I am writing this in Japan itself! For the first time in three years I have ventured back to this amazing country and the culture I love so much. Honestly, I don't feel like I ever really left, so much that is familiar just came flooding back to me! I have vlogged about the first few days on my youtube account so if you're interested in all of that visit www.youtube.com/user/sswishbone
I came here as I am attending the Hello Project summer tour, I have never done the mass group concerts and decided I should break my duck and see what they are all about. As a result I have gone a little crazy...
Yup! Five of those are the summer gigs at Nakano sun plaza, three of which take place on one single day! Seriously these girls are hardcore as all concerts will be around two hours each, so yeah, if you think it is easy being a J-pop idol, think again!
The ticket top-left though is the most important for me as it allowed me to attend the A-Nation island event on the 10th (yesterday) which was dubbed Idol nation. My oshi and the undisputed queen of J-pop herself Kikka-sama was there performing! (Well she is to me anyway!)
Before my favourite took stage there was a day of other idol units performing, this event featured very short sets, each group/artist only doing three or four tracks before making way, personally I am all for quality over quantity but I have to say, if you are into multiple groups or always up for finding more talent to become a fan of, these sorts of event are a superb method.
But oh my fucking god was it hot! event was at Yoyogi national gymnasium... Which is not in Yoyogi, but Harajuku! Even more confusing was that the main banners listed the event as Shibuya, make up your fucking minds! *breathes deeply* Ok, well getting back to my point, hot. england has recently had a heatwave, reached as high as about 27 degrees where I am from... It was 38 degrees at this concert. Most of you would say 'Big deal, indoors' errr... No!
Yup! The event was outdoors, Kikka was not on stage until 5pm and at first there was a sort of open air greeting from the idol unit Supergirls not being a fan I decided to scout the area and quickly saw it had a theme of a sort of world cup of food festival with idol music! Main eating area had loads of different country stalls including Japan, Korea, Brazil, America and UK! Very surreal, but managed to score a delicious skewered steak at one point in the day! I also found myself able to finally score some Kikka merch.
Everything but the signed CD was bought at Idol nation, the T-shirt is great as it actually fits! The one in Atlanta was super tight compared to this so very nice indeed to finally have a proper t-shirt of my oshi. Also the towel and clear file are gorgeous and one of the photos is a 'not for sale' so a rare photocard gets!
After this I changed into said t-shirt and my bright yellow trousers so full on Wota mode engaged lol At this point went back to the stage and a group called GEM were performing. Had never heard them before but they were actually pretty decent, aside from an annoying intro they use, but then, I only find it irritating as I am from the grim northern steppes, many other idol fans won't be too bothered!
After they had finished a truly bizarre thing happened, if you go back to the photo of the stage, you'll see a half-pipe in it... Well they actually next had an hour long show of bmx's, skateboarders and roller bladers! All fucking weird as they were doing it western bands like jamiroquai and Eiffel 65... I was sat there confused as fuck and the wota were also echoing my sense of bewilderment.
What was mostly a boring show suddenly became massively interesting when a dancing troupe came on to perform at the front of the stage while the sports dudes carried on behind them. All very freaky but entertaining! Afterwards a solo-idol came on who I don't know the name of and she had this really odd gimmick. She was extremely cutesy much like Yuko Ogura and Suzuko Mimori but dressed like a british trooper from the 1800's. She then had this insane crowd interaction which involved the crowd marching with her! I was sat there totally lucid and thinking I had begun to suffer pyschosis. Literally crowd walking left to right with their right arms pointing towards the sun. If you have seen 'The Wall' movie by Pink Floyd, think of how Run like hell starts, it was exactly that, very very confusing to say the least!
Once she finished some group called Chu-z came on and were really not that special, forgettable songs and if it wasn't for them handing flyers out themselves I'd have forgotten them entirely! Following them were 7CM who were trying for the American clothing style but musically not that great, aside from a eurobeat-ish opener. Still they scored points for one member being a dead ringer for Jenson Button's model girlfriend Jessica Michibata! Idol college followed this unit and again, same problem as before, very forgettable style to them.
Fortunately throughout this time I was sat in a sort of beer garden area before the crowd and talking to an wota for hours about england. Everything from what sort of beers we like to how idols are in the UK. I was desperately trying in broken Japanese to say how we don't really have these sorts of groups, the closest ones being those Britain's got talent units who last all of two seconds because they have the musical qualities of a dead fish!
It did allow me to show off my two-shot with Kikka from Atlanta which drew a gasp from said wota, as well as being able to hear about his love for AKB48 (who I really am not a fan of but do not hate)
With these groups at an end though it was finally time and Kikka came on stage. She looked absolutely gorgeous in a dress that was a light shade of blue with this pretty maroon under dress, very elegant and regal.
Not my pic, think it was taken by Philippe who I spoke to for about two minutes
As I said before there was only three songs done, but a very interesting choice of tracks. First song she was her third single Konna watashi de yokattara which was nice to hear again having not seen it done live for a year, crowd interaction for this song is interesting as it has key points where there are 'Oi' chants and long kiiiikka oshi jumping, but for me just seeing her nailing the note was most important. Second song was her cover of Moritaka Chisato's 17sai which I had never seen live. This was wonderfully energetic to see and she had some beaming smiles about her when she was going for it. Kikka also channeled Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson at times by randomly pointing at the audience even though her eyes weren't looking that way lol Cheeky, but it fired up the crowd and that's fine with me! The third and final song was most interesting though, which was 八月の花火
What was interesting about this, is that it is a brand new song only on her best of and she had NEVER performed it live before! This was massive for me as I have never attended a concert where a song has been debuted and therefore the crowd chants and so forth are created on the fly. For those who haven't heard this song, it continues with the south american vibe that Amai na Kankei had (the track she did as her unit Kikkaren) but softer and slower. It had points where there was some decent length pauses in the singing and so I opportunistically started chanting 'Kikka' which actually got picked up, so I could technically say I led the wota in a chant on a new track... But I won't because that'd be egotistical!
On the whole it was worth it just to see her live again and massively fires me up for her mini-live event in Shinjuku on the 15th. After Kikka, Up Up Girls performed and I find this group quite, well, Meh, on CD. However, live they are extremely energetic and powerful, I won't say I am a fan by any means, but they were certainly very enjoyable and would reccomend you check them out if you are ever over here and they are doing anything.
The coolest thing was that at the end of Up Up Girls they all danced off stage whilst the music was still playing, which left me pondering a wonderfully theatrical ending. But then they came back out and dragged Kikka with them! Not sure which member of Up Up girls it was, but she basically said that it was a reunion of the hello pro eggs which I thought was awesome and gave me hope they would do a song together, but sadly post MC they left the stage.
Again not mine, no idea who took this
After this there was nothing else of interest for me in the day so I left to go back home, feeling very itchy as I have been quite badly sunburnt, hence why I have resurrected this blog. I have decided to stay off camera for a while until it dies down a bit! I may get lucky and have a tan but otherwise I just want the itchiness to stop!
Having got home around 7pm I just had some dinner and then sat listening to the cricket for a while before heading to bed, quite a relaxed ending to the day. Now today I have a Kikka album signing again but this time in Yokohama so off into the unknown on this one... Well not really, google maps has it in a mall about four streets from Yokohama Blitz so I should be ok to find it! Also speaking of Yokohama Blitz, annoyingly The ポッシボー are performing there today and I have had no chance to get a ticket, the evening show clashes with the signing, but the day show does not, therefore I am about to venture off towards glory hopefully and score a ticket on the door. Until next time, sets sail!
No comments:
Post a Comment