward the stage, a vestige of the venue’s theatrical past. Above, a domed ceiling glows cold indigo, while red and gold Spanish Renaissance flourishes blur under the shifting lights. DIR EN GREY’s acoustic tracks and B-sides drift overhead, soothing but uneasy. It’s the quiet before impact, a building tension as the venue fills with fans who’ve waited nearly six years for their live return. It feels like the sterile calm of a hospital waiting room.

Then the lights cut out, sharp as the snap of a surgical glove. DIR EN GREY will see you now.

The Operating Theater

Darkness erupts into chaos. The band enters in ritual order, to an electro soundtrack: first Shinya on drums, then Die on guitar, followed by Toshiya on bass, and Kaoru, the band’s guitarist and stoic leader. Then, after a charged, deliberate pause, vocalist Kyo finally emerges.

Tonight, DIR EN GREY is draped in opulence, their costumes reflecting VULGAR‘s gothic decadence with luxe textures and jewel tones. Kaoru wears a brocade jacket over billowing bishop sleeves, regal and restrained. Toshiya’s sweeping red gown floats like smoke, thigh-high leather boots flashing beneath a high slit. Die is swathed in brilliant black and red florals, his long blond hair fluttering in the stage breeze. Shinya offers contrast in ethereal white, a ghostly flicker in the gloom. Kyo dons a slick black Chinese-style shirt and weighty pleated skirt, which billows with his gait as he approaches the central riser. Of the five members, Kyo’s sharp, bleached haircut and razor-thin eyeliner most faithfully evoke the band’s early 2000s image.

Kyo, vocalist of DIR EN GREY.Zephyr (JROCK NEWS)

Suddenly, the first notes of Ningen wo Kaburu twinkle on guitar, sharp and sterile, like the glint of a scalpel. A silver screen towers behind the band, flashing scenes from the song’s music video: clinical, surreal, grotesque. On cue, the crowd screams in unison: “Blessing to lose heart!”. The gang shout slices through the venue as the band launches into a raw, ravenous performance. Die and Toshiya rush to the edge of the stage, reaching for fans. Kyo circles his riser, hand to chest, the other stretched toward the crowd, who echo every word of the chorus. In just one song, the bond is sealed.

They plunge into The Devil In Me, performed for the first time outside Japan. On stage, the song relays all the wickedness and tortured longing of the studio version, shifting between brutal beat changes and hollow, aching a cappella. Fans raise their hands against blinding lights, Kyo’s cries turning surrender into communion.

Kaoru, guitarist of DIR EN GREYNori (JROCK NEWS)

With these first two songs, it seems as if we’ve crossed a threshold. Passing the unspoken initiation, the band pivots into the first VULGAR track of the night. A solemn guitar line trickles in, building in rising urgency with Shinya’s tight drum line. “They’re playing DRAIN AWAY“, I realize, breath catching on a lump in my throat.

Kyo’s voice crashes into the chorus, raw and full-bodied. The crowd joins in, swept up in passionate tandem. I’m overcome. I remember watching pixelated, low-resolution clips of this song on YouTube as a teenager, thinking I’d never get to see it live. Now it floods me, tangible, immediate, and impossibly close. The song’s video flickers behind the band like an old film reel. The screen becomes a diorama of memory, nostalgia threaded through every frame, which swallows me whole.

This is the exact reason I travelled across the country for these shows: to see this in person, and experience how DIR EN GREY makes any stage a window into their world. In this mysterious place, time stands still.

A brief pause follows as the band resets, an exhale between the chapters of DIR EN GREY. Next is 13, from their latest album PHALARIS. Kyo drags the red cord of his mic across the soft undersides of his wrists, then loops it around his neck and pulls, pantomiming suicide. The crowd screams, not in shock, but recognition, and applauds the emotional weight.

No one expected DIR EN GREY’s next track, Magayasou, from their 2014 album ARCHE. The composition is high-concept and experimental, and the visuals reflect this: a surreal, melting landscape of flowers streaks across the screen in pulsing neon. The band’s production team made the journey too, working to bring the full scale of their Japanese stage design overseas. Each detail feels intentional and well-rehearsed.

As Kyo sings, his movements are sharp and deliberate, like a halting dance. There’s a sense that he’s enjoying this performance, offering a side of himself to the overseas fans that’s usually reserved for his more familiar Japanese audience.

Kyo, vocalist of DIR EN GREY, before an elaborate lighting and stage set up at The Belasco.Zephyr (JROCK NEWS)

Trauma Center

The surgical control of Act One gives way to volatility. It’s impossible to capture each performance in full detail with justice, the way it rushes by. Tension tightens its grip with The Perfume of Sins, where the band shows some of their heaviest work yet. From there, they roll into a trifecta of emotional whiplash with Oboro, VINUSHKA, and KASUMI in rapid succession. They perform the original 2003 arrangement of KASUMI, as released on the album VULGAR.

Everything begins to blur: Kyo’s sobbing theatrics, the birth-trauma gore of Oboro‘s music video, and the frenetic rage of VINUSHKA bleeding into one another. The pit in front of Kyo is feral. Bodies thrash, hair lashes out and sticks to my arms, catching my jewelry. Fans seem less like individuals and more like vibrating cells of the same writhing organism.

On his riser, Kyo locks eyes with the churning chaos. Though he shows little joy, he still seems pleased, almost trying to hide his schadenfreude. Then he offers us a gift, tearing out a deep, ragged scream straight from the pit of his gut. His whole body trembles as sweat pours down his face, and for a moment, it feels like the world might split open—just like the imagery of VINUSHKA‘s brutal music video flashing behind him.

Die, guitarist of DIR EN GREYNori (JROCK NEWS)

KASUMI coils into a VULGAR triple strike with Audience KILLER LOOP and the stabbing, jagged 2011 rearrangement of OBSCURE. The descent is relentless. They close the main set with a one-two punch: Ochita Koto no Aru Sora and Eddie, both fast, furious, and primed for chaos. As the lyrics in Eddie allude, I feel like I can hear the popping of headless carcasses beneath my feet as the crowd thrashes.

After a punishing main set, the band exits. It’s a reprieve that feels like surfacing for air. Between gulps of breath, the crowd chants “DIR EN GREY” and claps in rhythm, trying to summon them back. Many are too wrecked to do more than brace themselves for the encore.

After what feels like an eternity, they return; not with a whisper, but a war cry. The heavy electro opening riff of G.D.S. erupts like a spark to dry tinder, and the crowd answers in unison, heads bobbing, fists flying. It feels like stepping into a scene from one of their classic Japanese concert DVDs. Then comes the real blow: CHILD PREY. I can’t help but laugh, knowing how violently the pit is about to churn. And it does, only to be whipped harder as CHILD PREY barrels straight into THE IIID EMPIRE.

During the bridge, Kyo thrusts the mic toward us and commands, “Sing!” We do, in a unified roar of “Spark and spark!”. He smirks. The band catches fire; Toshiya hurls a mic stand across the stage like a javelin.

The crowd passes one more test of devotion with Uroko. Then, the final toll: Utafumi. Kyo’s primal scream of “Last song!” echoes like a warning shot. At Utafumi‘s peak, the band goes still in a complete break of silence. Kyo rips out his monitor to hear us. He throws his arms in the air as the crowd sings back the bridge, filling the hollow cavity of The Belasco like lungs filling with breath.

Toshiya, bassist of DIR EN GREYNori (JROCK NEWS)

Discharge

After Utafumi, Shinya tosses his drumsticks into the crowd before slipping offstage behind Kyo. Toshiya, Die, and Kaoru linger, casting picks into outstretched hands. Kaoru, ever precise, hurls a guitar pick clean into the second-story balcony.

Until now, each overseas DIR EN GREY tour felt like a sterilized sampler—sealed, shipped, and rationed. As an overseas audience, we were handed curated slices of DUM SPIRO SPERO or The Insulated World every few years, vacuum-packed performances disconnected from the raw, living continuity of their Japanese shows.

However, this time felt different. With [mode of VULGAR], we were invited inside not just as spectators, but participants in their story. The band cracked open their history and let the past bleed into the present. Even as a long-time fan, I finally felt part of their mythos and lineage by attending this show.

Some fans lamented the setlist, hungry for more VULGAR. But Kaoru was clear in his statement: this wasn’t about one-note nostalgia, nor concentrated slices of their latest work. I preferred the living fusion of this tour, which illustrated their journey as a band. This show was not just a tribute to who they were, but who they’ve always been: ever-changing, ruthless, and grotesquely beautiful.

All of this set the bar high for the next night, with [mode of Withering to death.] still to come. Stay tuned for our next report, when we return to the theater for day two.

Also, in case you missed it, be sure to check out our interview with guitarist Die, here.