Arashi announces charity events, new album, nationwide tour
Arashi has announced that they will hold charity events at Tokyo Dome on June 24-26. The members were originally planning to kick off their nationwide tour with those dates, but after the Tohoku earthquake in March, they initially considered canceling the concerts. Instead, they decided in April to turn the concerts into these charity events.
The events will have a school theme, and the five members of Arashi will be serving as teachers. They will each prepare an educational project that can be enjoyed together with their fans, though the specific contents have not yet been decided. It is reported that they currently do not plan to perform any songs during the events.
A total of five events will be held - one on June 24, and two each on June 25 and 26. They will each last about 90 minutes. Since the fans will be limited to the stands, a seated capacity of 45,000 is available for each show, for a possible total audience of 225,000. Part of the proceeds will be donated to charity.
On July 6, the group will release a new album titled “Beautiful World.” Member Matsumoto Jun stated that they chose the title to reflect their thoughts about how things will turn out since the earthquake. The track list is currently undecided, but it is said that at least one of the new songs has a techno-like element.
In conjunction with the album, they are planning their nationwide tour under the same name, which will take them to 5 different venues for 11 concerts. They will start at Osaka Dome on July 24 and continue their tour until September, then they will resume the tour in January 2012.
The venues include four of the five major domes (excluding Tokyo Dome) and the National Olympic Stadium. This will be their 4th consecutive year performing at the National Olympic Stadium, and Matsumoto declared that they are considering implementing some stage mechanisms that have never been seen before.
Arashi also announced that on June 30, they will release a pocket-sized version of their book “Nippon no Arashi,” which was originally distributed to 40,000 schools last year. The new version will cost 1,050 yen, and all of the revenue will be given to charity.
source: TOKYOGRAPH