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X Japan to Perform 1st Large-Scale Concert in 8 Years

YOSHIKI, leader of rock band X Japan, revealed during a Nico Nico live stream on Sunday that the band will hold a three-day concert run in Chiba's Makuhari Messe venue from September 28 to 30. The concert will be the band's first large-scale concert since the 2010 concert at Nissan Stadium in 2010, which drew an audience of 130,000, although the group has performed in smaller scales and venues since then.

X Japan's most notable anime contributions were the songs in the X² music video collection and later X movie. The animation Studio Madhouse adapted both productions from CLAMP's X manga. Recently, YOSHIKI collaborated with HYDE of L'Arc-en-Ciel to perform the ending theme song "Red Swan" for the third season of Attack on Titan. (The song was initially credited to "X Japan featuring HYDE" but was changed to "YOSHIKI featuring HYDE.")

The surviving band members — Toshimitsu "Toshi" Deyama, Yoshiki Hayashi, Tomoaki "Pata" Ishizuka, and Hiroshi "Heath" Morie — reunited in 2007, 10 years after they first disbanded and nine years after the death of guitarist Hideto "Hide" Matsumoto.

YOSHIKI underwent surgery in Los Angeles in May last year. He was diagnosed with cervical foraminal stenosis (narrowing of the cervical disc space) in 2009, and his symptoms reappeared in October 2016. During a European tour last October, he passed out and had to cancel his Reykjavik appearance on orders from his doctor.

Source: X Japan's official website, The Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web