Now Oroboras asked if I could grab him a t-shirt of Miyamoto Karin from Juice=Juice I said I would certainly try but Nino advised none were listed on the websites so there might not be any. Still 9am I ventured to 中野サンプラザ where the gigs would be held. It was a trip down memory lane for me as this was the first concert venue I ever attended in Japan, way back in November 2009 when I came for Reina's birthday gigs of the Morning Musume tour... How time moves on!
As usual for August the weather was scorchingly hot and humid, hovered somewhere around 32 degrees, not bad when your home town has temperatures around 20 degrees! Still left the station and crossed the street literally to be at the gig itself. Found Nino and it turned out there were karin shirts after all, I joined the queue and got lucky, yup, Oroboras can breathe a little easier, though he owes me 2500 yen and a beer for my trouble haha!
2500 yen Oroboras, good eh?
While up there I also bought one of the mystery clearfile goods and got a Berryz groupshot, not being a fan of Berryz I consulted Nino about a trade but the guys he was with had tonnes already! Not giving up I spoke with another trader and asked if he had any Fukumura Mizuki he'd be willing to trade and the dude agreed! So this compliments the 2L photoset of Mizuki I picked up at the merch stall as well.
After this I just hung about with Nino for a while, trying to enjoy the shade of the trading tents and keeping fluid in my body, fortunately I showed military style preparation and had about four litres of water and sports drinks with me. Unlike the UK, where you can only hydrate by buying a small bottle of spring water for about £2, in Japan they let you take anything so long as it is not a camera for photos or video! Thus attendees are encouraged to carry as much fluid as possible for the gigs, I strongly reccomend it after this weekend!
Around 30 mins before concert started I went into the hall and found my position, all five tickets I bought cheaper options putting me from row 16 backwards. As a tall guy I have an advantage in that I am much bigger than the average concert goer in Japan, so not as important to be really far forward for me! Before the gig started they showed advertising cm's for all groups bar juice=juice, and it got really irritating! Namely because this awful announcement of "Hello project!" shattered the silence between CM and the novelty very quicky wore off!
Still, it was better than the Avril Latrine music they had playing over the house PA. I seriously don't understand Japanese venues, they always seem to play the most random and at times inappropriate music for gigs. Still, I ignored it, but then out of nowhere they showed the video the 2011 earthquake charity single which had pretty much the entirety of Up front together on one track, meaning a rare chance to see hello project, nice girl project and other groups sharing the same space. Only thing I was baffled about was why it was being shown, the quake is still affecting some people, but was not aware this will still raising funds. Shows just how out of touch I can be!
After this was a hilarious animated video about things you are not allowed to do. Most are common sense like don't take a seat you don't have a ticket for, or stand on the seats. But some are just boring, one was 'no drinking alcohol'. I booed this which caused a few fans to laugh quite hard, seriously, how can you not allow people to have a pre-show drink? Another one which puzzled me was no throwing towels. I was thinking, C-ute better not do Seishun song then!
Once this was over first concert started... And it disappointed quite heavily. The entire project came on for some song I didn't recognise which was moderately paced but featured almost no lines for my fave Mizuki and just felt a bit... Poor. After this MC Makoto came on and immediately I was thinking 'you're the fucking man!' because there he was, in an awesome red coloured three piece suit with matching red cowboy hat! I want that outfit as it was amazing!
Once a brief intro was made and the VTR showing all the groups performing got out of the way first surprise occurred when Juice=Juice joined the Hello Pro Kenshuusei for a track together. It was a fun mid-paced number with some good chant moments, but still felt like the gig hadn't really got going. After this was over Juice=Juice took stage along and did their two singles ロマンスの途中 and 五月雨美女がさ乱れる. The latter was better than the former even though ロマンスの途中 is actually a decent song. I also enjoyed watching this new group really doing what they could to show off their talents. I am not a fan of this group yet, but I will say they impressed me, especially Sayuki she has a very good set of pipes and tonnes of potential to improve them. (Cue a slap from Oroboras for not worshipping Karin!)
Smileage were up next and their first song was new single 新しい私になれ！ which is the first of their recent material I actually like, with the brooding electro and rapid paced chorus complete with defiant lyrics actually made me think 'you've finally found your balls!' Helps that they wear these gorgeous white outfits and do tonnes of heavy kicking dancing, hey, I'm a sucker for that!
But then they did something which was a big complaint for me throughout the whole of this set-list... A medley! Every group did one and I felt it was an absolute waste. Medleys are great on the group headline tours as it gives fans a chance to see stuff that is not part of the cycle. When a stage is shared between five major groups, and four of them hog time with medleys, it just drags the experience out and drains time that could have been used for other stuff.
Still this medley wasn't too bad, it featured 夢見る 15歳 which is always a good call and also some modern tracks which sounded ok, I will also give props to the unit member Temura Meimei. I am not a fan of hers, anytime I look at a picture of her I feel creeped out by her face and she comes across as lacking character when speaking... But fuck me if she does not have some phenomenal power in those vocals. For raw power she is on par with former Morning Musume member Risa Niigaki, and at her age that is extremely high praise. Just makes me wonder if we'll see her have the chance to develop with the style of unit she is in at the moment.
Once they had their moment Makoto came back announcing a few of the satoyama units would perform and I am not entirely familiar with these so it was a voyage into the unknown somewhat. Up first were ダイヤレディー the duo of Risako and Airi. Having seen the PV for this song I was surprised at how old fashioned it was, it actually reminded me alot of the old idol duo Pink lady in look and sound. Both girls really tried hard at this live and did a decent job. Some of the lyrics have a very tough pace to replicate and each struggled at points but it was on the whole a good performance.
After them came メロウクアッド and this surprised me with how sort of tribal it was. It helped that Maimi was performing in a sort of warrior attire with her legs on show, always a good thing! With that distraction aired, back to the song. As I said it was a very tribal piece, with sort of Samoan style to it. Was a really good live number as people proper got into the swing of the movements, also props for having Kenshuusei on stage waving huge flags like some call to arms, gets my vote!
Completing this run was Hi-fin and it all felt a bit 'meh' the song was forgettable even with all five members doing random monologues, a shame. Still the fun came flooding back afterwards when the Hello Project Kenshuusei did 彼女になりたいっ!!! This was awesome, a proper old school eurobeat track! If I knew the dance I'd have been paraparaing away like a lunatic with a set of glowsticks... Just as well I didn't then or else I'd have knocked three or four people out!
Some MC followed but I used it as a drinks break before C-ute came on stirred things up with 'Akegore my star' which got the crowd going nuts, brief MC followed about a C-ute and S/mileage gig of some sort and then the C-ute medley. This one actually was fine, it helped that it started with 'Tokkaiko Junjou' My fave of all the C-ute back catalog, although MaiMai doing the monologue irritated me, it's Maimi's spot dammit! Give it back!! The rest of the medley contained most of their upbeat and electro numbers such as Kiss me 愛してる and 会いたい 会いたい 会いたいな which was a great sound together, but still, wished they'd just done full versions of Tokkaiko Junjou and Kiss me 愛してる They finished with their newer song 悲しき雨降り and the middle bit I loved about the rain, but the start was far too upbeat and killed the mood of the song, good, but not as good as it could have been!
Berryz followed and instantly wound the clock back with Madayade before their medley which was very average as focussed on the modern singles, aside from ヒロインになろうか！ it was all very average and jarring, not cool. Their choice of new single for this setlist ゴールデン チャイナタウン was ok, listenable and fine to chant along with, but still lacked polish and depth, I think Madeyade spoiled me!
Morning Musume were up after this and shocked me by doing Mikan! Now this track is one that didn't sell well but I have always loved, it is just an awesome upbeat track with superb synthesis of keys and guitar, vocally it is not quite the same level now as there is no Reina, Ai chan, LinLin, Gaki or Eri. However Mizuki, Ayumi and Sakura did a great job and the others tried.
After this was Momusu's medley... And it sucked!! All it contained were the recent singles like help me, 123 and warateka take a chance... They all mashed together but not in a good way, these was no sense of style or uniqueness to them and it just painful to listen to. Too much autotune, too much synth instrumentation and too much of Riho's cracking vocals. What annoys me massively, is that on Colourful character tour they had the greatest medley I have ever heard. Not only did it move between periods of the group's history, but it properly fused them together as songs. If you haven't seen it go on youtube and find it! if you have seen it, just listen to how they mix 'sexy boy' with 'I'm lucky girl' to see what I mean. The medley from this gig was frankly a pathetic effort!
Once this ended they performed new single わがまま 気のまま 愛のジョーク and I got a sense of missed opportunity about it. The quiet building opening where they all sing the title is really good and mysterious making you wonder to expect. Then after 19 seconds or so there is that awesome electro breakdown. A proper dark and angry sounding BGM which makes you think 'oh wow they're not gonna be in a good mood with this one!' But then after it sounds like a very fast metronome has been left playing, while someone pissed about using a saw to play the bass. I will say the chanting 'Asaretai' part was phenomenal live as the crowd proper got into it, but aside from that, this song missed the chance to be special, a pity.
Final act of the show appeared after this with S/mileage going first doing a reworked version of スキちゃん before C-ute crash the party with an excellent rendition of 超WONDERFUL! which got the crowd fired right back up and then Berryz came on with their similarly rocking track 本気ボンバー!! and at this point I was thinking 'where the fuck was this earlier instead of all the needless medleys?' Unfortunately right at the end of the show! As after this all groups did a communal goodbye before going into 元気ピカッピカッ！ as the climax of the show.
But what was weird... Is that it was a semi-samba version! It had these really heavy carribean drums to it but over the original bgm... It was... Odd! Good fun though! Also some of the girls came off stage and walked along the aisles of the crowd performing. At one point I had Risako, Nacky, Maimi and Ayaccho about ten feet away from me, so that cheered me up somewhat!
Post concert sat outside eating ice cream and cooling down when Naoyuki found me, we chatted briefly before agreeing to meet up post show, I was hoping to see Maoh but he wasn't knocking about for some reason. After the gap passed with unbearable heat, went inside to the second concert. Feeling an overall sense of disappointment at the initial set list I had low expectations, mercifully the second set-list was a fuck tonne better than the first!
It kicked off with the whole group doing 'Ok yeah!' by Momusu which I am a sucker for due to its eurobeat nature. What was cool is that it had Sayu and Riho from MM but then Captain, Maimi and Ayaccho as the initial leads before everyone else came on stage to perform and that was damn cool! Also the nature of the song made it a perfect opener as it has immediate impact.
After another MC, with Makoto in a much more boring suit, the Kenshuusei did their song again, while Juice=Juice did their major debut and 私が言う前に抱きしめなきゃね before we got groups doing multiple tracks from the past of H!P together, it was at times a case of the great, the good and the ugly!
The greatest undoubtedly was captain/chinami/airi doing Gomattou's 'Shall we Love?' which was absolutely superb to hear live. And the girls did a great job on what is not an easy song, their performance wasn't as strong as High King in 2011 but it came close and that is high praise. Another good one was a group including karin and miyabi (I think) doing Otome gumi's 'Ai no sono - touch my heart' which got me giddy being one of my favourite songs from the whole of MM's history.
The ugly though was when Sayumi and Ayaccho did a rendition of 'Love namida iro'... Oh god this was pure pain, forget waterboarding, use this as a technique for securing information, you'd get it in a heartbeat! Having heard Kikka's superb effort on her cover album 'Vocalist' and naturally Ayaya's stunning original, this was just terrible. I confess, I would not have been any better, but that's not the point. Together these two could probably do a good rendition of some songs, but definitely not 'love namida iro'
The second concert also featured more from the groups back catalogues being done. C-ute treated us to a superb rendition of 'Seishun song' and yes, the crowd did ignore the no throwing towels rule! Berryz also went wonderfully nostalgic and dug up 'yuke yuke monkey dance' which was all sorts of silly fun!
Some of the newer singles did get done. C-ute blew me away with their song アダムとイブのジレンマ this was soooooo much better than I could have ever hoped. Superb musicianship, awesome balance to the vocals, a really sexy dance and great chanting. Also having seen the PV since, big pops for the whole chained room ethos and them actually having a set rather than green screen, big plus points!
Not to be outdone Berryz also played their dark electro piece サヨナラ ウソつきの私 which was excellent live, really balanced BGM with those short blasts of darkness that just pin me to my seat when I hear them. Odd, as I used to always shout about shite techno was, maybe I have just learned how any music can work if you use it properly? What j-pop taught me for sure.
Momusu did some song I don't know before launching into Ai no gundan, which was much better live than the other a-side. It still struggles in places like the needless 'honto honto honto honto' bit that just feels annoying, and there is the dreaded autotune which I despise more than a tv soap. (oooh burn!) But it still felt good live and had good crowd interaction, before the concert ended with everyone doing Berryz 'yuujou junjou oh seishun' which felt epic as a closer.
Now you're probably wondering if this was such a great concert how come I wrote less? Simply because it was a total whirlwind from start to finish, it just felt great, even when Tasaki Asahi guested it didn't feel too jarring, despite the fact I find her to be a merely slightly less boring Mano Erina. I find a sign of a great concert, is when you don't stand there thinking, 'in my review I am gonna say...' I only do that if either a) I ever do a write up for a pro site (which I haven't since 2006) or b) I am bored out of my brain!
After the concert Maoh found me so we said our thank yous to each other and we joined Naoyuki and his friend to hit a local food place and get some drinks. Nao and I speak English, Maoh and Nao's friend japanese. So we just jumped in and tried where possible to speak Japanese... I realise now how rusty mine is and how much improvement I need to make. I could be understood, but it's like when you hear an Asian person speaking Engrish, well I was speaking Crapanese! (Credit Oroboras for that term!)
Still we had fun discussing the sets and also other concerts and stuff we had been to such as idol nation. I also was drinking big beers, while the others would either not drink at all or only have medium/small. I explained that in England a night out is usually at least six beers! If beer drinking were an olympic sport it'd be UK, Belgium and Germany battling for the medals everytime I think. I did nothing to shatter that illusion anyway!
After a couple of hours we called it a night, Maoh headed back to Shinjuku, while Nao and I travelled together since he's rooming only a few stops on the Yamanote from me. It was nice to switch back to English and really made me appreciate how skilled people who can do both seemlessly are. For me, the problem is that there are very few people I speak Japanese with where I am, but I do need to sort that out somehow if I am to ever get any better and make my trips in the future even more enjoyable!
After sleeping set off for the triple concert day. Now there's not much I can really write, as, dissapointingly, the first concert was done TWICE on this day. The first time I was expecting it and actually thankful as it was a good way to warm up without going too hard at it to conserve energy and fluid. The second concert had similar vein to the first but did feature the awesome highlight of Captain, Karin and a few others doing Maki Goto's 'Daite yo! Please go on!' I was marking out massively as this is easily one of the greatest songs to have ever come out of the project, while again, it was no match for the High-king performance in 2010, it certainly came close and the crowd are just amazing for this song. The nature of the chants and wotagei is just unbelievable, only 'romantic ukare mode' outdoes it in my opinion.
I did run into Carlos outside the venue though, he was doing similar to Nino in not attending the concerts but at venue for networking reasons. He also brokered a sale of a ticket to me for Morning Musume Fuji TV event tomorrow, so another event, woo hoo! Carlos at first wasn't sure if we knew each other and I explained we last met three years ago on the streets of Akihabara when we checked out some of the idol stores.
Carlos is only into morning musume so fired up their tour in November, but I'll be long gone by then, Oroboras will instead be in place tearing up the country! So yeah aside from a few minor but awesome changes like C-ute doing 'Midnight tempation' the sets were very similar to the day before and I feel I could have saved quite a bit by only going for a couple of the gigs, still, it was an enjoyable experience. I feel my biggest problem was that ever since Kikka has gone solo and most of the material in H!P went a little stale I fell out of the loop, so didn't fully know the material and groups. If you are multi-group fandom wise you'll definitely gain enjoyment from these shows.
So on to today, rest, rest and more rest. I need it! Probably gonna do something small scale, see how I feel later. Until next time *sets sail*
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