TACKEY: The Concert Experience
IT IS TIME TO BE TACKY.
TACKEY SUMMER CONCERT 2012
- PRE-CON -
I saw this one on my own at Yoyogi National Long-Ass Name Gymnasium, which was incredibly nostalgic because it's the same venue where I saw T&T as a unit for the first time. :}
Earlier this month, the balloting line actually told me the wrong day - it said I hit for 8/26, but when the ticket arrived a couple of weeks ago, it was for 7/26. I had a moment of, Oh fuck, and then I realized 1) I had the day off that day anyway, 2) arena seat. *____*
Cue night bus reservation.
That part was actually pretty awesome. Actually, well. It wasn't a chocolate fountain of joy, but it wasn't horrible and life-scarring either. It was somewhere between bearable and pretty awesome. The seat was fairly comfortable, all told; luckily, I was directly in front of the stairwell (double-decker bus, a very cool first for me) so there was no one to irritate by putting it back as far as it would go (very far, but not far enough to convince my body we were making some good sleeping choices that night). I woke up five or six times and woke up way earlier than I should have, but I was excited. :D So, I spent the last two hours or so of the trip listening to the only song on the PZ'12 soundtrack I was allowing myself to listen to (真夏の夜の花, to which I wrote this) and looking up at the sky through the narrow opening in the blackout curtains covering all the windows of the bus.
This led to me being kind of dazed and mystified by everything for the rest of the day. XD
Also on that day I met yararanger and I have to say, she's a wonderfulface of unreal proportions. :} YARAAAAA! :D
- THE CON -
To get to Yoyogi Not-a-Gym-Gymnasium from Harajuku Station, you can climb up to this fun bridge that connects a bunch of sidewalks over a busy intersection. Or you run through traffic.
I took the bridge, and as I crossed, I caught sight of the sign from the picture above and got my first impression of Takki's solo con.
Namely:
TACKEY!!!!!!!! (pun intended)
Oh, Takki, I will forever appreciate your sense of subtlety. XD
Speaking of which, next to his ginormous stage name in pink is a blue heart peppered with stars and a wing. ...And that's where the subtlety ends.
Inside, the lighting was a wash of pink and blue; the small center stage had a contraption hovering just above it that featured huge blue and pink bulbs (...okay, fine, balls); the pre-show music was a Spanish instrumental piece.
Repeat that? With pleasure. :D
The pre-show music was a Spanish instrumental piece.
And I don't mean he snuck one into the playlist to be coy. He had about two or three long pieces featuring Spanish guitar music on loop from when the doors to the venue opened until the concert began. He also had Taki-chan, a superhero, and a bunch of other bizarre characters wandering around (including two blue and pink nondescript characters in cartoonish mascot costumes); most were wearing sashes with THANK YOU - TACKEY & TSUBASA printed on them. :}
Oh, and there were enormous robotic lady legs on the stage. At first glance I just assumed they were lady's legs, but then I saw the metal sheen and the vents on the legs' ass-areas and, well. Takki has a thing for androids, apparently. Or crossdressing dudes.
While we waited, he had pre-show movies popping up to keep us entertained. The first string had four clips: 1) an ad to encourage everyone to travel Micronesia, since Takki's their cultural ambassador, and I'm richer than Kimutaku (...nope, but it was worth a shot; this is a weird universe we've all fallen into together, isn't it?); 2) an ad for Tackey Times in FRAU, 3) Takki's version of the 24h Cosme ad, plus a parody version where Takki's dressed up as Lady!Takki and is writhing around in bed, 4) "I Love You" Message from ABC-Z. They did a cute little human pyramid and shouted, "I love you!" (I was never clear on the subject of these declarations, Takki or us or just life in general. XD)
Whenever a string of ads stopped, the Spanish music came back on. XD
Takki'd made a request that people bring pink pompoms and I saw a lot of original and even handmade pompoms. I'd brought two of the pink ones from my Our Future sets, but I didn't see many other people doing the same thing. I did see some, but not many people had two. I was just starting to wonder why you'd only have one when I realized that not everyone is insane and sees three concerts at the same location three days in a row. (*STRIKES POSE*)
Also! The seat in front of me was occupied by an adorable male fan. He looked to be around nineteen or twenty and arrived by himself wearing the pink Hawaiian shirt, the towel, and balancing carrying a LOVE penlight. When he sat down, the arena was still fairly empty, and a girl in front of him and slightly to the side turned around and stared at him with an incredible amount of judgment. She has apparently not seen this:
[Male T&T Fans: Exist]
The second string of clips were 1) ad for TakiCHANnel; 2) another ad for Micronesia; 3) another "I Love You" message, this one from Takki himself who just...I can't remember exactly what he did now XD I think he just said, "I love you!" in a cute voice - I definitely remember many of the girls around me cooing, "CUTE," when it ended, so XD; 4) Tsubasa's version of 24h Cosme and the second parody of Takki and the Snowmen dressed as hippies and doing a ridiculous dance.
And back to the Spanish music.
The third and final string of clips were 1) another ad for Micronesia; 2) Tackey Times; 3) another "I Love You" message from Tsubasa - he was just playing with the sound/lighting board and turned to the camera and said, "I love you," and grinned; 4) final "I Love You" message from Takki and the Snowmen filmed in front of the venue - all of them shouted, "I love you," and then got all discombobulated scrambling to get into the venue.
OKAY THE CONCERT. XD
I was alone and my phone was dead, so I made a lot of notes to keep myself occupied. XD Plus I'm not sure if he's going to release a DVD of this tour, so I wanted to remember as much as possible. (Although it'd be cool if he and Tsubasa released a joint DVD set of both their solo cons, just because it's their tenth anniversary and it'd be a cute bit of symmetry :D).
After the lights went out, the disturbing opening began. XD It was an American guy doing the "WELCOME TO THE CONCERT" bit that sometimes happens at Johnny's concerts. The one bit I remember (aside from the silence following the voice bellowing, "ARE YOU READY!?" twice XD) was the voice shouting, "THE HACHIOJI BOY!" and just. N'aw, Takki, that was a cute touch. :)
He appeared on the center stage, right near where my seat was, and I had that recurring moment of, "Oh, hey, look, Takki's a real person!"
Something he promised in his jweb earlier this summer was that he'd be dancing more, and bless him, he did. He was clearly concentrating so hard, and he did a fantastic job with the routines he did. :}
During the opening VTR, while he was off-stage changing (probably), he did a thing similar to Tsubasa's dialogue with his audience at Dance & Rock.
[Minus the WHO MARRIED HIMSELF A PRINCE OF THE REVOLUTION? gloating.]
...Yeah, no one expected me to do an entire post without a gif of Tsubasa in here somewhere. XD
Takki's audience dialogue, first of all, didn't include flamenco or bragging about his marriage. Instead, it was flashy and adorable, like the man himself.
Unfortunately, I didn't write down the intro message fast enough, so all I have is that it had to do with this year being T&T's tenth anniversary.
"SAY KYA!" one message demanded.
"NO REALLY DO IT," the next one insisted.
So then, amid stars flying around the screen, せーの！appeared and, indeed, we did yell, "KYA!"
I was...very disoriented.
Next message: "SAY: I LOVE TAKKI."
Starry screen, せーの！
Audience: "I LOVE TAKKI."
Next message: "SAY: I LOVE TSUBASA."
Audience: "I LOVE TSUBASA."
I'm not kidding. That was part of it. XD
As spurious said recently, Takki's solo cons are T&T cons that Tsubasa forgot to show up for.
Case in point: half of Takki's songs were T&T songs. And it's not as if he doesn't have enough solo material - there were a bunch of songs I was hoping to hear that he didn't sing because he crammed the song list full of T&T music. I can't say I was disappointed, but it did make me miss Tsubasa being there with him.
Also, on a personal note of TOTAL BLISS EEE YAY, he sang Ai! Check it! This has been one of my favorite T&T songs since 2007 when I was introduced to them and kawjeakwjbae I never thought I'd get to hear it in person. :}
Oh! One thing I was impressed by! He had six female dancers! And they looked extremely familiar, so I think they were the backup dancers at Tsubasa's solo con earlier this year. They were so excellent - one in particular, she was wearing her hair up in a ponytail and she had blonde-ish bangs and she looked to be one of the older dancers, and she just looked so cheerful and content to be dancing all these adorable, ridiculous dances. She waved at my section at one point while a lot of people were focused elsewhere and I waved back all enthusiastically and she smiled back. :D
Because of that, though, I was wondering if he was cutting back on the Jrs in his tour. I knew PZ took a significant chunk of the dancing ones, but I had no idea how many Jrs there are in Johnny's presently. I say had because I saw every Junior in Johnny's not currently appearing in Playzone that night. At some point Takki introduced Johnny's Jr and an endless clown car of Juniors flooded out from backstage. Seriously, there must have been over two hundred of them. They danced for a number or two and then they ran backstage. A bunch stayed, but I think the majority went home. It seemed like just Takki took advantage of the opportunity and wanted to promot all the Juniors together in the same place.
Ah! He also had a pretty amusing VTR of his character Socho, the dude with the long blond hair who's all mafia-like and badass. After it ended, he emerged in full costume had the Snowmen following him around as reporters and at one point one of them asked him, "Now that you're thirty, will you hate pink?" and Takki gave him this fierce scowl.
Pink is sacred, sir.
Then he started taking off his costume bit by bit. Every time something hit the stage, be it gloves or a jacket, the "reporters" would rear back in shock and gasp. When Takki finally got to the blond wig, the last piece of the costume, he pretended to rip it off four times until one of the Snowmen went, "Okay, seriously, stop that XD" and Takki broke character and grinned and said, "I just like hearing the shocked gasping."
Then the MC began!
The very first thing he said was, "Normally I do this with Tsubasa, but today I'm alone. It's a bit lonely...."
Cue Kawai and They! Budou.
The MC was mainly the Kawai and Takki show, and the more Kawai spoke, the more he edged to center stage. Finally, Takki laughed and interrupted him all, "Why are you in the middle? Whose solo concert is this?" and Kawai laughed and said something like, "Sorry, this is how it normally is with ABC-Z."
Also! The Japanese ambassador to Micronesia was in the guest box, and he told Takki he loves him. He said, "Takizawa-no! Takki! I love you!" XD Very cute dude.
The Snowmen said something about a release called バヤ but the mockup of the cover totally looked like it said バカ. Takki pointed it out and they were like, "....THAT MAY BE TRUE, SIR, BUT...IDEK, JUST SHUSH."
Then Takki took a box out onstage and said, "Your seat numbers are in here," and I thought, "NOPE, NOT PLAYING," and as I thought that he glanced up at the camera and said something like, "And if I pick you, you're totally doing it." XD Someone's learned trolling from his husband. XD
He picked a girl in a really pretty yukata and two of the female dancers led her up to the stage and sat her down in a chair on the walkway.
TAKKI: Are you a Tsubasa fan?
FAN: No, Takki's.
TAKKI: Oh, thank you. :D What do you like about me?
FAN: ...Everything!
TAKKI: Not everything! Be specific! This is a special opportunity, y'know?
FAN: .......The heart. :}?
Then Takki got all smiley and embarrassed and hurried to move on to the next bit. He sang her a ballad and then they left the stage together. Really cute.
Then began the T&T medley! He sang Ai wa Takaramono, Ho! Summer (during which he carried around a blue pompom and then threw it to a very lucky girl in the audience), YumeMo, Yamanote, aaaaand I can't remember what else. XD More than that, though.
He ended the con with Kiseki, and he looked really emotional when he finished the song. :}
The encore was a mini ero dance, but nothing groundbreaking. He just lifted a bit of his shirt and showed us half an inch of his stomach. I didn't really mind, though, since it would have been weird if he'd done the same raunchy ero dance he used to do with his own generation with the new, younger Jrs. He can do it at Tokyo Dome. Under Tsubasa.
Then the con ended and the Spanish music started up again. XD
- FINAL THOUGHTS -
I really, really enjoyed this one! It was flashy and glittery and Takki was adorable. It definitely had all the earmarks of a Johnny's con.
It was fascinating to finally see in person the difference in styles between Takki's solos and Tsubasa's. Takki is the image of Johnny's, so his cons are all pop and glitz and flash; Tsubasa's, by comparison, are all rock and sinew and soul.
The thing I liked best about Tsubasa's cons is that, because he only had female dancers there this year, you knew that everyone else in the theater was also there to support him, so there was a real feeling of camaraderie among the audience that wasn't as present for Takki. A lot of fans seemed kind of cut-throat at Takki's con, sadly, especially when it came to the stuff falling from the ceiling. There was also a lot of chatting among the Jr fans while Takki was onstage alone. It sent a deeply negative image of the Jr fan base that was all the more annoying because there were very kind Jr fans at that con, too, but because they were behaving like mature adults, they weren't standing out as much.
For example, there were two teenagers across the aisle who'd spent the majority of the con cheering for a Jr I didn't know. When the streamers fell, they ran into the aisle and grabbed a huge fistful and brought them back to their section to pass out to the other fans. Also, I heard one girl telling her mother after the show that she'd come to see the Snowmen but having seen Takki's con, she now felt a boost of affection for Takki and Tsubasa (I guess from his VTR appearance? XD). And there were a number of other Jr fans who just looked happy to see their respective Jrs and were plenty enthusiastic to see Takki, too.
Everyone directly around me was a Takki/Takitsuba fan, though. And n'aw, the guy in front of me was truly, truly adorable, guys. He was mouthing the words all of Takki's solo songs, and even though I think he was trying to keep up a blank expression to save face, he totally cracked a smile he couldn't suppress when Takki started singing Kimagure Jet. :}
All in all, a wonderful con, and it made me really proud and happy to see Takki making his concert fun and uniquely his. :DDDD/
[NEXT REPORT: Playzone]