LUNA SEA's last concert before the "final act": Tokyo Dome, December 27, 2000

About the artist

LUNA SEA are RYUICHI (vocals), SUGIZO (guitar and violin), INORAN (guitar), J (bass) and Shinya (drums)^[1]. The band grew out of LUNACY, a group that J and INORAN played in; SUGIZO and Shinya joined, and RYUICHI came last. The five played their first show together on May 29, 1989, and then changed the name to LUNA SEA. RYUICHI recalls getting to know the other four in his late teens through the shows they played, and being drawn by how seriously they meant to make a life of music; he has called it a miracle that the five of them met in a small town in Kanagawa Prefecture^[2]. Their fans are known as SLAVE^[1][3].

The band's first album, LUNA SEA, came out in 1991 on Extasy Records, the label run by YOSHIKI of X JAPAN, and the second, IMAGE, was their major-label debut in 1992^[4][5]. The 1994 single "ROSIER" became a long-running hit, and the band moved up to Tokyo Dome and Yokohama Stadium^[4]; the tour for the album MOTHER ended at their first Tokyo Dome show, LUNATIC TOKYO^[6]. In 1996, at the Yokohama Stadium finale of the tour for STYLE, they announced a one-year break^[6]. On May 30, 1999, they marked their tenth anniversary with CAPACITY∞, an outdoor show in a parking lot in Odaiba, Tokyo, for about 100,000 people^[2].

Why this was thought to be the end

Looking back in 2019, RYUICHI said the Odaiba show had left him with a sense of having gone as far as he could go, of having reached a dead end^[2].

The first single of 2000 was "gravity," a song the band would later introduce as the one that opened the door to their year 2000^[7]. That year's album took the band's old name, LUNACY, and it turned out to be their last studio album before the end^[8][2]. The tour behind it, BRAND NEW CHAOS, continued in the autumn as ACT II and reached the Taipei Municipal Zhongshan Soccer Stadium in Taiwan on November 18, 2000^[9]. Reviewing a 2024 re-creation of that tour, the BARKS writer Hiroko Goto described the five as barely holding their balance in 2000 as they pressed on toward the end^[10].

The news broke in November 2000. On November 7, the sports daily Sports Nippon ran it as an exclusive^[4]. The band announced the shūmaku together with its fourteenth single, "LOVE SONG"^[11], and said that the two Tokyo Dome shows on December 26 and 27 would close its history^[12][8].

The choice of word mattered to fans. Writing later for the entertainment site Hominis, Hiroko Yamamoto said their one slim hope was that the band had chosen "final act" rather than "breakup," and recalled the many fans in tears as they tried to accept the ending^[3]. In 2023, Real Sound counted the shows among the breakup and farewell concerts held at Tokyo Dome^[5]. This page follows that reading: in name a final act, in effect a breakup, filed under "Breakup."

No reason given at the time of the announcement could be confirmed from reports of the period. Almost twenty years later, RYUICHI offered what he stressed was his own view. What keeps a band going, he told SPICE, is respect for each other; by 2000 the band had become routine, the members had grown used to it, and friction had built up. He thinks the five went off into different worlds to avoid falling into something they could not come back from, and he adds that LUNA SEA did not fall^[2].

Even so, the night did not stay the last. The five played a one-night comeback at the same Tokyo Dome on December 24, 2007, and that show led to a full restart as LUNA SEA in August 2010, under the name "REBOOT"^[4]. That is why this page files the show as "Not the end after all."

What is known about the day

December 27, 2000, was the second night of LUNA SEA THE FINAL ACT TOKYO DOME^[13][5]. No official attendance figure or contemporary report of the crowd size was found. Over the two nights, many fans in the building were reported to be in tears as they mourned the end of the band^[5][3].

Both nights were later released in full on the concert film THE FINAL ACT TOKYO DOME^[14]. Of its two discs, the first opens with "WISH" and closes with the new single "LOVE SONG"; the second opens with "LOVELESS" and closes with "WISH"^[15]. The live album NEVER SOLD OUT 2 credits that "LOVE SONG" to Tokyo Dome on December 26^[16], and Real Sound names "LOVELESS" as the first song of the final act^[7], so this page treats the second disc as the closing night of December 27. The retail track lists do not label the discs by date^[15][17]. If that reading is right, "WISH" opened the first night and closed the second.

"LOVELESS" is the song BARKS describes as the band's standard opener^[9]. After "Dejavu" and "JESUS," DJ KRUSH joined the band for two songs, "Sweetest Coma Again" and "KISS." No song with him appears on the first night's disc^[15].

The middle of the set included "gravity," the song that had opened the band's year^[7], and after "VIRGIN MARY" came "LINX-III," a drum solo by Shinya followed by a bass solo by J^[17]. The closing stretch ran from "ROSIER," the 1994 hit^[4], through "TONIGHT," "I for You" and "MOON," then "PRECIOUS..." and "UP TO YOU" before the last song. Leaving out the solo spot, the band played twenty-three songs that night^[15]. Where the encores began could not be confirmed from the sources.

In his last words from the stage that night, RYUICHI said that in a way a lot of things would begin from here, and asked the audience to keep their eyes open and chase what they truly believed in^[7].

The last song was "WISH"^[15]. It would close the one-night comeback seven years later^[18] and the first night of the 2010 world tour as well^[9].

After that night the five went their separate ways, and LUNA SEA went into what BARKS later called a seven-year sleep^[10]. When the band returned in 2007, the BARKS writer Yuichi Masuda began his report by counting the seven years since the final act at the end of 2000^[18].

What the show left behind

The two nights became the concert film THE FINAL ACT TOKYO DOME, reissued at a lower price as a two-disc set on November 22, 2006^[17]. On November 4, 2020, a two-disc DVD with both nights in full came out again for a limited period as part of a Universal Music video campaign^[14]. The 2014 live album NEVER SOLD OUT 2 includes "LOVE SONG" from the first night, December 26, among live recordings from 1992 to 2013^[16].

The five first stood on a stage together again at Tokyo Dome on December 24, 2007. About 55,000 tickets for the one-night comeback, GOD BLESS YOU ~One Night Dejavu~, sold out in five minutes^[13]. According to Yuichi Masuda of BARKS, the show ran for more than three hours in front of a packed house of about 55,000. It opened with "LOVELESS" and ended with "WISH," the same first and last songs as the final act, and RYUICHI closed by telling the crowd they would meet again someday, under some sky somewhere^[18].

RYUICHI later said that the idea at the time was simply to get together because it was only one night. Playing as a five-piece again, he felt a particular pressure in the sound that no other players could give him, and a sense of coming home. Afterward the members parted saying that this band really was something and that they wanted to do it again. It took about three more years to restart properly, and RYUICHI credits that to the respect at the root of the band^[2].

On August 25, 2010, the band announced an urgent press conference in Hong Kong for August 31, to be streamed live around the world^[12]. It was a full restart, under the name "REBOOT"^[4]. The world tour opened on November 27, 2010 (local time) in Bochum, Germany. BARKS reported that in front of about 3,000 people the band opened with "LOVELESS" and closed with "WISH," and that RYUICHI said LUNA SEA had been completely reborn as a new band that night. The same report said the Taipei show of November 18, 2000, from the BRAND NEW CHAOS ACT II tour just before the end, would be released as a live album for the first time^[9]. The tour ended with three nights at Tokyo Dome from December 23^[13].

Since the restart, LUNA SEA have taken to replaying their old albums as the band they are now: IMAGE and EDEN at Saitama Super Arena in December 2018, MOTHER and STYLE on the 2023 DUAL ARENA TOUR. In 2024, for the 35th anniversary, they began ERA TO ERA, a tour re-creating the tours for the albums released before the end in December 2000^[6]. When the BRAND NEW CHAOS show was re-created that May, Hiroko Goto of BARKS reported that the opening sound effect was the same one used on the 2000 tour and that the songs of LUNACY were unsealed for the first time in 24 years; "gravity" was introduced as the song that had opened the band's year 2000, and Goto heard a different kind of intensity in "VIRGIN MARY" than in 2000^[10]. Another BRAND NEW CHAOS re-creation, at Sonic City in Ōmiya on October 16, was broadcast live, and THE FINAL ACT TOKYO DOME was shown on television in November and December^[8].

The tour ended at Tokyo Dome on February 23, 2025, the band's first headline show there in fourteen years^[1] and, by Shueisha Online's count, its tenth at the venue^[13]. Tomoko Imai of Real Sound described more than 40,000 fans dressed in black. When The Cure's "Torture," playing over the house speakers, cut out and the lights went down, the screens showed footage of the December 27, 2000, show, followed by RYUICHI's last words from that night. The first song was "LOVELESS," as it had been at the final act. Imai wrote that the five had come this far by doing exactly what he had asked of the crowd that night: chasing what they believed in^[7]. During "WISH" in the encore, silver streamers filled the air^[1].

Shinya died on February 17, 2026, at the age of 56^[19].

The two songs that opened and closed the final act held the same places on the night of the comeback seven years later and on the first night of the restart ten years later.