X JAPAN's THE LAST LIVE at Tokyo Dome, December 31, 1997

About the artist

X JAPAN began as X, a band started in high school by the drummer and pianist Yoshiki and the singer Toshl (then written Toshi), who had known each other since the age of four^[1][2]. The formation is usually dated to 1982^[3][1], and the guitarist Hide joined in 1987^[4]. In 1988 the band released its first album, Vanishing Vision, on Extasy Records, a label Yoshiki had founded; on April 21, 1989, it made its major-label debut with BLUE BLOOD^[2][5]. According to the music site BARKS, the phrase “Psychedelic Violence Crime of Visual Shock” on that album's cover is often cited as the origin of the term visual kei^[2].

Jealousy (1991) went to No. 1 on the national chart^[2]. That year the band first played Tokyo Dome, and in 1992 it became the first Japanese act to play there three nights in a row^[6]. The bassist Taiji left in January 1992^[7]; after Heath, introduced by Hide, took his place, the band renamed itself X JAPAN^[8][2]. “Forever Love” (1996), the theme song of an animated film of Clamp's manga X, is described on Yoshiki's official site as one of the band's signature ballads^[9].

Why this was thought to be the end

The breakup was set off in 1997 by Toshl's announcement that he was leaving^[10][11], at a time the music site Natalie describes as the height of the band's popularity^[10]. In a 2007 magazine interview, as reported by Natalie, Toshl gave as the reason that he and Yoshiki had come to want different things^[12]. Looking back in 2011, Yoshiki said the last concert was held amid grief and pain, as the end of everything^[13]. After THE LAST LIVE at Tokyo Dome on December 31, 1997, X JAPAN broke up^[14][15].

Ten years later, in October 2007, the band announced on its official website a new song, “I.V.,” the theme for the film Saw IV. Yoshiki, Toshl, Pata and Heath played on it, and it sampled unreleased guitar recordings by Hide^[16][17]. According to Oricon, the announcement spoke not of a reunion but of a “worldwide debut”^[16]. Yoshiki said it all began with a request for the film's theme song^[18], and that month he told a morning TV show that this time he wanted a clean ending^[19]. In March 2008 the band played three nights at Tokyo Dome, its first concerts in ten years^[20][21]. Because X JAPAN came back under the same name, this archive places the 1997 show in the category “Not the end after all.”

What is known about the day

The show was titled THE LAST LIVE ~Saigo no Yoru~ (“the last night”)^[14]; no official or press figure for the attendance has been found. The track list of the later video shows how the night went. It opened with “Amethyst” and moved into “Rusty Nail,” and the set took in songs including “WEEK END,” “DAHLIA” and “Kurenai” (“crimson”), with drum and piano solos along the way^[22][23]. According to Natalie, the footage of “Forever Love” shows Yoshiki and Toshl embracing, and members playing in tears^[24].

Toward the end came “X” and “ENDLESS RAIN.” After a curtain call to a recording of “Say Anything,” the band played its final song, “THE LAST SONG”^[22][25]. Tower Records' description of the video calls it the song with which Toshl laid down his microphone^[23]. Recordings of “Tears” and “UNFINISHED” followed; in the complete video, the two come with a slideshow^[26][27].

Tokyo Dome was not quite the band's last appearance, though. Later that day X JAPAN appeared on the 48th Kohaku Uta Gassen^[11] and performed “Forever Love”^[28]. A Natalie column calls that the band's last stage^[11], and Oricon, writing in 2015, called it the band's breakup performance^[29]. This page covers the Tokyo Dome show as the band's last concert.

What the show left behind

On January 1, 1998, the day after the breakup, Hide launched his solo project, hide with Spread Beaver^[14]. He died on May 2 that year, aged 33^[30].

The concert came out on May 30, 2001, as a three-CD set, The Last Live^[25]. The 2002 video, THE LAST LIVE VIDEO^[31], left out “THE LAST SONG”^[26][32]. Yoshiki has said that he could not watch the footage at first. About two years later, urged by the record company's president, he began editing it, but he watched in tears and could get no further than “ENDLESS RAIN”^[13].

A complete edition on DVD followed on October 26, 2011^[33]. Running about 220 minutes, it added five tracks missing from the earlier DVD, “THE LAST SONG” among them^[26][32], and reached No. 3 on Oricon's weekly DVD chart, the first time a live DVD by the band had made the top three^[32]. In an interview at the time, Yoshiki said that with the band moving forward again, he could now see the last live as a point along the way, “not a period, but a comma”^[13]. The Blu-ray came out on September 25, 2013^[23][34].

On New Year's Eve 2015, X JAPAN returned to Kohaku for the first time in 18 years and played a medley against footage of the 1997 breakup concert, with Hide's guitar and Taiji's bass on the stage^[29]. The documentary We Are X, which won an editing award at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival^[3], opened in Japan on March 3, 2017^[35]; a bonus disc in its Blu-ray/DVD release carries “Kurenai” and “Forever Love” from December 31, 1997^[36]. In September 2020 the satellite channel WOWOW aired the complete edition^[37]. The former bassist Taiji died on July 17, 2011, aged 45^[38], and Heath died on October 29, 2023, aged 55^[39][8].

The band that had called its farewell “the last night” was back at Tokyo Dome, under the same name, ten years later.