WHAT's MY NAME World Tour 2011 Japan Leg Tour Review - Osaka
Osaka - Umeda AKASO - 02/17/2011
Alright, I tried to remember the setlist, but I just can’t do it. Too into the moment, I guess. Here’s what I definitely know was played:
What's my Name
Ossan Ossan Ore Nanbo
Universe
Chillin Chillin Money Blues
Torture
Survive
I love you I love you I love you and I hate you
Jikoa, Jiga jisan, Jiishiki Kajo
Mata yume de Aimashou
Moon
SMFB
CHASE
HELL NO
Girls be Ambitious
Are you ready to Rock
Futuristic Love
Futuristic Love(reprise)
Survive
I have a feeling there were two new songs I don’t know the titles of, either, and I’m not entirely sure where Girls Be Ambitious fits, possibly it was part of the encore.
Anyway, so we arrived in Osaka around one thirty in the afternoon, and met up with Lala. From the train station we went straight to the venue, arriving to hear Miyavi already warming up inside. I was starving, so we had some food and then wandered off to kill time; walking through what we’ve named ‘the porn district’ and ending up doing karaoke for an hour and a half. Then it was back to the venue.
Lala had managed to get Ichi-ban (ticket number 1) so she was front and center for the show. Maura had something in the 100s, and I had 380. Which seems really really high, but I ended up about three rows back on the left side. I mostly stood right behind Maura, since to either side of me were girls almost half my height.
Of course during the show itself I ended up shifting through the audience to the right…
I am still sometimes surprised to see Miyavi come on stage with no makeup, no crazy hair, and just a simple ¾ sleeve scoop-neck shirt and black pants (that he turned into capris with a pair of scissors. Look closely guys, they’re totally crooked). The show kicked off with one of his new songs, I THINK it was the one we still don’t know the title of. Then What’s My Name. I honestly can’t remember the order he’s playing things in, I’ll really try tomorrow night here in Fukuoka, but it’s hard because we’re so into the show, thinking about memorizing set lists is…troublesome lol.
As Miyavi set himself up for his acoustic set, he was talking about the upcoming tour. He still has no idea where he’s going. Spain. Europe. Russia….
The acoustic set started with Jikoa, Jiga jisan, Jiishiki Kajo, which we all know as the intro to the Selfish Love video. Then he played Mata Yume de Aimashou-which made a bunch of us cry-followed by an acoustic version of Moon. It’s really beautiful when he does the acoustic versions, and I’m really glad to have been able to hear Mata Yume de Aimashou live.
He also played Girls Be Ambitious, which made me so very happy. I haven’t heard it since the last show I went to in Japan in April-he didn’t play it at any of the 3 shows I went to in North America, and I don’t think I heard it at the Tokyo Tour shows in the summer, though he might have played it at any of the first 11 shows during the encore, which I didn’t see. I really love that song.
Even if there were only a handful of us doing the clapping at the end…still I love it a lot.
I made some new friends, whose names I’ve totally forgotten. I met noclue2 and a girl from England who’s on a high-school exchange program. I also met two mother/daughter pairs of fans, who were an absolute riot. I fail so hard at remember their names, but one pair went in in front of me, and so I ended up hanging out with the other pair until I went in (which was a while, at 380). The girl was wearing rocking shoes (google them, I can’t even begin to explain them) which are AWESOME, and the mom was totally high-energy and exciteable. They really liked my tattoos, and took lots of photos with me. They even put up with my broken Japanese, and we somehow managed to have a conversation.
Later on during the show, Mayumi (who is STILL the coolest English teacher ever…she’s so funny) came over and tapped me on the shoulder by way of greeting. We met up after the show to chat and she’s really so sweet. I also met a girl named Ichiko who has the best English pronunciation I’ve ever heard. I seriously would have had no idea she wasn’t 100% fluent and had not grown up in the US or Canada if she hadn’t had to lapse into Japanese words to explain things.
The show was really hot, and not just in the figurative sense. Miyavi had sweat dripping off his face, and we weren’t much better. I’m happy to say that despite being in jeans, knee-high boots, and a ¾ sleeve shirt, I did not faint. Even though I was jumping almost non-stop through most of Futuristic Love and Survive.
There were quite a few foreigners at the show, as expected - Osaka is a big city, and lots of people come here to teach English, as well as for schooling. Still, Miyavi seems to have gotten over the ‘gaijin game’. Despite the foreigners in the audience he did not call on us to announce where we were from.
Yay for that.
There was a high school girl next to me during the show, one of the girls who was much smaller than me, and during are you ready to rock she joined our ‘headbang circle’ (which was really more of a “headbang snaking line” due to space…) and I gave her a hug and an ‘otsukare’ after the show. I had meant to try to talk to her, but things happened and I couldn’t find her later. She was really sweet, and had come to the show in her uniform.
After the show we headed back to the train station after lingering and getting all sorts of strange looks from the host-type guys (and girls) handing out flyers for a nearby club or something equally expensive and questionable as we hung out and laughed and chatted and generally made noise standing right in front of them. Maura and I stayed at Lala’s house, which is outside of Osaka. We went for food at the Izakaya across the street around 130 in the morning, and when we got back to the apartment we hung out and watched Lala do her NicoNico broadcast. It was a really fun night, and we got up in the morning to head down south to Fukuoka, at the hotel Lala very awesomely managed to get us a room at.
It seems there’s SOMETHING going on this weekend-just about every hotel in the city is booked for the two days we actually need to be here…
Maybe we should have tried to book earlier than the day BEFORE we left…whoops.
I did get a migraine on the Shinkansen down here, but some coffee, some advil and talking to Maura has helped a lot. I feel tired and disoriented as usual post-migraine, but I’m not really in pain and I managed to nap for a bit on the train after it hit so when we got in to Hakata station, it was mostly gone. YAY!
Now I’m just waiting for Maura to wake up from her nap, so we can go eat…I think I can eat again…
Alright, I tried to remember the setlist, but I just can’t do it. Too into the moment, I guess. Here’s what I definitely know was played:
What's my Name
Ossan Ossan Ore Nanbo
Universe
Chillin Chillin Money Blues
Torture
Survive
I love you I love you I love you and I hate you
Jikoa, Jiga jisan, Jiishiki Kajo
Mata yume de Aimashou
Moon
SMFB
CHASE
HELL NO
Girls be Ambitious
Are you ready to Rock
Futuristic Love
Futuristic Love(reprise)
Survive
I have a feeling there were two new songs I don’t know the titles of, either, and I’m not entirely sure where Girls Be Ambitious fits, possibly it was part of the encore.
Anyway, so we arrived in Osaka around one thirty in the afternoon, and met up with Lala. From the train station we went straight to the venue, arriving to hear Miyavi already warming up inside. I was starving, so we had some food and then wandered off to kill time; walking through what we’ve named ‘the porn district’ and ending up doing karaoke for an hour and a half. Then it was back to the venue.
Lala had managed to get Ichi-ban (ticket number 1) so she was front and center for the show. Maura had something in the 100s, and I had 380. Which seems really really high, but I ended up about three rows back on the left side. I mostly stood right behind Maura, since to either side of me were girls almost half my height.
Of course during the show itself I ended up shifting through the audience to the right…
I am still sometimes surprised to see Miyavi come on stage with no makeup, no crazy hair, and just a simple ¾ sleeve scoop-neck shirt and black pants (that he turned into capris with a pair of scissors. Look closely guys, they’re totally crooked). The show kicked off with one of his new songs, I THINK it was the one we still don’t know the title of. Then What’s My Name. I honestly can’t remember the order he’s playing things in, I’ll really try tomorrow night here in Fukuoka, but it’s hard because we’re so into the show, thinking about memorizing set lists is…troublesome lol.
As Miyavi set himself up for his acoustic set, he was talking about the upcoming tour. He still has no idea where he’s going. Spain. Europe. Russia….
The acoustic set started with Jikoa, Jiga jisan, Jiishiki Kajo, which we all know as the intro to the Selfish Love video. Then he played Mata Yume de Aimashou-which made a bunch of us cry-followed by an acoustic version of Moon. It’s really beautiful when he does the acoustic versions, and I’m really glad to have been able to hear Mata Yume de Aimashou live.
He also played Girls Be Ambitious, which made me so very happy. I haven’t heard it since the last show I went to in Japan in April-he didn’t play it at any of the 3 shows I went to in North America, and I don’t think I heard it at the Tokyo Tour shows in the summer, though he might have played it at any of the first 11 shows during the encore, which I didn’t see. I really love that song.
Even if there were only a handful of us doing the clapping at the end…still I love it a lot.
I made some new friends, whose names I’ve totally forgotten. I met noclue2 and a girl from England who’s on a high-school exchange program. I also met two mother/daughter pairs of fans, who were an absolute riot. I fail so hard at remember their names, but one pair went in in front of me, and so I ended up hanging out with the other pair until I went in (which was a while, at 380). The girl was wearing rocking shoes (google them, I can’t even begin to explain them) which are AWESOME, and the mom was totally high-energy and exciteable. They really liked my tattoos, and took lots of photos with me. They even put up with my broken Japanese, and we somehow managed to have a conversation.
Later on during the show, Mayumi (who is STILL the coolest English teacher ever…she’s so funny) came over and tapped me on the shoulder by way of greeting. We met up after the show to chat and she’s really so sweet. I also met a girl named Ichiko who has the best English pronunciation I’ve ever heard. I seriously would have had no idea she wasn’t 100% fluent and had not grown up in the US or Canada if she hadn’t had to lapse into Japanese words to explain things.
The show was really hot, and not just in the figurative sense. Miyavi had sweat dripping off his face, and we weren’t much better. I’m happy to say that despite being in jeans, knee-high boots, and a ¾ sleeve shirt, I did not faint. Even though I was jumping almost non-stop through most of Futuristic Love and Survive.
There were quite a few foreigners at the show, as expected - Osaka is a big city, and lots of people come here to teach English, as well as for schooling. Still, Miyavi seems to have gotten over the ‘gaijin game’. Despite the foreigners in the audience he did not call on us to announce where we were from.
Yay for that.
There was a high school girl next to me during the show, one of the girls who was much smaller than me, and during are you ready to rock she joined our ‘headbang circle’ (which was really more of a “headbang snaking line” due to space…) and I gave her a hug and an ‘otsukare’ after the show. I had meant to try to talk to her, but things happened and I couldn’t find her later. She was really sweet, and had come to the show in her uniform.
After the show we headed back to the train station after lingering and getting all sorts of strange looks from the host-type guys (and girls) handing out flyers for a nearby club or something equally expensive and questionable as we hung out and laughed and chatted and generally made noise standing right in front of them. Maura and I stayed at Lala’s house, which is outside of Osaka. We went for food at the Izakaya across the street around 130 in the morning, and when we got back to the apartment we hung out and watched Lala do her NicoNico broadcast. It was a really fun night, and we got up in the morning to head down south to Fukuoka, at the hotel Lala very awesomely managed to get us a room at.
It seems there’s SOMETHING going on this weekend-just about every hotel in the city is booked for the two days we actually need to be here…
Maybe we should have tried to book earlier than the day BEFORE we left…whoops.
I did get a migraine on the Shinkansen down here, but some coffee, some advil and talking to Maura has helped a lot. I feel tired and disoriented as usual post-migraine, but I’m not really in pain and I managed to nap for a bit on the train after it hit so when we got in to Hakata station, it was mostly gone. YAY!
Now I’m just waiting for Maura to wake up from her nap, so we can go eat…I think I can eat again…