Concert Report 7/9

[RPGames]

Concert 7/29 Report (Short):
- They played the full Sunrise / Sunset ~LOVE is ALL~ single at the goodies stand. Sunset is rather dull and sounds like a slow remix of Sunrise. It's rather generic and slow. The remix is great, though. It's basically a medley of the summer songs, not an actual remix.
- The encore song order was changed to: Curtain call > For My Dear... > Sunrise > everywhere nowhere > Humming 7/4 > Boys & Girls > MY ALL.
- Sunrise was played in full this time (including the intro, etc.). There's a "choreography" that the audience does during the chorus. It's basically a Koda Kumi girls rip-off that involves swinging a towel around in a circle the whole time. Really fun, though!
- rollin' is still hands down the best performance.
- EnergizE is definitely lip sync, lol.
- LOVE 'n HATE was actually really cool this time around. I'm not sure why. Maybe because last time I was freaking out over being at an Ayu concert the whole time.
- Peco waved at me. ^^ Everyone stood facing the catwalk and then I waved at Peco and she smiled and waved back!
- AYU WAVED AT ME OMG. I'm 95% sure. During SIGNAL she went to the right side near Peco & Yoshio and people were clapping and jumping. She looked in my direction and then I waved and 2 seconds later she waved back while looking at me! I had to cry for the rest of the song lol. I'm such a wuss. S_S
- The signed ball she wanted to hit in my direction (generally) went to the back of the concert hall instead, so they got 3 balls there and our section 0. ~_~; Let's go back to THROWING balls, yay!

Pre-Concert: I bought some goodies at the stalls. The T-Shirt is very nice, but I wasted my money on the jacket. It is very expensive and much MUCH too large. After trying it on I asked if I could swap it for something else but they said no, so bye-bye 6500 Yen. If you're thinking of buying it, you need to make sure that you don't mind oversized clothes, hehe. (Unless you're 2 meters tall. xD)

Inside the concert hall, there was an umbrella at the top of the stage. It looked rather epic lol. My seating was row 6, next to the catwalk, Arena, so very close to front stage.

Concert:

01 Pieces of Seven
The intro was pretty awesome. The screens showed TV noise, as if it was starting up.

02 Rule - 5/5
Once she appeared on stage for the first time I started to cry pretty bad so I don't know what happened the first part of the song as I was too busy not looking like a retard with my crying. I only remember that they strolled by me on the catwalk two times and that she didn't dance during the final chorus.

03 UNITE! - 4/5
The usual. Nothing to say here. I think I hit the person behind me with my fan at one point.

04 (disco)munication
This was very fun actually. Everyone clapped and the video was fun, too. It showed Ayu as the main character in a platformer game.

05 EnergizE - 4/5
This song was very clearly lip synced, unfortunately. Aside from that, it was really fun to clap along the whole song. Peco and Princess' WHOOO WHEEE YAYS are because the dancers are pretending to play baseball or something. It's basically another cute story performance like Depend on you AT08. The male dancers were baseball players and the female ones cheerleaders.

06 AUDIENCE - 4/5
Except an ikuyo!! at the start of the song, this SOUNDED lip synced. She didn't mess it up like with EnergizE, but she did do the overexeggerated lip movement. Not much else to say here. It was fun. I don't remember much performance-wise, because I was still overwhelmed with seeing Ayu in real life. The audience was very engaged this song and the previous one.

07 Load of the Shogyu
This was actually a very long interlude. It showed Ayu's male dancers being tortured in some stair with electric shocks. They had wires all over their bodies. It was actually disturbing to me. The woman behind me also made some noises showing how disturbed she was by it. The male dancers are locked up. Ayu likes Shuya and opens his prison to give him some water, but he betrays her and free the other dancers and they run.

08 LOVE 'n HATE - 2/5
The audience's reaction was so funny. The second the song started playing, almost everyone stopped playing/waving their fans. I was like 'huh? Japanese people don't like this song?'. Apparently they don't and mostly just watched without cheering/doing anything.
At the end of Load of the Shogyu, the female dancers were on stage 'looking around' for the male dancers and the male dancers were seen on the video screen. The performance started with the female dancers having the male dancers chained up, much like Koda Kumi's Selfish performance from the Secret Live concert. During the performance, there was some usual Ayu-touching-herself going on and half-naked dancers running around. No catwalk action.

09 identity - 2/5
The male dancers left the stage except Shuya, who did on a shirt and Ayu took off her jacket. They both went to the back of the stage and it elevated all the way up and they danced a bit (dancing is a large word lol). It was a bit boring. You hardly heard the strings of the song, and that's what gives it its fast-paced action. There was some generic Shuya-Ayu dancing going on. I was anticipating the bridge of identity a lot, because she could do a lot of things with it (go down the catwalk, do a military-ish dance break, etc.). But when it played, she was just down on the stage and stood there with Shuya, touching herself. It was rather disappointing. The audience didn't like this much either.
It's a nice change, though, that this time it wasn't Ayu and the naked dancers going down the catwalk again but just Ayu and one dancer.

10 In The Corner - 1/5
Lol I actually forgot writing about this song in the concert report. This was the least good performance. The audience didn't like it (in fact they didn't like the entire rock section). It was the only song where I found myself wondering when it'd be over. It sounded pretty lip synced, like with Premium CDL, but this time I wasn't sure so I'm not going to say that it was. I started liking the song more, but live it was still rather boring. A part of it was because the sound quality was bad, though. It was exactly the same as CDL 08-09.

11 HOPE or PAIN - 3/5
The interlude was snow and MARO AND MIDORING YAY NO SHUYA I was so happy lol. Maro and Midoring danced and it was quite awesome, simply because NO SHUYA! *cheers* It was much like Stadium Tour 2002's HANABI. HOPE or PAIN, Ayu stood on stage and walked a bit down the catwalk. Maro danced at the round catwalk end. It was nice but nothing special, because I don't care much about the song.

12 GREEN - 3/5
Hmm, k. Until the final chorus, nothing happened. Ayu hardly moved at all and I stared at her back the entire time. It was very disappointing that nothing happened for such an epic song. At the end, the round catwalk goes up and Midoring and Maro dance beneath it. The round elevated platform was decorated with some blanket-y thing wrapped around it. It was transparent, showing them on the inside, but also rather ugly. The audience really loved this song, btw.

13 Days - 4/5
Ayu stood on the round platform with Shuya, but I don't think they interacted. It spun around and it was really nice. The audience really loved this song! It was so pretty. At the bridge, she walked back down the catwalk and she looked at me at the final chorus and I suddenly had to cry pretty bad lol.

14 evolution - 5/5
The interlude before evolution had the female dancers dressed up as fairies prancing around the stage and Koyannochi (what's her name? lol) up in the air blanket..things again. It was very refreshing from her standard interlude parts.
evolution was awesome, of course. The usual. She sung live, by the way.

15 SIGNAL - 5/5
This was probably the most surprising peformance in quality to me. It was so much fun, the screens were flashing from effects, everyone was clapping and waving their fans. This song is sooo awesome live! She also sang some additional parts to the studio version.

16 rollin' - 6/5
Best performance of the concert hands down. The dance was very cool and original. It was sort of like robot moves. The first chorus she wore sunglasses. When she took them off she looked around in a very fun way but her eyes were very large and some girl around me was freaked out by it. The chorus sound quality was perfect and very bass-heavy.

17 Sparkle - 5/5
The sound quality of the chorus was pretty mediocre, unfortunately. I don't remember the dance for some reason. I don't think Ayu danced much. They also had a little movement that the audience did along with the dancers and Ayu. It was during the NO NO NO, they did one arm up diagonal, the other one over it to form a cross and then slowly both down. At the end Ayu yelled motto motto! and the audience thought she wanted us to do the hand movement more but she meant the NO NO NO singing lol. It was great, though.

18 Bridge to the sky
The audience clapped along and it was quite pretty, showing many Ayu images.

19 NEXT LEVEL - 4/6
The screen at the back showed the stairs, extended, as if the stairs from the stage was leading up to the sky (Bridge to the sky..!). The entire song the dancers and Ayu looked very ethereal. The dancers wore light white blanket thingies around their bodies that waved in the wind a bit. At the bridge, Ayu sat down at the chair at the back (which looks too much like Madonna's throne from her Hard Candy promotional concert). At the final chorus it went up and she flew forward a bit and it had a very pretty silver lamp beneath the chair. It was a very good performance, but completely failed as concert climax. Every concert before this one the last performance was clapping and yelling, but this time it was just like uh..nothing. She only yelled arigato gozaimas at the end and then disappeared lol.

20 Curtain call - 2/5
Suddenly after the Ayu ayu ayu yelling BAM lights on and Ayu standing at the top. She sang very nice, but the screen behind her didn't work. At least I think so, because other concert reports have said there's a choir behind Ayu on the screen, but there wasn't anything, just some random ghost-like images here and there (wtf? lol). This song did nothing for me, as I don't really like it.

21 For My Dear... - 2/5
Ungh, I hate this song. It didn't do it for me live either. But she sang very good.

22 Sunrise - 3/5
Yay Sunrise! Before, in the MC, she was talking and everyone started to cheer so I was hoping that she'd do Sunrise (even though she normally doesn't do songs so far ahead of their release date). Then two mics came up and the dancers came and they started talking. And then BAM out of nowhere the song started! But the audience was sitting down for the whole thing. >_> I THINK Maro and Gin sang on the left side (seen from the audience) and Subaru and Shuya on the right.

23 everywhere nowhere - 4/5
Exactly like Premium Countdown Live. Very fun, though.

24 Humming 7/4 - 4/5
Yay, I was hoping for this song! Very fun and great to jump along. At some part she stopped singing and just went for lalala lol.

25 Boys & Girls - 4/5
Had the whole audience engaged. The usual.

26 MY ALL - 4/5
Ayu didn't cry, but that's OK. It was a good performance, too.

OVERALL - 3.5/5
I was very unexcited about the concert due to the awful set list. Unfortunately, I didn't get more excited about the songs I hated during the concert, except SIGNAL. The ballad section was a bit boring, too, except Days. Overall I give the concert a 3.5/5. The screens weren't used as much as they could have been either. During LOVE 'n HATE/identity, for example, it just showed some passive images. Anyways, I don't remember many details because I was so overwhelmed, so I hope I'll see more when I go next time this month at Osaka. I hope I didn't sound too disappointed, because it was really awesome! Just not as good as her other concerts. It DID have many songs, though, which is a plus.

Random Notes:
- Peco's awesome and very sweet.
- The new dancers look very snobbish and stupid, in my opinion. It's hard to explain with words.
- Ayu and Shuya won the MC game.
- Japanese people think the new single is called Sunrise/Sunshine ~ROVE is ARR~.
- Japanese people love Days, STEP you and JEWEL.
- Ayu looked at me, yay~~.
- The arigato gozaimashita at the end when the sound goes down was very quickly, everyone was silent very fast.
- I asked two Japanese girls what their favorite concert was and they said, unsurprisingly, MY STORY tour, lol.

[waterballoon]

lol omg she added Sunrise ~LOVE is ALL~ to the encore! Oh my effin' god?!

And it appears the rock section isn't that popular huh, but I kind of like those parts, so I'll see... and Days... omg it looks better and better as more reports surfaced!

Btw, LOL @ UNITE!

Thank you!

[NintendoHTF1242]

- Japanese people think the new single is called Sunrise/Sunshine ~ROVE is ARR~.

Win <333

[mcluva420]

Omg!! Sunrise! hope it's on the DVD~
thnks 4 the review ~<3

[AyuGAME]

thanks for sharing...

[Picaflor 7/4]

thank you so much! I thought the tracklist was very good. too bad the quality for in the corner was bad cause its one of my favorite ayu songs. maybe they'll edit it in the dvd version. who knows.

[C+R+E+AYUMI]

The new dancers look very snobbish and stupid, in my opinion. It's hard to explain with words.

mmh..no good. Thanks for sharing your experience, i found your report truely interesting

[noidea]

Originally Posted by RPGames

Pre-Concert:
05 EnergizE - 4/5
This song was very clearly lip synced, unfortunately.

06 AUDIENCE - 4/5
Except an ikuyo!! at the start of the song, this SOUNDED lip synced.

10 In The Corner - 1/5It sounded pretty lip synced, like with Premium CDL, but this time I wasn't sure so I'm not going to say that it was.

Lol, this is exactly the songs I expected to be lipsynched in this tour xD Well, Ayu likes to do similar things in every tour^^ Good thing I don't care for this songs anyway.

- Japanese people think the new single is called Sunrise/Sunshine ~ROVE is ARR~.

xDDD
This made my day^^

[jiarongisme]

Thanks for the review! You're so lucky that Ayu was looking at you!

[Handjan]

Thanks for shaing.

[emi♡]

that was one of the most entertaining reports of a concert ever.

I'm actually very surprised that she sang Sunrise~ I was not expecting that from Ayu.

[music_*]

I think I hit the person behind me with my fan at one point.

This was just win.
Cool report!
And your description of the Japanese kinda made me want Ayu to go back to Taiwan and record the concert DVD there.
Permanantly. /:

I mean, come on. They might not have like the song, but to practically stop cheering entirely?
And it was a new song!! >.<
(Just a personal opinion and nothing against them)
But still!!! ):
They have no idea how many people in this forum are dying to attend a concert.

[AyuGAME]

^so true...i even flied from indonesia to shanghai just to watched her...
and many people from outside japan do the same thing...
but i think, that's the way japanese people appreciate song that they don't recognize with...they want to listen it carefully...(maybe like that...)

[ayuayu798]

Thanks for sharing! I hope you had fun despite the few mishaps you had to go through! Your random notes are very funny!

[Empry]

[QUOTE=music_*;2016238]I think I hit the person behind me with my fan at one point.
QUOTE]

You too?
I think I've hit actually several people as I was so exited during the concert. I was always shouting "gomen nasai" and "sumimasen" to the guy beside me and the two women behind me because I wasn't sure if I really hit them or not.

[pchan1986]

ur review is hilarious and down ryt interesting. if i was there id be still be dancing if everyone else is sitting down.thank you for sharing^^

[Meat Pao]

Originally Posted by RPGames

08 LOVE 'n HATE - 2/5
The audience's reaction was so funny. The second the song started playing, almost everyone stopped playing/waving their fans. I was like 'huh? Japanese people don't like this song?'. Apparently they don't and mostly just watched without cheering/doing anything.

Omg this is hilarious! LMAO

[noidea]

LOL, most people here thought LOVE 'n' HATE is the best NEXT LEVEL track or belongs to the best of it xD

[freedreamer]

this lipsynching thing doesnt end does it...zzzz

thanks for this

[noidea]

^ It would end if Ayu stopped doing it...but she doesn't it seems.