My (miss)understood concert report+review (with non-concert pictures)

[tethevo]

Sorry if I should've posted these in the other thread. If so, then I'll gladly move this there. In any case, I wrote this long report for JPM so I thought I could share it here too.

My 2006 Concert Tour Report

Finally. I made it to Japan, and back, in one piece. There's so much to tell so I will try not to leave out any important detail (though I may also include too much for your liking...so bear with me. But, you may want to skip this first part if you don't really want to hear about the WHOLE process.)

Pre-Trip

When I found out I was going to Japan for spring break, I immediately went to the Ayu's site to see whether she would singing in Tokyo when I would be there. As luck would have it, she would have her concert in Saitama two weeks before I arrive. Discouraged, I decided to go to Morning Musume.'s concert instead. That would be in Sendai...which is at least an hour and a half away by shikansen. I thought it would be worth it so I bought a rail pass (for 140USD) and prepared myself to go see them in a hall that seats two thousand or so. Then, my excitment level for that began to wane.

Out of curiosity, I went back to Ayu's site to check the concert site for the weekend I would be there. It was Shizuoka. I googled and realized that Shizuoka is even closer to Tokyo than Sendai is. It was right then and there that I decided I would change my plans for Ayu.

I then decided to find my ticket off of Yahoo Auction. I figured there would be plenty of time for the person to mail the ticket to my hotel. What was annoying about the process were that I had to get the ticket through a middleman and that tickets were not mailed to the fan club people till two weeks before the concert date. These people would have the seats on the arena floor...which would be the best seats. Thus, I decided to wait till these people knew for sure what seats they have to bid.

(Skipping all the details of the long and annoying process of getting the ticket)

Eventually, I decided on and got one ticket for a seat somewhere between seats 31-52 in row 13. Since there was no actual seating chart anywhere, I had to rely on details and descriptions from many sites and from people's accounts of last's year layout. I estimated that the seat should be next to the runway part of the thrust stage. After successfully bidding, all I could do was wait for the ticket to arrive at my hotel and that the seat would be at least descent.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

I had been in Tokyo for a few days already and still no sign of the ticket. I was getting worried...until an email from the middleman assured me that the ticket would arrive on Friday.

He's been kind of annoying with his lack of responsiveness during the whole process. I only hoped he was right.

Nonetheless, I went to the JR ticket office to get my shinkansen ticket to Shizuoka. To get to Ecopa Arena, I would have to transfer at Shizuoka to a local line to get to Aino Station. The ticket ended up costing 14,000 yen or so for the roundtrip.

Friday, March 24, 2006

After spending a day out in Yokohama, I came back to the hotel...happily to find my TICKET! All my negative feelings for the middleman were immediately replaced by strong feelings of gratitude.

I was ready to go.

----

Sunday, March 26, 2006

There were two concerts during this weekend. I decided to go to the Sunday one because it would start at 4:00, instead of 6:30 and I was afraid that there may not be a train back to Tokyo in time. In retrospect, I don't think it would matter since the concert is so short...but more on that later.

Goods for the concert were sold three hours before the doors were opened at 3:00. So, I decided to hop on a train at 10. It would arrive at Shizuoka at 11 or so and that I would have plenty of time to get to the arena for the concert goods.

Here's the train I took:


The platform

But, things usually happen unexpectedly. When I arrived in Shizuoka, it was then I realized that I could have gotten off one station later in Kakegawa, which would then be one local train station away from the concert arena. Instead, I would have to travel through 12 local stations to get to the site. Even worse, the train was somewhat old so it was insanely slow. I was 45 minutes behind my planned schedule.

Soon enough, I finally arrived in Aino Station. As you can see, there's basically nothing in the area. But, the Ecopa Stadium is in clear view.

Train station:




I immediately saw a sign that would cost me 610 yen to get me there. I probably could've walked, but since I was running behind schedule and since I didn't know how long the walk would actually be, I took the taxi.

As it arrived in the arena, I immediately noticed some people in long coats with Ayu's name printed on the back. They were standing right in front of a few very interesting looking cars. Here they are:





Inside one of the cars (with lots of TV screens airing Ayu):


Inside another car...with leopard panther leather seats with huge stereo speakers and TV:


I then quickly ran straight up to the arena where they sold the goods.


There weren't as many people that early in the day.

I had already planned ahead on what I was getting so I wrote everything down on a list. I walked up to one of the girls working there and just handed her the list. I don't think anyone around me actually bought this much stuff at once...when I was there anyway. By this point in my trip, I only had 31,000 yen or so left on me. The total price of all these things ended up costing 24,000 yen or so. So, I wanted to pay by credit card but was dismayed to find that they did not accept them. I ended up paying them in cash, hoping that I would have enough money for the remainder of my trip.

In any case, with all these stuff, I thought they would give me a bag...but they did not. So, reluctantly, I had to go back to buy the take-out bag they sold...feeling 1,200 yen less secure. Another one of their marketing ploys I suppose.

Here's me in front of Ecopa Stadium (Arena's the smaller one on the left...barely visible in one picture):


And then...all the stuff I got:



The cap, the white and black shirts, sports towel, pamphlet, the plastic ribbon they shoot out during the show



The wristband: (Wanted to get the red one too when I saw Ayu wearing a black on one arm and a red on the other...but too many people and no money so I gave up)



The jacket:


The magnificent glowing fan (which everyone in the audience uses...as you all know):


The wonderful posters:


By then, it was 1 or so. So, I decided to walk back toward the station to buy food in a local supermarket and also change my station to Kakegawa so I wouldn't have to travel all the way to Shizuoka for the shinkansen.

At around 2:30, I headed back up by foot.

On the way up to the Arena:

You can sorta see it in the background.


I arrived back in the arena area to find tons of people. I decided to get in line early. While we were waiting, they kept on stressing about how we couldn't take pictures inside and that they would have bag checks and that all phones must be turned off. I had a camera with me so I hid it all the way at the bottom of my bagpack, hoping that they would not find it among my stuff. It wasn't like I would take pictures inside, but it just seemed like an insane hassle to have to go back at the end to get my camera.

Here, you can see people lining up (and even more people waiting to buy the goods):



Fortunately, the bag check turned out to be a mere glance inside.

I walked in to see tons of people crowding an area where they sold all the CD/DVD releases of Ayu. Although I have almost all of these stuff already, it was still amazing to see all of them displayed like that. What was cool was that people can get a free poster (the smiling one on the Startin's single...without the words) by just purchasing over 2,000 yen. I really wanted to get it but I knew that I needed the money so I did not get it.

I then proceeded down the stairs to the arena area. Right at the entrance, there is a sign to tells us where our seats would be. I immediately noticed the shape of the thrust stage. Looking right next to it, I noticed that my number was only a seat away from it! Excitedly, I walked toward my row...half-tripping on things on the floor. I then moved to position myself next to about halfway down the thrust stage from the main stage. The main stage was a WHOLE LOT closer than I expected too. Happily, I positioned myself to be ready for the eventual start of the concert.

About twenty minutes before the concert, Ayupan popped up on the screen to tell us all about the fan club and various "exciting" products that we could get. It was funny because she pronounced the last part of (miss)understood as sutuDDU, with a heavy emphasis on the capitalized part.