Billboard: Underground Support Brings Dir En Grey To Forefront
Before having released an album in America, Dir En Grey is causing a commotion here. In March, the Japanese band ignited frenzied response with its first three U.S. shows. Dir En Grey made its stateside debut with a showcase at last month's South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Texas. That was followed by stops at the 800-capacity Avalon in New York (March 21) and the 2,000-capacity Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles (March 23), both of which sold out within hours of being announced online. The ecstatic response has put Dir En Grey in the enviable position of a likely support spot on 33 dates of Korn's summer tour, according to Bob Chiappardi, co-president of Warcon Enterprises (Dir En Grey's American label/distributor), as well as another source close to the band. The tour deal has yet to be announced. "We're in negotiations about them performing on tour with Korn this summer," says Peter Katsis of the Firm, one of Korn's day-to-day managers. "We saw a performance at the Wiltern and were blown away." What's just as surprising as the rabid reception for Dir En Grey is that the Japanese-speaking band gained its audience without singing in English. The quintet has been building in popularity in its home country for about 10 years, releasing four full-length albums through either Firewall Div or Free-Will Japan and a variety of singles and video collections...more...

Video and music clips on the band's official site

[floatr][/floatr]
Japanese cosplayer band packs houses in the US
BoingBoing, Thursday, August 3, 2006
2,200 goths showed up for a show by the Japanese cosplayer band Dir en grey in LA, despite the fact that the band has never released a CD in the US, sings in Japanese, and has no US airplay. The fans organized elaborate, synchronized stunts via LiveJournal, and sang along phonetically with the words.
"Half the songs, I don't know what I'm saying," admits Joy, one of the diehards.....more...

wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Kei
wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplay

azcentral: Japanese rockers Dir En Grey

When experimental rockers Dir En Grey launched their first U.S. tour in 2006, fans slept outside the Wiltern Theatre in LA to be close to the action, and hundreds were turned away from the Japanese band's appearance at the South By Southwest Music Conference in Austin. That same year, their video for Saku, an unrelenting masterpiece of dark, disturbing imagery, was voted the best of the year on the popular MTV2 series, Headbanger's Ball. Two years later, they topped Billboard's Heatseekers chart with seventh album Uroboros. And they've managed it all without singing in English. Here's guitarist Kaoru, as translated by the interpreter who travels with the band, on having cracked the U.S. market without compromise...more...[I][/I]