Wazzup Party People - Arashi Concert Friday 4th December, Tokyo Dome part III
I think I made a mistake in my concert report! Oh no! It was Ashita no Kioku where they had the photos that all came together to make the Arashi kanji, not Everything, as you'd expect. My memory is weak but I seemed to remember that being early in the concert. Anyway my sis has her concert report up over here. She is much more factual than me. I haven't acutally read it cos I wanted to write my report first without being all influenced.
Anyway I didn't want to write much about the MC but have you noticed that even if your Japanese is weak if Arashi say something funny you don't have to understand to it but you laugh anyway. It just the way the they say it. My seat was a bad one for the MC, I kinda had to turn sideways to see and the Jun Woman kept blocking my view. It was torn between catching glimpses of RL Arashi around her back or just watcing the big screen. My Japanese is kinda around JLPT level 4 but I couldn't actually sit the test on account of they scheduled it the same day as the Arashi concert! Priorities, people.
Another mini rant: I thought the vision mixing for the big screens at the Dome wasn't great. It's a hard job doing vision mixing -- I've been involved with that kind of thing for much lesser bands -- you really have to be on your toes, but for a concert this size and this far into the tour, I thought it would be better. I mean personally if I was doing it, it would be like Sho-cam but you'd at least expect them to focus on the member who is singing or talking in the MC. I guess they are mercurial boys though.
Anyway Ashita no Kioku was brill. Just read what I wrote about Everything.
Next up was one of their lesser known hits. A little song I like to call A.RA.SHI. I think the whole world knows about the transparent outfits. During this song, Jun was on stage right in front of us, acting all coy (not koi) and covering his nipples. Very cute and funny. At one point, he pointed to someone in the crowd a section over from me and gestured for them to cover their eyes. It might have been a random fan but I like to think it was Oguri Shun (but I often like to think things are Oguri Shun.
Whenever I sing this at home or at karaoke or other random places, I always belt out the English bits like "every day, every body". I thought that was because they are in English and I speak English but everyone does it, even though obviously they don't speak English (well as a first language). Cool. But then I was belting out 'every day, every body, mada mada sekai wa owaranai" because I love the "mada mada sekai wa owaranai" bit but no one else belted that out. Why don't they? That bit is awesome.
Also, just to digress a bit, you know the bit in Carnival Nights where Sho yells out "Toooookyyyyoooooo" when he does it live? I always yell out that bit even if I'm not listening to the live version (and sometimes a little bit out loud when I'm listening to my ipod commuting to work) and I had this fear that he wouldn't do that at the concert and I'd scream it but all of Tokyo Dome would be quiet and I'd look like the biggest dickhead in the world! But of course he did it.
Also, another digression, one of the side benefits of having Sho as ichiban, if you did do something like that and looked like a huge dork -- or say you actually met him in person and did something incredibly daggy, you know he wouldn't judge you for it and it would prolly only endear you to him :) Sakurai Sho, champion of the dorks!
Next up was Sunrise Nippon. I seriously can't remember that at all. I so hope there is a DVD cos I'll be watchng it going... oh yeah, I remember that now. I only know the song list cos my sister sent it to me, otherwise my report would be like - Ärashi came on stage, sang some songs." Kids, let this be a lesson not to drink too much when you are young, it screws your remembering stuff up big time in later life!
Kimi no Tame ni Boku ga Iru - I was freaking out cos I'm so unco with the arm movements in this. I need to practice more at home.
Jidai, awesome to the power of awesome. I love this song live so much more than the not live version. There were cool fireworks.
Naisu na Kokoroiki - I think it was this song where Leader was right in front of us. He kept pointing at people in the crowd and waving or doing fishing motions. He stopped right in front of me and seemed to be staring. Not waving or anything, just like a "one of these things is not like the others" kind of perplexed stare. Or maybe he was thinking about ramen or fishing or something! I don't even know how much of the crowd they can see from the stage.
Pikanchi/ Tomadoi nagara/ Kotoba yori taisetsu na mono - short and sweet cos they'd already done them.
Hero - awesome. I love Hero, its the first Arashi song where I understoo the lyrics without a translation (although I thought they were saying yuki not yuuki, oops). They rose up on big platforms, you know those ones that have the getting smaller and smaller sections like kid's blocks???? I think I cried a little in this too cos my dream IS everyone's dream (that's why the tickets were so freaken expensive).
Sakura Sake - this is the kind of song I don't listen to that much but I'm not sure why cos it is awesome. Everyone was jumping around going crazy so it was kinda more like the time I saw Rage Against the Machine at the Big Day Out rather than an Arashi concert. This would have been prolly the second most high energy song, after Attack It. And I love the "kaete miseru" bit and then how Sho does the "yeah yeah". I might need to just take a moment to think about that.
Wish - again, short and sweet cos it'd been a solo. There are all kinds of complicated moves to this that I didn't know. How do you learn this if you don't see it on the dvds? When I went to see KAT-TUN, it was all so simple and I never even watch them that much,well except for when the kid with the crooked teeth from HSJ got up and did Shadow Boy (which isn't called that but hey, I love that song and it was worth the Y2,000 I paid for my ticket just to hear that!)
Kitto Daijoubu - omg asa made. I wished the concert was asa made. Totes the best song of the night (well apart from the other best songs of the night).
Love So Sweet- I really wanted Sho to do the 'lalalala Love So Sweet thing he did at the Time concert but he didn't and I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life.
Happiness - this is my favourite song to listen to when I go running and I loved seeing the boys running around the stage. I'll carry that image in my head every time I go running now, like I'm running with them. Believe - I love Sho's rap in this.
5x10 I cried, everyone cried... and it flooded Tokyo dome and we nearly drowned until Arashi extracted the salt from our tears and used it to build a boat and saved us. Then they stood on the stage in the middle of the dome and it rained glitter and everything was alright with the world and Arashi wanted to thank us but we all thank them. That's how I remember it and no one can tell me otherwise.
That was the end of the main bit. As soon as Arashi went off stage, security told everyone to sit down and everyone just sat and kinda half heartedly called for an encore. Well except the two young girls in front of me who were so cute. They had an uchiwa each with the kanji for Sakurai on them and every time Sho came down our part of the the stage, they'd nudge each other and pull them out.
Of course they came back. They had to, to do Pikanchi Double! Yah. I love this song so much. Leader was down my bit of the stage for most of it, waving and fishing and stuff. I was waiting for him to belt out the "zutto kono mama..."bit but he was kinda low key about it. Still brilliant.
And then at the end, they did a close up of Sho's face while he sang the "orera wakasugita tada wakasugita" bit and it was so awesome. I feel like most of the time on stage, Sho - I wouldn't exactly say he's being fake, more like he's being On-Stage Sho (he's so much like a male, Japanese Barbie really - you get Newscaster Sho and Rapper Sho...anyhow...) but in this bit it was like he had forgotten all that and the words really meant something personal. It's hard to explain, without sounding all fangirly but it was a beautiful moment.
Ashita ni Mukatte - time to raise the energy again!
Dekiru Dake - I wasn't sure what this song was when I heard it and kept thinking is this Dekiru Dake? (Most uninteresting song comment ever?)
One Love - just before we went to see Arashi, Brittney Spears was touring Australia and there was much controversy about her lip syncing. I'm pretty sure that Arashi have lip synced at times esp Leader in some of his solos in the past with all the full on dancing, but when you hear Jun go so off-key in One Love, you know it can't possibly NOT be live!
I loved the way Sho and Nino looked at each other at the beginning of this song like "surely this is the most embarassingly dorky dance EVER" and laughed. That was so cute.
As much as I love the outrageous costumes, I think it's best when they do encores and are just in casual clothes. Also best when Sho has a towel around his head. I can't even remember if he had a towel around his head in the encore. I can remember Nino had a towel headband style.
Second Encore:
Fight Song, with funny voices. Too damn funny.
Gori Muchuu so high energy. OMG I love this song, it was like total anarchy and insanity. At the end they made us do the big jumping finish like 20 times.
My Girl last song.
I can't remember at what point they dropped the 5x10 streamers. I got one end but the Jun Woman had the other end. It was on. I almost let her keep it but thought I didn't come all the way from Australia to NOT get a streamer. Also I figured if we both kept pulling, it would break and we'd both get half. Then she let go and I got the whole thing!
After My Girl, we were told to sit back down and I kept thinking surely Arashi will come back, they can't be gone, they just can't but nobody was yelling for encores or anything. Where is your heart, people? Also, during the bit where they introduce the juniors, no one hardly clapped or yelled. I felt bad for the juniors and yelled extra loud for MAD. I think it's only polite to at least clap. They work hard.
Anyway, people started filing out but our section had to wait until absolute last. Seriously. Then I had to go get my camera back and meet my sister. They'd told me what gate to go to but I got befuddled and mixed up. I ended up squirming my way through masses of people going the other way to get to the wrong gate!
Then I had to push back around. I got to a section with a total bottleneck and was in the wrong bit but I thought the other bit was for people going to the subway station. Basically, what I'm saying is that my brain was mush after the concert and I had no cognitive functions at all.
In the end, I found my sister and we squealled at each other for about 10 minutes in a pitch only dogs could hear. Then I got my camera and we decided on our next plan.
Mission: Sunday night tickets!
Anyway I didn't want to write much about the MC but have you noticed that even if your Japanese is weak if Arashi say something funny you don't have to understand to it but you laugh anyway. It just the way the they say it. My seat was a bad one for the MC, I kinda had to turn sideways to see and the Jun Woman kept blocking my view. It was torn between catching glimpses of RL Arashi around her back or just watcing the big screen. My Japanese is kinda around JLPT level 4 but I couldn't actually sit the test on account of they scheduled it the same day as the Arashi concert! Priorities, people.
Another mini rant: I thought the vision mixing for the big screens at the Dome wasn't great. It's a hard job doing vision mixing -- I've been involved with that kind of thing for much lesser bands -- you really have to be on your toes, but for a concert this size and this far into the tour, I thought it would be better. I mean personally if I was doing it, it would be like Sho-cam but you'd at least expect them to focus on the member who is singing or talking in the MC. I guess they are mercurial boys though.
Anyway Ashita no Kioku was brill. Just read what I wrote about Everything.
Next up was one of their lesser known hits. A little song I like to call A.RA.SHI. I think the whole world knows about the transparent outfits. During this song, Jun was on stage right in front of us, acting all coy (not koi) and covering his nipples. Very cute and funny. At one point, he pointed to someone in the crowd a section over from me and gestured for them to cover their eyes. It might have been a random fan but I like to think it was Oguri Shun (but I often like to think things are Oguri Shun.
Whenever I sing this at home or at karaoke or other random places, I always belt out the English bits like "every day, every body". I thought that was because they are in English and I speak English but everyone does it, even though obviously they don't speak English (well as a first language). Cool. But then I was belting out 'every day, every body, mada mada sekai wa owaranai" because I love the "mada mada sekai wa owaranai" bit but no one else belted that out. Why don't they? That bit is awesome.
Also, just to digress a bit, you know the bit in Carnival Nights where Sho yells out "Toooookyyyyoooooo" when he does it live? I always yell out that bit even if I'm not listening to the live version (and sometimes a little bit out loud when I'm listening to my ipod commuting to work) and I had this fear that he wouldn't do that at the concert and I'd scream it but all of Tokyo Dome would be quiet and I'd look like the biggest dickhead in the world! But of course he did it.
Also, another digression, one of the side benefits of having Sho as ichiban, if you did do something like that and looked like a huge dork -- or say you actually met him in person and did something incredibly daggy, you know he wouldn't judge you for it and it would prolly only endear you to him :) Sakurai Sho, champion of the dorks!
Next up was Sunrise Nippon. I seriously can't remember that at all. I so hope there is a DVD cos I'll be watchng it going... oh yeah, I remember that now. I only know the song list cos my sister sent it to me, otherwise my report would be like - Ärashi came on stage, sang some songs." Kids, let this be a lesson not to drink too much when you are young, it screws your remembering stuff up big time in later life!
Kimi no Tame ni Boku ga Iru - I was freaking out cos I'm so unco with the arm movements in this. I need to practice more at home.
Jidai, awesome to the power of awesome. I love this song live so much more than the not live version. There were cool fireworks.
Naisu na Kokoroiki - I think it was this song where Leader was right in front of us. He kept pointing at people in the crowd and waving or doing fishing motions. He stopped right in front of me and seemed to be staring. Not waving or anything, just like a "one of these things is not like the others" kind of perplexed stare. Or maybe he was thinking about ramen or fishing or something! I don't even know how much of the crowd they can see from the stage.
Pikanchi/ Tomadoi nagara/ Kotoba yori taisetsu na mono - short and sweet cos they'd already done them.
Hero - awesome. I love Hero, its the first Arashi song where I understoo the lyrics without a translation (although I thought they were saying yuki not yuuki, oops). They rose up on big platforms, you know those ones that have the getting smaller and smaller sections like kid's blocks???? I think I cried a little in this too cos my dream IS everyone's dream (that's why the tickets were so freaken expensive).
Sakura Sake - this is the kind of song I don't listen to that much but I'm not sure why cos it is awesome. Everyone was jumping around going crazy so it was kinda more like the time I saw Rage Against the Machine at the Big Day Out rather than an Arashi concert. This would have been prolly the second most high energy song, after Attack It. And I love the "kaete miseru" bit and then how Sho does the "yeah yeah". I might need to just take a moment to think about that.
Wish - again, short and sweet cos it'd been a solo. There are all kinds of complicated moves to this that I didn't know. How do you learn this if you don't see it on the dvds? When I went to see KAT-TUN, it was all so simple and I never even watch them that much,well except for when the kid with the crooked teeth from HSJ got up and did Shadow Boy (which isn't called that but hey, I love that song and it was worth the Y2,000 I paid for my ticket just to hear that!)
Kitto Daijoubu - omg asa made. I wished the concert was asa made. Totes the best song of the night (well apart from the other best songs of the night).
Love So Sweet- I really wanted Sho to do the 'lalalala Love So Sweet thing he did at the Time concert but he didn't and I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life.
Happiness - this is my favourite song to listen to when I go running and I loved seeing the boys running around the stage. I'll carry that image in my head every time I go running now, like I'm running with them. Believe - I love Sho's rap in this.
5x10 I cried, everyone cried... and it flooded Tokyo dome and we nearly drowned until Arashi extracted the salt from our tears and used it to build a boat and saved us. Then they stood on the stage in the middle of the dome and it rained glitter and everything was alright with the world and Arashi wanted to thank us but we all thank them. That's how I remember it and no one can tell me otherwise.
That was the end of the main bit. As soon as Arashi went off stage, security told everyone to sit down and everyone just sat and kinda half heartedly called for an encore. Well except the two young girls in front of me who were so cute. They had an uchiwa each with the kanji for Sakurai on them and every time Sho came down our part of the the stage, they'd nudge each other and pull them out.
Of course they came back. They had to, to do Pikanchi Double! Yah. I love this song so much. Leader was down my bit of the stage for most of it, waving and fishing and stuff. I was waiting for him to belt out the "zutto kono mama..."bit but he was kinda low key about it. Still brilliant.
And then at the end, they did a close up of Sho's face while he sang the "orera wakasugita tada wakasugita" bit and it was so awesome. I feel like most of the time on stage, Sho - I wouldn't exactly say he's being fake, more like he's being On-Stage Sho (he's so much like a male, Japanese Barbie really - you get Newscaster Sho and Rapper Sho...anyhow...) but in this bit it was like he had forgotten all that and the words really meant something personal. It's hard to explain, without sounding all fangirly but it was a beautiful moment.
Ashita ni Mukatte - time to raise the energy again!
Dekiru Dake - I wasn't sure what this song was when I heard it and kept thinking is this Dekiru Dake? (Most uninteresting song comment ever?)
One Love - just before we went to see Arashi, Brittney Spears was touring Australia and there was much controversy about her lip syncing. I'm pretty sure that Arashi have lip synced at times esp Leader in some of his solos in the past with all the full on dancing, but when you hear Jun go so off-key in One Love, you know it can't possibly NOT be live!
I loved the way Sho and Nino looked at each other at the beginning of this song like "surely this is the most embarassingly dorky dance EVER" and laughed. That was so cute.
As much as I love the outrageous costumes, I think it's best when they do encores and are just in casual clothes. Also best when Sho has a towel around his head. I can't even remember if he had a towel around his head in the encore. I can remember Nino had a towel headband style.
Second Encore:
Fight Song, with funny voices. Too damn funny.
Gori Muchuu so high energy. OMG I love this song, it was like total anarchy and insanity. At the end they made us do the big jumping finish like 20 times.
My Girl last song.
I can't remember at what point they dropped the 5x10 streamers. I got one end but the Jun Woman had the other end. It was on. I almost let her keep it but thought I didn't come all the way from Australia to NOT get a streamer. Also I figured if we both kept pulling, it would break and we'd both get half. Then she let go and I got the whole thing!
After My Girl, we were told to sit back down and I kept thinking surely Arashi will come back, they can't be gone, they just can't but nobody was yelling for encores or anything. Where is your heart, people? Also, during the bit where they introduce the juniors, no one hardly clapped or yelled. I felt bad for the juniors and yelled extra loud for MAD. I think it's only polite to at least clap. They work hard.
Anyway, people started filing out but our section had to wait until absolute last. Seriously. Then I had to go get my camera back and meet my sister. They'd told me what gate to go to but I got befuddled and mixed up. I ended up squirming my way through masses of people going the other way to get to the wrong gate!
Then I had to push back around. I got to a section with a total bottleneck and was in the wrong bit but I thought the other bit was for people going to the subway station. Basically, what I'm saying is that my brain was mush after the concert and I had no cognitive functions at all.
In the end, I found my sister and we squealled at each other for about 10 minutes in a pitch only dogs could hear. Then I got my camera and we decided on our next plan.
Mission: Sunday night tickets!