Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai - View Single Post - ARENA TOUR 2010 A ~Rock'n'Roll Circus~ setlist, information and goods thread [III]

Heyo!~ Am bathed and (slightly) more refreshed now. Still a little dizzy from all the excitement and screaming/shouting/whatever, but I shall try to write a good review.

Oh, and I'm putting everything in spoiler tags. I think I did a too detailed review lol, so yeah, just in case people don't wanna see everything!!

Review:

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Stage Design:

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Guess I'll start by describing the stage. It's mostly Circus/Las Vegas themed this time, with lots of bright colourful lights and stage doors and stuff.

Gives the same sort of feeling as this photo for me... The stage is nothing special this time, just the traditional front stage plus runway to the round centrestage, where there's a poker chip design.

The bigscreens are the amazing thing this time though. There's the 2 usual livefeeds ones off at the ends, the main one behind the stage is divided into 5 big portions, and there's this special 360deg circular screen right above the round centrestage. That one can be lowered all the way, so that when the centrestage is raised, ayu looks like she's standing on top of the circular screen. Not sure if I explained this well enough lol...

Yep, on to the show, I guess.

Introduction

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Before the first song began, there was quite a long introductory skit played by 3 dancer clowns. If you guys look closely at the photos of the stage, you can see this little suitcase right in the middle in front of the red curtain. One clown ran out first, and carried the suitcase onto the runway and opened it. The other 2 clowns jumped out of the suitcase (there's a chute at that position probably), but I thought it was an awesome trick. To cut a long skit short, they performed quite a few acrobatic stunts, and the 2 clowns jumped back into the suitcase and the first one brought it backstage.

After that, THE introduction began. Nothing much, dancers in silver costumes and lots of lights/lasers effects. The 5 portions of the big screen showed different parts of ayu's face, which then joined together to form her full face.

Microphone

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Was sort of similar to the MS performance. ayu was sitting on a chair on the round centrestage, and the dancers were dancing around her. Her costume had that big black skirt similar to Microphone PV, but the top was studded with jewels so it was really shiny.

But what really impressed me were the screens. The main screen was showing this really beautiful Rock'n'Roll Circus animation (I can't describe it any other way, it was really both rock and circus at the same time lol), and the circular screen was scrolling the album title in beautiful animation too. Her voice was great, almost DVD-like quality, for me at least.

alterna

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Not much movement, just ayu standing and singing. The dancers were doing stunts in the background on bungee-jumprope things.

About You

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Similar to alterna, just enjoying her vocals. She sounds so much better than she did during CDL (which wasn't very bad itself imo), I'm glad to say.

The song ended with tissue dance (surprised?), but it was a rock, more passionate version, and it fitted surprisingly well here.

Screen Movie:

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There was a screen movie here, showing ayu in that white Victorian dress with long hair. For the following ballad section there were 4 main characters, ayu, Shu-ya, Maro and Midoring. The screen movie basically showed ayu holding a photo of the 4 of them, all wearing white. The photo then burned up etc etc, and it ended showing Midoring's dress stained red and Shu-ya's shirt stained blue.

rainy day

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ayu came out in the white dress, dancers were in trench coats with umbrellas. Her vocals were still holding out well, though I felt they turned the mic a tad too loud, so when she hits the high notes it was a little painful on the ears. But maybe that's just me.

BALLAD

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Definitely the highlight of the entire concert for me. At the beginning, the screens showed the 4 characters mentioned above again, and they faded into black silhouettes, and all 4 of them were crying.

Everyone left the stage save for the 4, and while the song went on they acted out this love story. Shu-ya and Midoring are lovers, but ayu likes Shu-ya, and Maro likes ayu. It was just the basic sad ballad "I love you but you don't love me back" thing until the bridge. Midoring's dress was suddenly stained red (blood it was I think) and she died in Shu-ya's arms. Shu-ya himself drank poison (the blue stain came from this) and died too. All this while, ayu was running to them and REALLY crying so hard. Maro kept trying to comfort her, but she kept ditching him off. She couldn't sing the last choruses well because she was just crying so hard, and I was crying too (so was everyone around me actually lol). Lol, ok this sounds super cheesy and cliche when I type it out like this, but trust me, it was anything but.

Interlude

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The dancers doing a taiko performance, something like CDL's, but cooler somehow...

count down

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I haven't heard this before, but it sounded awesome here live. It was really emotional and rockish. ayu had on a leather corset kinda top, and her skirt was the big fluffy kind, half of which was the red Mem Add dress, the other half was leather. Sort of like a fusion dress.

Memorial address

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Everyong cheered when this came on lol!! Great vocals, and she didn't cry this time.

Screen Movie

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Another interlude, arabic-sounding, with screen movie. Remember those photos of her in TA diary in that little silver dress? The screens were showing a pixellated version of her in those different poses. Then a quick flash of her in that black lace arabic get-up, then it's dancers dancing for the rest of the screen movie. They're really really great at arabian dance, I must say.

Don't look back

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A purple costume, sort of like Aladdin's Jasmine? With that kinda top and billowy pants, but without the tummy-baring (sadly lol!!) A light purple sari was attached to her back and hands like a cloak, sorta like the white things she had on during CDL's momentum?
Throughout the song, the screens were showing a panning of what looked like a palace room. At the end of the song, a black silouette came and pushed the room away (like it was a set), to reveal a desert scene. This songs sounds much much better live than the studio version.

INSPIRE

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Same choreography as CDL, screens were showing scenes of a desert.

BoY

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Her vocals were alright here actually, but she seemed to be having lots of trouble. She was frowning and pressing on her left ear the entire time she was singing, it was painful to watch her. But it was also relieving, because she still managed to pull the performance off quite well. The sari was taken off before this song started.

Interlude

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This one was actually a song sang by Peco and Princess, about a cabaret, and was actually really really good! Go-Mi was also there and dancing with them, he was dressed up like a circus ringmaster/casino owner/some bigshot lol. The screens were showing something like this:

Sexy little things

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This was really interesting, because there was ayu and another dancer dressed in the exact same bunny costume. ayu was white, the dancer was pink, but in the beginning, it was really hard to tell which one was ayu lol!!

STEP you

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There were 3 giant champagne glasses on stage and ayu was sitting in one of them:

It was quite entertaining with the casino theme, and there were props like giant poker chips and stuff.

Jump!

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I don't remember much of this interlude, I guess we'll wait for another reviewer to touch on this. All I remember was this clown dressed up like a punk, with a bike handle around his neck. He was there on the big screen all the way till the concert ended, fitting his movements and actions to all the songs which came up. It was really brilliant, and so fitting of both Rock'n'Roll and Circus.

Lady Dynamite

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All the dancers were dressed in UK-like outfits (red, blue, white) while ayu was like a biker punk (leather jacket, red miniskirt, boots etc).

For this they brought a special movable screen onstage, that kind when a person goes behind it, a silouhette appears on the screen showing the person's movements behind? There was a trick here, ayu went behind the screen (which was at the main stage), which showed her silohuette, and suddenly, they turned the screen around and ayu wasn't there, and she appeared at the round centrestage instead.

Same as Dlb, this song sounds much much better live.

until that Day...

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was similar to what she did for her previous performances of the same song. There were lots of circus-y props on stage too (rings and animal stands and stuff)

SURREAL~evolution~SURREAL

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Finally the audience had something else to do aside from waving our uchiwas and lightsticks lol!! There were 2 props, a moon and a sun, hanging down at each end of the stage, but nothing happens aside from them being there.

A pure ayu and band performance, while the dancers went backstage to change into all the costumes used in the concert so far. During the finale curtain call, they all came out in these costumes to say "thank you". The show ended with the initial red curtain coming down, just like at the end of a circus performance.

ENCORE

Last Links

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I haven't actually heard the studio version before, and this live unfortunately didn't really leave an impression on me. I alreayd forgot what it sounds like lol. Her vocals were ok, but she did sound a little breathless.

She was wearing a torn version of the white tour tee, with denim shorts, white boots, torn net stockings and that big ribbon in her hair.

Talk

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Main things, Zin and Subaru were emcees, they taught the RED LINE dance again, and talked about London and it being the first day today. Yo-chan came out to talk for awhile too, and he was really really funny, I miss him being emcee. No games/questions this time.

Sunrise/Boys&Girls/RED LINE

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Sadly, just watch CDL, and you'll get what this part was like. It was sort of an exact replica. Even RED LINE was the original version, there was no a cappella or anything. Only comfort, slightly better vocals.

Overall

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Her costumes were really innovative, fresh and new, and fitting to each part of the concert. Her voice was awesome, especially during the main concert, you could really tell that she did work on improving her voice. The dancers improved too, and did so many amazing stunts and acrobatics that gave the concert a circus feel. What really impressed me were the screen animations. I know I've said this before, but they were really really awesome and creative and so good. I can't really describe this lol, guess you have to see it for yourselves. It comes really close to toppling 10th anniversary and m(u) tours (my personal favs), and its definitely on par with (if not better than) those epic concerts. I won't mind watching this live another 2 or 3 times.

So yeah, that's about all I think. I've uploaded some photos too, all in the big spoiler tag below.

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Outside the Arena

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