New Year’s Makeup

X Japan may have postponed its year-end stadium shows in order to consolidate its reunion appeal for its 2009 world tour, but that doesn’t mean the band couldn’t give its local fans a bit of a taste.

On New Year’s Eve the original “visual-kei” pop metal band played at Akasaka Blitz, a live house in Tokyo that holds about 1,500 people, but the concert was beamed live to 13 movie theaters throughout Japan.

About 10,000 fans got to see the group perform, which is only a fraction of the 150,000 who saw their reunion concerts last spring.

However, two Japanese satellite TV channels also carried the concert live, and it was also available on Internet site DMM.com.