[maururu-roa]

I just watched the concert and feel so overwhelmed with thoughts that I need to share! It was good, really enhoyable overall!

Vocal-wise she had a good control, forgiveness and progress were a huge surprise for me; I wish she would have sung the “ieee ieeee” parts of forgiveness like in PoM, but it was still nicely sung even w/o them. And who says it has to be an exact copy of PoM after all. :p When I saw the church windows and the cross I immediately thought of M, but nah.. xD (I no longer look at setlists btw, in order to not spoil anything, even though I spoiled a few songs here and there.) I want it to be a surprise and I put my hand over the title of the song when it appears, so that I can’t read it, lol.

The white dress was a mix of AT07’s Surreal and PoM’s progress, but she should have thrown the blue contacts already. At first I thought the messages that appeared next to dancers’ names were not wishes for 2015, but something that each of them identifies – Subaru is optimistic, Kazuma is the happiness of the band, and so on. The best part for me was before the countdown, when ayu’s message appeared on the video wall, surrounded by everyones wishes (kind of like brain storming, hahah), lit. “Even though times change, there is something right here that does not” and bam! they popped up in front of the videowall, while the text dispersed in a million stars, implying that they’re the ones that do not change and are always there for us... I burst into crocodile tears ;__; In reality not entirely true, because people change, appearances change and feelings change, but still very beautiful and well thought-out.

I didn’t like only the heart pooping segment of xoxo and moving on w/o you was weird... ayu is my favourite artist, but hiki sings it much better and the original is instrumentally rich – the live version from Utada United was ground-breaking, while ayu’s version is plain and bland, like cheap electro-pop that simply doesn’t do justice to a song of this caliber. :Z Should’ve been a lot more fierce imo. Also, this particular version of Born to be somehow lacks power, it sounds like a march.... Would have preferred the studio version like in AT06 over this one.

The arrangement of Surreal impressed me, loved the violin part!! She should definitely allow herself to experiment more. The ode to joy was wtf, I guess a teaser for the new classical album.

The moon reminds me of an old kouhaku perfornance of Seiko Matsuda. xD And yes, Marionette would have blended well especially with that merry-go-round.

So to sum up:

PROs:
- great setlist, strong voice and vibrato for the most part;
- not overly sexualized or obsene performances, except for xoxo and when she sat on the guy (ayu is no shallow k-pop where only sex matters after all);
- not overly dramatic and angsty;
- little involvement of timmy;
-
CONs:
- I believe her costumes could have been more elaborate and innovative, they’re becoming too recycled and repetitive for my taste;
- lack of any grand props and epic dresses, mediocrity in costumes :/// (maybe not that unusual for a CDL)