1990
The band is back! They played 2 shows in December 1989, were appearing in magazines again, and had news of new releases and a tour. They would play many shows but not to the extent that they did in 1988 when they were seriously hustling.
I'm not sure of the exact dates but I think during the month of January there were a series of "Buck-Tick Special" video concerts AKA "Captagon Vol. 38". The Captagon company held these video concerts for various bands and Buck-Tick was the main band for this edition. Vol. 38 featured footage of Buck-Tick recording the new album, the artwork photography session, as well as messages from the members.
The single off the long awaited new album was released on January 24 and was entitled "Aku No Hana". The song's lyrics were written by Atsushi and the music by Hisashi. This was the first time Buck-Tick had released a song with Japanese in the title. The lyrics for the songs also contained less English than previously released Buck-Tick songs. "Aku No Hana" was chosen because Atsushi had been reading a poet whose works he enjoys quite a bit, Charles Baudelaire. "Aku No Hana" is taken from his collection of works entitled "Les Fleurs du Mal" (The Flowers of Evil). (The remix album Shapeless released in 1994 translated "Aku No Hana" as "Evil Flowers".) The single's B-side was "Under the Moon Light" and has lyrics by U-ta. It remains U-ta's only songwriting credit in Buck-Tick.
The album was also called Aku No Hana and was released on February 1. This album has some notable tracks for the songwriting credits. "Pleasure Land" has both lyrics and music written by Hide. It is the first time that Hide wrote lyrics for a Buck-Tick song and remains the only song where he completely wrote the entire song. "Dizzy Moon" has lyrics by Toll and music by Hide. It's Toll's second and last songwriting credit with the band. He has not written any lyrics for Buck-Tick since then.
A week later on February 8, a remixed version of their Indies album Hurry Up Mode was also released with "1990 mix" added to the title. The cover artwork was changed but the booklet has photos from the photoshoot used for the original album artwork. On April 1, they released the video version of Aku No Hana. It contained a music video for each song on the album. Each video was done by a different director or production team. Essentially each director was given two music videos to film to ensure that each video would have it's own look and feel.
Television appearances were plentiful. On January 26, the band appeared on Asahi TV's "Music Station" and performed "Hurry Up Mode" and "Aku No Hana." On January 27, they appared on "All Night Fuji Studio" and performed "Hyper Love", "The World is Yours", and "Aku No Hana". Also on January 27, the band appeared on Bakufu Slump's tv show "Bakufu Slump No Omise" (Bakufu Slump's Store) and performed "Hurry Up Mode" and "Aku No Hana". On February 20, they appeared on TVK's "Live Tomato". The live show was recorded at Club Citta' Kawasaki. On July 27, the band appeared on NTV's "Pop Taisen" with Ziggy (another Japanese band popular at the time) for a joint interview and performed "Misty Blue" and "Aku No Hana". I am not sure of the exact date they appeared on "5ji Sat Magazine" but it was probably in mid-March. Another television appearance was for the radio show "Radio De Gomen", which was also broadcast on tv.
On March 18, a book entitled Tenshi No Zawameki ~My Buck-Tick Story~ was released. Essentially it is a fan talking about being a fan. Native Japanese love this book but I would not recommend it to non-Japanese as it is text only. On June 15, a book entitled Hyp No. 3 was released. It was a special issue of the magazine "Fool's Mate" (June issue). I would recommend this book for all fans who are interested in this period of Buck-Tick has it gives a nice summary to date, along with a section on the stage costumes and musical influences.
The Aku No Hana Tour began on March 2 at Omiya's Sonic City and was the most extensive Buck-Tick tour that they had done at the time (51 dates). They wanted to make sure they played in every prefecture so everybody could see them, as to make up for what happened during the "Taboo" tour a year prior. Judging by the tour dates, they didn't play every prefecture, but they did play more than they ever had prior for a tour and even went to Okinawa, which is the southernmost prefecture in Japan and harder to get to so fewer bands play there. This was the first time Buck-Tick were going to play in Okinawa and a few other prefectures. (The prefectures they did not play during this tour were Fukui, Nara, Oita, Saga, Shiga, Tokushima, Tottori, Toyama, and Wakayama.) This tour was also the first time they played on Atsushi's birthday. It was March 7 at Kobe Kokusai Kaikan.
The sets for the tour were as always, Buck-Tick elaborate cool. There were devils on the side that moved up/down to open/close. In the back was a giant metallic Tower of Babylon like building with spikes that spun around (can be seen in the music video for "Love Me"). From what I can recall, the shows would begin with images being projected onto a white sheet-like curtain. I think the images were from the video "Misty Blue", of a cat and general expressionist shadowplay. The background music for this was the intro music on the Aku No Hana video. Judging by bootlegs, some other shows may have begun with an old Adolf Hitler speech being broadcast. During the course of the tour, Hisashi cut his hair but kept a tail, bleached his hair blonde, then later dyed his hair green for the first time. By August his hair was brown and by the end of the year he cut it all short and dyed it red.
[Webmaster's note: I was living in Okinawa when the tour came to Naha, the capital city, on June 18. It was amazing to see Buck-Tick on our tiny island! I bought my ticket the day it went on sale. I met up with my newly formed friend and her friends. We were all just kids but had such a good time hanging out before the show and talking about the band, taking pictures with the tour bus, etc. I think I was the only fan there who really dressed up and put their hair up. It's quite a feat to do in Okinawa, given the humidity. I think it's really cool to go to a show of one of your favorite bands and meet with others who feel the same as you so if you ever have such a chance, please don't pass it up!]
On July 21, Symphonic Buck-Tick in Berlin was released. It was Buck-Tick's music orchestrized by the Berlin Chamber Orchestra. (This was again something new in Japan that Buck-Tick did first that others have imitated). Perhaps the idea evolved from the symphonic version of "Seventh Heaven" which can be heard on the video Sabbat II.
There was something quite interesting in the August issue of the magazine "Rockin' On Japan". It had an interview with Hisashi and Hideto "Hide" Matsumoto (X). 2 members of the biggest bands in Japan at the time being paired up for an interview and a photoshoot. Looking back, the chilling thing about the interview is how both say that their bands don't plan on changing members. Hideto even remarks that it's more likely someone would die before quitting the band. (X would go on to lose a member in 1992, break up in 1997, and Hideto died in 1998.)
After the Aku No Hana tour finished in June, the band took a little break before holding more concerts later in the summer. Buck-Tick appeared at Hokkaido Rock Circuit '90 on July 21 in Sapporo at Makomanai Open Stadium, a multi-sports stadium. I am not sure which other bands appeared but I think at least De-Lax and Ziggy as there are photos of the band members backstage together. Buck-Tick held their own event called A Midsummer Night's Dream on August 2 at Seibu Lion's Stadium and August 5 at Osaka Ekinishi Container Yard at the Port of Osaka. Seibu Stadium is home field of the Seibu Lions baseball team so this is the first concert that Buck-Tick played at an outdoor baseball field. (The stadium has since changed to a dome, making it an indoor baseball stadium.) Buck-Tick have always had an elaborate live set and this one proved no different. It had an Ancient Egyptian theme. My own personal take is that I think it's nice that Buck-Tick focuses so much on making sure that they are interesting live. They have a great visual for the eyes to feast on at their shows and their sound is as good as studio quality. They are definitely not a disappointment live.
On September 20, Buck-Tick went into the studio to begin recording their next album. First Toll and U-ta laid down the basic rhythm for the tracks. Then Hide and Hisashi dubbed in their guitar parts. It was a full month of recording for the four members before Atsushi even recorded his vocal parts. Starting in October, I think it was, Victor hyped up this next album by releasing in record stores a short free newsletter entitled "B-T Industries". It was released every month on the 15th and featured commentary on the recording, live show reports, tour dates, fan art, quizzes, contests, and so forth. The newsletter ran for a total of 5 issues.
Buck-Tick's next big live event definitely lived up to it's name: Great Double Booking. In featured Buck-Tick and Kyosuke Himuro (he was the vocalist of Boøwy) as the main attraction, which is something that is rare in Japan. You see, there is rarely an opening act (usually only for foreign bands or a showcase of several smaller bands) and to have 2 big names play together at the same show is quite unheard of. There are festivals of course as that is how Buck-Tick helped to spread their fanbase. This Great Double Booking took place on October 6 at Maebashi Green Dome in both artists' home prefecture of Gunma. (Buck-Tick again bent the rules later when they held a series of shows with two other major bands in 1994 and created their own festival in the 2000s.)
Another major event took place on December 5 at Osaka-jo (Castle) Hall. It was called 5 For Japanese Babies and this tour was a total of 8 dates starting on the 5th in Osaka and ending on the 29th in Niigata. The title of course coming from the lyrics for the song "Iconoclasm".
Throughout the month of December there were a series of "Buck-Tick Special" video concerts AKA "Captagon Vol. 44". The Captagon company held these video concerts for various bands and Buck-Tick was the main band for this edition. (I'm not sure of the contents right now of this edition and will comment about it later.)
Continuing the count of prefectures played, this year the band played these prefectures for the first time: Gifu, Mie, Miyazaki, Okinawa, and Shimane. However, they still have never returned to play in Mie and Shimane. Which makes these 2 prefectures part of the 1 time only club. There are 6 prefectures that Buck-Tick has played 1 time only. (Last confirmed in March 2022.)