It's not the mandela effect. It's not deja vu. I'm not gaslighting you. This is the second time I'm writing about a ZORO comeback live. ZORO just had another really good comeback live at Club Malcolm on March 22nd! Again. But ZORO isn't the same band ZORO, kind of. Let me explain first.

The band ZORO, stylized as ゾロ, is a four-person unit. The band ZORO, stylized as ZORO, is a two-person unit that has two members in common with ゾロ but kind of isn't the same thing. There isn't even much if any overlap in the songs they played live back in the day. There are two ZOROs. And that is how you end up with two consecutive years of comeback live! And this time was even more high energy than the last.

The usual suspects were back on support for this live--KETCH ( luin ,dieS ) supported on guitar like the old days and Ookuma (HELLBROTH (ヘルブロス), WHITEHEAD) supported on drums.

One thing people may not realize from afar is that Ryuji (vo) can be just...a ball of chaotic energy that bounces all out into the crowd. Literally. The first song, POLICE, looks really nice and clean on videos floating around on Twitter because that's the one the crowd had their phones up for.

Ryuji is a crowd surfer and tends to spit out liquids like (usually) fake blood and water, so you definitely don't want to be up front if you're hoping to just chill and if you're in the first 4-5 rows, be prepared to catch him suddenly without much warning.

The band replayed POLICE after all phones were put away and before the actual physical band even started to play Ryuji was stage diving. There was a certain point where he called the male audience members in the back up to the front and was riding on somebody's shoulders while singing. He went out into the crowd and got almost to the back of the room where he had somebody chug their drink and kept performing in the back. Ball. of. energy. And we love him for it.

From years back, Tatsuhi (ba) has been the onna gata bassist who doesn't speak in public (in recent months you can catch him speaking all the time in Twitter spaces). That doesn't mean that he's not also liable to just...jump on you. Saizen is not for the faint of heart at a ZORO live. No side of the stage or area of the room is off limits. Tatsuhi did kind of surprise everyone on the first stage dive so he actually fell to the ground, but he got up and kept playing (and diving) like a champ. At some point he also brought out a cigarette to smoke on stage.

Two-person ZORO never had a huge disography that could feasibly carry a 3-hour show but these guys really know how to keep the room excited so nobody even batted an eye when they actually repeated PEST 40 times in a row. Yes, 40 times in a row. And everybody moshed every single time.

I feel like my ZORO live reports are always so long and rambling, but it's because there really is SO much happening the entire time both on and off the stage. ZORO isn't likely to be very active but if you're in town and trying to get that feeling, Tatsuhi and Ookuma tend to do support for TERESA (テレサ) , which is a currently active project that Ryuji fronts. It's not the same thing at all, but 3 of the 4 people on stage at Club Malcolm over the weekend. And Ryuji calls it an abare ban, so...the energy carries over even if the sound is very different (an abare ban or abare band is a band where everybody loses their mind for a few hours and moshes or headbangs like we aren't mostly in our 30s and 40s and don't have work in the morning). Check them out if you're looking for that chaotic Ryuji energy or you want to see what else Yumehito ( ayabie (彩冷える-ayabie-), HELLBROTH (ヘルブロス)) is doing lately.