Arashi Marks 2008 Dream-A-Live: Kyocera Dome 5/18/08
Yeeeesh. Wow, am I exhausted. But happy!
Ooookay. So, on Friday night I was checking mixi, and people were really pissy for a variety of reasons over the first night. Mostly, their issues were as follows:
+ The backup dancers were girls (whatever, they were awesome dancers, I don't care about your crazy jealousy issues)
+ No signboards or balls thrown.
+ No final speeches. :(
+ No A-RA-SHI. (I KNOW.)
+ The arena was packed with newbies who weren't participating at all.
+ As follows, the arena was not calling for the encore loudly because the newbies didn't know they had to, so there were only two. Logic suggests this is more because Sho had to rush back to Tokyo for the volleyball match and he probably needed to be on the last shinkansen back, but the newbies were getting all the blame.
As for the second night? It wasn't bad, but the complaint about the newbies was really sadly true. Our seats were freaking epic; the first block of the arena. But of the three rows in front of us, barely a single person was moving. They didn't have penlights, they weren't singing along, they didn't do the call responses, they were just standing there with their arms at their sides. It was kind of a bummer.
Not that newbies do not provide unintentional lulz at times:
murasaki_kaze: OMG did you see that woman in front of us?!
nyonyo: No, what happened?
murasaki_kaze: The girl in front of her put her uchiwa up too high, and the woman's view was blocked, so she LITERALLY SMACKED THAT GIRL DOWN. IT WAS EPIC.
But there were these two ladies who were right in front of the totally dead area of newbies, and I loved them. They were clearly determined to participate enough themselves to make up for everyone around them. They were screaming their lungs out for the encore and dancing around in their seats. But I am ahead of myself.
Anyway, I thought the beginning of the show was weak, but I could not for the life of me tell you why. They really completely changed up the set list from the first night, but the beginning just didn't click... The set list for tonight:
Move your body
Happiness
Life goes on
Step and Go
(Greetings)
LOVE PARADE
Love so sweet
Everybody Zenshin
CARNIVAL NIGHT (part 2)
Take me faraway
Hip Pop Boogie
Flashback
Sirius
Hello Goodbye
We can make it!
Kitto Daijoubu
MC
Ohmiya SKOSHI
Sakura Sake
Fight Song (<---big change, not the encore?!)
WISH
a Day in Our Life
Gimmick Game
Naked
Green
Once Again
theme of Dream-A-Live
Lucky Man
Hadashi no Mirai
Oh yeah!
Kotoba Yori Taisetsu na Mono
YOUR SONG
Do my best
???
Kansha Kangeki Ame Arashi
One Love
Pikanchi Double
Okay, so the stage setup was much less elaborate than Kotoba no Chikara. The stage was pretty much empty except for the step platforms, with the exception of the left side, which was a giant setup styled like a merry-go-round and decorated like a cirus. I was initially concerned because from our position, it was really hard to see the screens, which would be a problem once they moved away from the stage...
Lights went out. Penlights went on. We were really close, by the way, maybe around the fifteenth row or so, right to the center catwalk and the moving stage track? It turned out the entire main stage background was used as a giant screen, so it was easy to see even when they moved away.
Opening: instrumental music played (not the main theme) and every member did their own short choreographed dance in turn. Then they all walked to the center of the main top stage and danced for "Move your body." The outfits for the first set were really hot; all black and silver, really really nice. Matsujun has fried his hair Momo-style, btw. Though it was really really hard to tell everyone apart at a distance, because all of them have black hair now.
They moved around a bit for Happiness, and then...Aiba and Sho were on a platform on our side of the stage, and Ohno, Nino, and Jun were on a platform on the right. The platforms moved over to connect with the center stage, where they moved to line up for "Life goes on." Except Matsujun tripped and stumbled while moving from the platform to the stage. Nino caught him, and then Nino made a show of tumbling down too to make a joke of it (I think he yanked down Ohno or Aiba with him <3)
I think "Life goes on" was mostly main stage, and then they moved down the center catwalk for "Step and Go." Our seats were close to the center catwalk, but most of the time it seemed like when they walked down it, they were always facing left instead of right (our side). They danced "Step and Go" on the stage at the back of the catwalk.
They did greetings on the main stage. Don't remember anything particularly eloquent being said, but loved Nino's staple "Irasshaimase!" being yelled just about thirty feet from me :3 After that everyone disappeared backstage.
Then the juniors came out from the merry-go-round setup, all dressed in circus wear, blowing trumpets. A few of them did flips, while the girl dancers did ribbon dancing on the catwalk. Then the merry-go-round opened up its curtains, and a freaking GIANT MERRY-GO-ROUND HORSE MOVES OUT OF THE MERRY-GO-ROUND STAGE SETUP.
It was the hanamichi, but they were unlike anything I've seen before. The only thing I could compare them to were the dragons for Countdown, but so much more impressive and complex. Even calling them hanamichi, they were actually like parade floats. The merry-go-round horse hanamichi led the way, but it was like one of those toy train sets, with five different cars in different shapes going around the track of the arena. At the top of each car, one member stood. Also, incredibly cool: one of the hanamichi cars had a TV screen built in so that we could watch the hanamichi and still see the closeups at the same time!!! I remember one of the cars was shaped like a cream soda and had bubbles coming out. Fuzzy on the rest. Couldn't tell which member was in which car due to hair issues.
On those individual hanamichi, they did "LOVE PARADE," "Love so sweet," and "Everybody Zenshin." I really love "Everybody Zenshin" so I was really glad that they've decided to keep it in rotation this tour. I spent much time trying to learn the "Love so sweet" furi, and it was so cramped I didn't really have much space to do it. I love the simplicity of the "Everybody Zenshin" furi, though!!!
Then they wrapped around back to the main stage, and did "CARNIVAL NIGHT." I think Aiba was dancing this in front of us on the stage. I still don't know the furi for this perfectly, and since nobody in front of me was even moving I couldn't really copy people easily. But then they did streamers and confetti over the arena seats, and I was jumping around because I desperately wanted a streamer. I GOT IIIT.
Ohno disappeared there and then next was "Take me faraway." Really kind of a letdown...the song is great, and it's nice that it's not his usual fare, but he wasn't even dancing until the final third of the song. Instead, they had filmed prerecorded footage of him dancing, and the footage of him would jump from screen to screen...but, why not dance it in real time too? Somehow coming to a concert and not getting to see Ohno dance intensely during his solos feels like going to a fancy restaurant and only eating the bread roll. :( At the end, he did a really nicely choreographed bit dancing on a chair, with two juniors next to him dancing backup on chairs of their own.
This was followed by "Hip Pop Boogie." The outfit was kind of meh; not epic JE ugly, but not classy either. He started out on our side of the main stage and then the moving stage took him back to the other end of the catwalk. On the big stage screens, there was really great prerecorded footage of the rest of Arashi singing along with him in really nice casual outfits. Nice touch since the solo is about his feelings for the group, reminded me a bit of everyone coming out at the end of "La Familia." Sho was making a show of peering out at the Dome at the "konna kesshiki mirareru nante, konna toko made kiteta nante..."
Flashback: I just remember Nino fucked up his solo here something awful, he was so off-key, and looked really put out. :/ I felt so bad watching him. The members all did really impressive pair dancing with the female dancers here! The dancing was amazing!!!
Sirius: all five spread out across the main stage. Even live, Jun managed to pull off his solo here. I was impressed!! Nino's solo = much better here. Think we had Aiba and Nino on our side of the stage.
Hello Goodbye: HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO CUTE. The furi for it is SO EASY. I mean, I can't do it from memory, but absolutely everyone was doing it along with them. Aiba was wearing pink plaid cutoff shorts with a belt made of pompoms. M.A.D. was dancing backup behind him on the catwalk, and one of them was facing right at us, making the furi really easy to see. I thought he was super-cute, and then thought, "I hope he's legal. D:" HE PROBABLY WAS, RIGHT? HE LOOKED LEGAL?! Aiba played the harmonica!!!!
I thiiiiiink "We can make it!" was sung on the trucks, and then they lined them up in back in a row to dance "Kitto Daijoubu."
Then the MC, which was done on the backstage, mostly. murasaki_kaze seemed to remember more than I did later, but she's asleep now, so. Um, they mostly were talking about work. Sho talked about how he had to leave Friday to go back to Tokyo for volleyball, and Nino was mock-bitchily yelling at him for going off to do stuff all alone, and asked when they were all gonna go see the volleyball matches. Sho asked, "Are you going to come?" Nino answered, "Rather, why haven't you invited us?!" Japan had just won their match so everyone cheered.
Sho asked if anything interesting had happened while he was off. Apparently Aiba was partying with M.A.D. in his hotel room, and they were being super-loud. So they got busted by Matsujun. Everyone else was laughing, "Ahaha you pissed off Matsujun, Aiba!" and of course Jun insisted that he wasn't pissed, it was just that they were so loud that he could hear them, which meant other people in the hotel could too, which meant he just told them to shut up to save the hotel staff the trouble. ;P
Then Aiba said he woke up the next morning and realized he wasn't alone in his bed. One of the M.A.D. boys had crashed there and slept over, but Aiba didn't remember offering to let him stay at all. "You were sleeping together?" "We were on separate sides of the bed!!"
Apparently Ohno overslept this morning and couldn't be roused. They were trying to knock on his door, but no dice. They had to call their manager to go get a spare key from the front desk, but of course once they did that, that was when Ohno woke up. ;P
Sho said Ohno makes weird faces when he sleeps. He demonstrated. HILARITY. He looked like he was chewing something. Sho said he wondered what Ohno was dreaming about, making those weird faces.
Nino and Ohno disappeared backstage, so Aiba, Sho, and Jun talked a bit on their own. Sho said Jun was doing a movie, and asked how many people had seen it. I heard fans weren't really going, but oh damn it was pathetic how few people raised their hands. A bunch of girls in the front rows had, but I was the only one in the rest of the block who had my hand up. I didn't look in back, but I'm guessing it was much the same, and Jun said half-jokingly that he was surprised at how few hands went up and that he was a bit pissed. Sho and Aiba told him not to get pissed at people for not seeing the movie but to encourage them to see it instead. ;P
He did so. Sho commented he was impressed than Jun could grow such a beard for the movie. ;P Jun said even though it appeared to be a jidaigeki, the contents were less jidaigeki and more action-adventure.
"Aiba-kun, you like adventure movies, right? Like Pirates of the Caribbean. Or Indiana Jones."
"I LOVE adventure movies! Pirates, Indiana Jones, and Jaws!!"
".......Jaws is not an adventure movie."
"YES IT IS!"
"Have you SEEN Jaws?"
This prompted Aiba to start humming the Jaws theme and run around the stage making a fin with his hand. Sho and Jun were like, THE HELL, DO YOU KNOW WHAT ADVENTURE MEANS, and Aiba was like, yup, it means bouken!!! And insisted that Jaws counted as a bouken. AHAHAHAHA.
Jun also said Hanadan Final would be out next month, to a ridiculously warm reception in comparison to the disinterest in Kakushi Toride. Everyone was screaming, "MIRU MIRU MIRU!!"
Then Sho added that Ohno had Freestyle going on. Since it was sold out, they said they had prepared a VTR of the exhibit for the people who couldn't get in. They exited the stage, and the screen did show a few of the art pieces......but then........!!!!
It showed the giant wall-sized photo of the OhmiyaSK figurines, AND OHMIYA SK IN FRONT OF THE PHOTO.
Nino said, "The person who made this has no sense." Ohno replied, "I don't think that's true."
Then Nino proceeded to pick it apart: "My skin isn't black. My hair looks nothing like that. My sunglasses are different. He doesn't have a body, he's just a head! No sense in this artist at all!!"
Ohno kept repeating, "I don't think that's true..." looking really mournful.
Nino then went after Ohno and cried out, "NIPPLE PINCH!!" and seized his nipples through his shirt. Ohno fell down as Nino laughed his ass off over how Ohno made an easy target, and then Ohno screamed, "NIPPLE REDIAL!!!" and went after Nino in revenge. XXXD
The audience was cheering like crazy for them, and in the VTR they said they heard voices and were gonna investigate. Then they walked out from backstage!!
They did a song and skit about mikoshi (portable shrines). During the song, they flashed up a giant photo of Tego and sang, "Not Tegoshi, but mikoshi!" They made a (fake) cannon, which the juniors set up (I was thinking, "LOL cannon fodder," a little bit) and set it off, but it went off backwards. The song had a dance where Ohno got into a wheelbarrow pose, and then Nino yanked his legs up and wrapped Ohno's legs around his waist, and then they spun around. CRAZINESS.
They went to introduce themselves, but only Nino did, and Ohno was hiding behind the cannon silently. Nino said, "Here, Taka, introduce yourself to all the people!" and he was still silent, then squeaked out, "TAKA DESU!" in a shrill voice.
Then Nino said Ohno was so tough that he could punch him in the stomach head-on without him feeling a thing. So Ohno was forced to pull up his shirt so Nino could punch him in the stomach. Didn't punch him hard enough for real damage, but hard enough for Nino to laugh his ass off again at Ohno's pain.
They exited and the other three came back. They spoke a bit about the caterpillar mascot. Aiba said it was his idea, because they had said this year they wanted to create a mascot character for the tour since they'd never had one before. He said it was a caterpillar because Arashi was still in the middle of developing, and the time for them to become butterflies was still ahead. Aww.
They introduced a video starring the caterpillar. Aiba said it was a video like "a picture book for adults." Sho and Jun yelled at him, saying, "It's fine for kids to watch! Why do you have to make it sound all sexed-up?!!" Aiba, horrified, wailed, "What are you guys THINKING of?!" They left and the video was shown of the caterpillar being cute.
When it ended, "Sakura Sake" started up. I had no idea where they were, and then looked up, and saw all five boys on swings suspended from a giant ballon-style platform on a track across the Dome ceiling. They moved on the swings from above the main stage all the way across to in front of the audience on the second floor, then were gradually lowered down.
Fight Song was a weird choice when it wasn't the encore, but it does get everyone pumped up nicely.
Then "Wish." Then "a Day in Our Life." Fuzzy on this, I think they were still based in the back for these, were I couldn't see much.
Then "Gimmick Game." THIS SOLO IS MADE OF SEX. I AM NOT KIDDING. OH MY GOD. Main stage, he was super close, and GOD IT IS THE HOTTEST THING EVER. The words to explain how hot this is have not yet been invented. For the "kimi no kubisuji ni..." lyrics, he was touching his neck suggestively, and everyone was losing it screaming their heads off. And then at the end, he didn't sing the last line ("kimi no kubisuji ni ima tsuba wo tsuketa") and instead licked his fingers, pulled down his shirt collar way down to expose as much neck as possible, and dragged his fingers across his neck. My brain may have exploded a little bit from hotness (and much as I adore Nino, I usually think of him as infinitely more "cute" than "sexy" but this was SERIOUSLY SO HOT IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE)
"Naked." Moving stage. I think he wore a white suit, but I couldn't see much of this except from the back until the very end when the stage passed us. The stage had giant billowy purple fabric trailing behind it, and then near the end of the song, the juniors hid Matsujun from view and the purple fabric blew off the stage, and then Jun reappeared shirtless. He did not look as starving as usual! I approved!
Ohno appeared and showed off the eco-bag, saying it had been made with thought towards the environment, and they'd also made another thing for us. They sang "Green," a song created by all five members... Can't really recall the lyrics. They sang it spaced out on the main stage platforms. Don't remember the lyrics, but they're about the environment? Rumored to be linked to 24 Jikan Terebi?
"Once Again." I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH. The rap is so awesome. Sung on the main center stage, all dancing together. This was probably the point where I felt the concert was perfect, everything after it was great.
Then "Theme of Dream-A-Live." This was so impressive and I do not understand why they didn't do this NEAR THE BEGINNING. I think just swapping this somewhere following the first set would have really amped up the tension and saved the beginning from floundering, and anyway I didn't see why they were introducing the members when the concert was nearly over. But they played the main theme and introduced each member. When Jun's name was called, the spotlight came up with him holding the Kakushi Toride flier up to the camera. YOU WHORE OUT THAT MOVIE, JUN. <3 Aiba went to do flips across the stage for his intro, and fell down halfway through a flip HARD. murasaki_kaze said his coat was full-length and she thought he got tangled up in it since he popped back up with his coat accidentally over his head. OH AIBA. Nino did a quick card trick! Ohno crossed his eyes in front of the camera when his turn came up. They also introduced the dancers and M.A.D.
Then "Lucky Man." The trucks came out. Aiba went past our row at top-top-speed. Then "Hadashi no Mirai" started, and Jun's truck was about 20 feet away from us. It was kind of cool following along with the furi in real time, following his lead!
"Oh Yeah!" I tried so hard to learn the furi and forgot the more complex bits, but nobody else could do it well either around me, so that was okay. :3 "Kotoba Yori Taisetsu na Mono" was great and amped up the tension as always.
They closed with "YOUR SONG." The audience sang the "la la la" bit alone. Very, very nice as a closing song.
They took their final bows, and Jun did the, "What's our name?" bit as they bowed, which made me really happy.
The people around us really weren't calling for the encore, but after the Friday thing everyone else was screaming bloody murder, especially in the stands. Both of us were screaming at the top of our lungs, and those two ladies in front were just bouncing up and down screaming their heads off. :3
They came out in tour t-shirts for the encore. I was so happy since I love "Do my best." They went on the moving stage, and...seriously, the whole night, whenever a member walked down or up the catwalk, they were always looking the other way or just never looked at us...Sho came very close, but always seemed to be looking in back of us...actually he seemed to be really lacking in energy the whole time. I heard he got injured during the Arashi-chan taping on Thursday, maybe that was why... But. Anyway. THEN.
THE MOVING STAGE CAME OVER AND MATSUJUN TOTALLY SAW ME AND MY UCHIWA AND OMG. PEACE SIGN FAN SERVICE ITADAKI.
YAY. \o/
"Kansha Kangeki Ame Arashi." I cried out loud, "Ehhh!!" since I knew they had closed with it on Friday, and I thought, "They can't be only doing one encore?! Are they that rushed?!"
But we screamed our lungs out again, and they all came back out in GORGEOUS pastel suits in their signature colors. Nino joked that he had dressed up while everyone else was in their street clothes. They talked a bit more casually, and mentioned Ohno's drama. Then Jun introduced "One Love" as the Hanadan Final theme, saying they were singing it as a present to the audience, and they sang it. So gorgeous. I love this song so much! You know the bit at the beginning of the trailer? It sounds so much like the Hanadan BGM that I thought it was, but no, that's the intro of the actual song! I'm completely in love with it. I can't remember all the lyrics, but I thought they were perfect for Hanadan. I remember the second verse had to do with something like how "even now there are some times I can't be honest about my feelings." The furi for this involves the pinky finger up. It is much easier than Love so sweet, everyone copied along pretty easily.
They left, and I really really really thought they would come back and close with "A-RA-SHI." It seemed impossible that they would go twice without singing it; I was convinced they'd wanted to close with it on Friday but were running overtime and Sho had to leave. But no. The final encore was "Pikanchi Double." I love that song, it's one of my favorites, but...it was really unfulfulling as a closing song. Though Jun forgot to sing his solo, it was so cute. <3
People have suggested they're going for a more "adult" image this tour and album, but it honestly doesn't feel like a full concert without "A-RA-SHI." I don't get it. Why leave it out...? :/ Why sing Pikanchi Double instead? I felt if they'd closed with "A-RA-SHI," it would have felt more complete. But because I was still really expecting them to sing it, it was a shock when they finished there... They all filed out, and Jun was last, crying over his shoulder, "Saikou ni tanoshikatta ze!"
To me, I feel a bit like last year was probably lightning in a bottle somehow. Last year had it all: the album was great, the setlist struck a perfect balance between old songs and new, and there was a joy to it all that is hard to put into words. I feel like it was the point right when they were hitting it big, but right before any pressure really came on strong. This year, I know they said they wanted to do things totally different so it wouldn't be another year just like Kotoba no Chikara, but despite the impressive set pieces, the concert just felt rushed somehow...
I prefer everyone dancing around being dorks during the performances to the big budget set pieces (not that there wasn't some of that; there was one moment they were dancing, where Nino waved Ohno over and held out his hand as if to say, "Let's walk together hand in hand!" and when Ohno went over, Nino dashed off at top speed down the stage. REJECTED. <3). The final speeches, the signboards, the singing of "A-RA-SHI" are all things the audience loves as forms of connection, and I was really baffled that they would do away with all three in one swift blow. :/ I could care less about the signboards, but no "A-RA-SHI" makes the concert feel like it's missing a vital organ, and I truly love the aisatsu. All this combined with much-shorter-than-usual encores made it feel rushed and incomplete.
Yeah~ I liked it a lot, but I'm hoping for better things from Tokyo where they won't need to rush. I guess we'll see! Not that I can really complain; it's mostly just that it simply wasn't as good as last year. But seeing OhmiyaSK + Matsujun fanservice + the Hanadan song = altogether more than enough fun for me for a night! :3
I'll probably post more later if I remember more or...it's not four in the morning anymore. Ew. SLEEP NOW. And back to Tokyo tomorrow morning. :(
Ooookay. So, on Friday night I was checking mixi, and people were really pissy for a variety of reasons over the first night. Mostly, their issues were as follows:
+ The backup dancers were girls (whatever, they were awesome dancers, I don't care about your crazy jealousy issues)
+ No signboards or balls thrown.
+ No final speeches. :(
+ No A-RA-SHI. (I KNOW.)
+ The arena was packed with newbies who weren't participating at all.
+ As follows, the arena was not calling for the encore loudly because the newbies didn't know they had to, so there were only two. Logic suggests this is more because Sho had to rush back to Tokyo for the volleyball match and he probably needed to be on the last shinkansen back, but the newbies were getting all the blame.
As for the second night? It wasn't bad, but the complaint about the newbies was really sadly true. Our seats were freaking epic; the first block of the arena. But of the three rows in front of us, barely a single person was moving. They didn't have penlights, they weren't singing along, they didn't do the call responses, they were just standing there with their arms at their sides. It was kind of a bummer.
Not that newbies do not provide unintentional lulz at times:
murasaki_kaze: OMG did you see that woman in front of us?!
nyonyo: No, what happened?
murasaki_kaze: The girl in front of her put her uchiwa up too high, and the woman's view was blocked, so she LITERALLY SMACKED THAT GIRL DOWN. IT WAS EPIC.
But there were these two ladies who were right in front of the totally dead area of newbies, and I loved them. They were clearly determined to participate enough themselves to make up for everyone around them. They were screaming their lungs out for the encore and dancing around in their seats. But I am ahead of myself.
Anyway, I thought the beginning of the show was weak, but I could not for the life of me tell you why. They really completely changed up the set list from the first night, but the beginning just didn't click... The set list for tonight:
Move your body
Happiness
Life goes on
Step and Go
(Greetings)
LOVE PARADE
Love so sweet
Everybody Zenshin
CARNIVAL NIGHT (part 2)
Take me faraway
Hip Pop Boogie
Flashback
Sirius
Hello Goodbye
We can make it!
Kitto Daijoubu
MC
Ohmiya SKOSHI
Sakura Sake
Fight Song (<---big change, not the encore?!)
WISH
a Day in Our Life
Gimmick Game
Naked
Green
Once Again
theme of Dream-A-Live
Lucky Man
Hadashi no Mirai
Oh yeah!
Kotoba Yori Taisetsu na Mono
YOUR SONG
Do my best
???
Kansha Kangeki Ame Arashi
One Love
Pikanchi Double
Okay, so the stage setup was much less elaborate than Kotoba no Chikara. The stage was pretty much empty except for the step platforms, with the exception of the left side, which was a giant setup styled like a merry-go-round and decorated like a cirus. I was initially concerned because from our position, it was really hard to see the screens, which would be a problem once they moved away from the stage...
Lights went out. Penlights went on. We were really close, by the way, maybe around the fifteenth row or so, right to the center catwalk and the moving stage track? It turned out the entire main stage background was used as a giant screen, so it was easy to see even when they moved away.
Opening: instrumental music played (not the main theme) and every member did their own short choreographed dance in turn. Then they all walked to the center of the main top stage and danced for "Move your body." The outfits for the first set were really hot; all black and silver, really really nice. Matsujun has fried his hair Momo-style, btw. Though it was really really hard to tell everyone apart at a distance, because all of them have black hair now.
They moved around a bit for Happiness, and then...Aiba and Sho were on a platform on our side of the stage, and Ohno, Nino, and Jun were on a platform on the right. The platforms moved over to connect with the center stage, where they moved to line up for "Life goes on." Except Matsujun tripped and stumbled while moving from the platform to the stage. Nino caught him, and then Nino made a show of tumbling down too to make a joke of it (I think he yanked down Ohno or Aiba with him <3)
I think "Life goes on" was mostly main stage, and then they moved down the center catwalk for "Step and Go." Our seats were close to the center catwalk, but most of the time it seemed like when they walked down it, they were always facing left instead of right (our side). They danced "Step and Go" on the stage at the back of the catwalk.
They did greetings on the main stage. Don't remember anything particularly eloquent being said, but loved Nino's staple "Irasshaimase!" being yelled just about thirty feet from me :3 After that everyone disappeared backstage.
Then the juniors came out from the merry-go-round setup, all dressed in circus wear, blowing trumpets. A few of them did flips, while the girl dancers did ribbon dancing on the catwalk. Then the merry-go-round opened up its curtains, and a freaking GIANT MERRY-GO-ROUND HORSE MOVES OUT OF THE MERRY-GO-ROUND STAGE SETUP.
It was the hanamichi, but they were unlike anything I've seen before. The only thing I could compare them to were the dragons for Countdown, but so much more impressive and complex. Even calling them hanamichi, they were actually like parade floats. The merry-go-round horse hanamichi led the way, but it was like one of those toy train sets, with five different cars in different shapes going around the track of the arena. At the top of each car, one member stood. Also, incredibly cool: one of the hanamichi cars had a TV screen built in so that we could watch the hanamichi and still see the closeups at the same time!!! I remember one of the cars was shaped like a cream soda and had bubbles coming out. Fuzzy on the rest. Couldn't tell which member was in which car due to hair issues.
On those individual hanamichi, they did "LOVE PARADE," "Love so sweet," and "Everybody Zenshin." I really love "Everybody Zenshin" so I was really glad that they've decided to keep it in rotation this tour. I spent much time trying to learn the "Love so sweet" furi, and it was so cramped I didn't really have much space to do it. I love the simplicity of the "Everybody Zenshin" furi, though!!!
Then they wrapped around back to the main stage, and did "CARNIVAL NIGHT." I think Aiba was dancing this in front of us on the stage. I still don't know the furi for this perfectly, and since nobody in front of me was even moving I couldn't really copy people easily. But then they did streamers and confetti over the arena seats, and I was jumping around because I desperately wanted a streamer. I GOT IIIT.
Ohno disappeared there and then next was "Take me faraway." Really kind of a letdown...the song is great, and it's nice that it's not his usual fare, but he wasn't even dancing until the final third of the song. Instead, they had filmed prerecorded footage of him dancing, and the footage of him would jump from screen to screen...but, why not dance it in real time too? Somehow coming to a concert and not getting to see Ohno dance intensely during his solos feels like going to a fancy restaurant and only eating the bread roll. :( At the end, he did a really nicely choreographed bit dancing on a chair, with two juniors next to him dancing backup on chairs of their own.
This was followed by "Hip Pop Boogie." The outfit was kind of meh; not epic JE ugly, but not classy either. He started out on our side of the main stage and then the moving stage took him back to the other end of the catwalk. On the big stage screens, there was really great prerecorded footage of the rest of Arashi singing along with him in really nice casual outfits. Nice touch since the solo is about his feelings for the group, reminded me a bit of everyone coming out at the end of "La Familia." Sho was making a show of peering out at the Dome at the "konna kesshiki mirareru nante, konna toko made kiteta nante..."
Flashback: I just remember Nino fucked up his solo here something awful, he was so off-key, and looked really put out. :/ I felt so bad watching him. The members all did really impressive pair dancing with the female dancers here! The dancing was amazing!!!
Sirius: all five spread out across the main stage. Even live, Jun managed to pull off his solo here. I was impressed!! Nino's solo = much better here. Think we had Aiba and Nino on our side of the stage.
Hello Goodbye: HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO CUTE. The furi for it is SO EASY. I mean, I can't do it from memory, but absolutely everyone was doing it along with them. Aiba was wearing pink plaid cutoff shorts with a belt made of pompoms. M.A.D. was dancing backup behind him on the catwalk, and one of them was facing right at us, making the furi really easy to see. I thought he was super-cute, and then thought, "I hope he's legal. D:" HE PROBABLY WAS, RIGHT? HE LOOKED LEGAL?! Aiba played the harmonica!!!!
I thiiiiiink "We can make it!" was sung on the trucks, and then they lined them up in back in a row to dance "Kitto Daijoubu."
Then the MC, which was done on the backstage, mostly. murasaki_kaze seemed to remember more than I did later, but she's asleep now, so. Um, they mostly were talking about work. Sho talked about how he had to leave Friday to go back to Tokyo for volleyball, and Nino was mock-bitchily yelling at him for going off to do stuff all alone, and asked when they were all gonna go see the volleyball matches. Sho asked, "Are you going to come?" Nino answered, "Rather, why haven't you invited us?!" Japan had just won their match so everyone cheered.
Sho asked if anything interesting had happened while he was off. Apparently Aiba was partying with M.A.D. in his hotel room, and they were being super-loud. So they got busted by Matsujun. Everyone else was laughing, "Ahaha you pissed off Matsujun, Aiba!" and of course Jun insisted that he wasn't pissed, it was just that they were so loud that he could hear them, which meant other people in the hotel could too, which meant he just told them to shut up to save the hotel staff the trouble. ;P
Then Aiba said he woke up the next morning and realized he wasn't alone in his bed. One of the M.A.D. boys had crashed there and slept over, but Aiba didn't remember offering to let him stay at all. "You were sleeping together?" "We were on separate sides of the bed!!"
Apparently Ohno overslept this morning and couldn't be roused. They were trying to knock on his door, but no dice. They had to call their manager to go get a spare key from the front desk, but of course once they did that, that was when Ohno woke up. ;P
Sho said Ohno makes weird faces when he sleeps. He demonstrated. HILARITY. He looked like he was chewing something. Sho said he wondered what Ohno was dreaming about, making those weird faces.
Nino and Ohno disappeared backstage, so Aiba, Sho, and Jun talked a bit on their own. Sho said Jun was doing a movie, and asked how many people had seen it. I heard fans weren't really going, but oh damn it was pathetic how few people raised their hands. A bunch of girls in the front rows had, but I was the only one in the rest of the block who had my hand up. I didn't look in back, but I'm guessing it was much the same, and Jun said half-jokingly that he was surprised at how few hands went up and that he was a bit pissed. Sho and Aiba told him not to get pissed at people for not seeing the movie but to encourage them to see it instead. ;P
He did so. Sho commented he was impressed than Jun could grow such a beard for the movie. ;P Jun said even though it appeared to be a jidaigeki, the contents were less jidaigeki and more action-adventure.
"Aiba-kun, you like adventure movies, right? Like Pirates of the Caribbean. Or Indiana Jones."
"I LOVE adventure movies! Pirates, Indiana Jones, and Jaws!!"
".......Jaws is not an adventure movie."
"YES IT IS!"
"Have you SEEN Jaws?"
This prompted Aiba to start humming the Jaws theme and run around the stage making a fin with his hand. Sho and Jun were like, THE HELL, DO YOU KNOW WHAT ADVENTURE MEANS, and Aiba was like, yup, it means bouken!!! And insisted that Jaws counted as a bouken. AHAHAHAHA.
Jun also said Hanadan Final would be out next month, to a ridiculously warm reception in comparison to the disinterest in Kakushi Toride. Everyone was screaming, "MIRU MIRU MIRU!!"
Then Sho added that Ohno had Freestyle going on. Since it was sold out, they said they had prepared a VTR of the exhibit for the people who couldn't get in. They exited the stage, and the screen did show a few of the art pieces......but then........!!!!
It showed the giant wall-sized photo of the OhmiyaSK figurines, AND OHMIYA SK IN FRONT OF THE PHOTO.
Nino said, "The person who made this has no sense." Ohno replied, "I don't think that's true."
Then Nino proceeded to pick it apart: "My skin isn't black. My hair looks nothing like that. My sunglasses are different. He doesn't have a body, he's just a head! No sense in this artist at all!!"
Ohno kept repeating, "I don't think that's true..." looking really mournful.
Nino then went after Ohno and cried out, "NIPPLE PINCH!!" and seized his nipples through his shirt. Ohno fell down as Nino laughed his ass off over how Ohno made an easy target, and then Ohno screamed, "NIPPLE REDIAL!!!" and went after Nino in revenge. XXXD
The audience was cheering like crazy for them, and in the VTR they said they heard voices and were gonna investigate. Then they walked out from backstage!!
They did a song and skit about mikoshi (portable shrines). During the song, they flashed up a giant photo of Tego and sang, "Not Tegoshi, but mikoshi!" They made a (fake) cannon, which the juniors set up (I was thinking, "LOL cannon fodder," a little bit) and set it off, but it went off backwards. The song had a dance where Ohno got into a wheelbarrow pose, and then Nino yanked his legs up and wrapped Ohno's legs around his waist, and then they spun around. CRAZINESS.
They went to introduce themselves, but only Nino did, and Ohno was hiding behind the cannon silently. Nino said, "Here, Taka, introduce yourself to all the people!" and he was still silent, then squeaked out, "TAKA DESU!" in a shrill voice.
Then Nino said Ohno was so tough that he could punch him in the stomach head-on without him feeling a thing. So Ohno was forced to pull up his shirt so Nino could punch him in the stomach. Didn't punch him hard enough for real damage, but hard enough for Nino to laugh his ass off again at Ohno's pain.
They exited and the other three came back. They spoke a bit about the caterpillar mascot. Aiba said it was his idea, because they had said this year they wanted to create a mascot character for the tour since they'd never had one before. He said it was a caterpillar because Arashi was still in the middle of developing, and the time for them to become butterflies was still ahead. Aww.
They introduced a video starring the caterpillar. Aiba said it was a video like "a picture book for adults." Sho and Jun yelled at him, saying, "It's fine for kids to watch! Why do you have to make it sound all sexed-up?!!" Aiba, horrified, wailed, "What are you guys THINKING of?!" They left and the video was shown of the caterpillar being cute.
When it ended, "Sakura Sake" started up. I had no idea where they were, and then looked up, and saw all five boys on swings suspended from a giant ballon-style platform on a track across the Dome ceiling. They moved on the swings from above the main stage all the way across to in front of the audience on the second floor, then were gradually lowered down.
Fight Song was a weird choice when it wasn't the encore, but it does get everyone pumped up nicely.
Then "Wish." Then "a Day in Our Life." Fuzzy on this, I think they were still based in the back for these, were I couldn't see much.
Then "Gimmick Game." THIS SOLO IS MADE OF SEX. I AM NOT KIDDING. OH MY GOD. Main stage, he was super close, and GOD IT IS THE HOTTEST THING EVER. The words to explain how hot this is have not yet been invented. For the "kimi no kubisuji ni..." lyrics, he was touching his neck suggestively, and everyone was losing it screaming their heads off. And then at the end, he didn't sing the last line ("kimi no kubisuji ni ima tsuba wo tsuketa") and instead licked his fingers, pulled down his shirt collar way down to expose as much neck as possible, and dragged his fingers across his neck. My brain may have exploded a little bit from hotness (and much as I adore Nino, I usually think of him as infinitely more "cute" than "sexy" but this was SERIOUSLY SO HOT IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE)
"Naked." Moving stage. I think he wore a white suit, but I couldn't see much of this except from the back until the very end when the stage passed us. The stage had giant billowy purple fabric trailing behind it, and then near the end of the song, the juniors hid Matsujun from view and the purple fabric blew off the stage, and then Jun reappeared shirtless. He did not look as starving as usual! I approved!
Ohno appeared and showed off the eco-bag, saying it had been made with thought towards the environment, and they'd also made another thing for us. They sang "Green," a song created by all five members... Can't really recall the lyrics. They sang it spaced out on the main stage platforms. Don't remember the lyrics, but they're about the environment? Rumored to be linked to 24 Jikan Terebi?
"Once Again." I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH. The rap is so awesome. Sung on the main center stage, all dancing together. This was probably the point where I felt the concert was perfect, everything after it was great.
Then "Theme of Dream-A-Live." This was so impressive and I do not understand why they didn't do this NEAR THE BEGINNING. I think just swapping this somewhere following the first set would have really amped up the tension and saved the beginning from floundering, and anyway I didn't see why they were introducing the members when the concert was nearly over. But they played the main theme and introduced each member. When Jun's name was called, the spotlight came up with him holding the Kakushi Toride flier up to the camera. YOU WHORE OUT THAT MOVIE, JUN. <3 Aiba went to do flips across the stage for his intro, and fell down halfway through a flip HARD. murasaki_kaze said his coat was full-length and she thought he got tangled up in it since he popped back up with his coat accidentally over his head. OH AIBA. Nino did a quick card trick! Ohno crossed his eyes in front of the camera when his turn came up. They also introduced the dancers and M.A.D.
Then "Lucky Man." The trucks came out. Aiba went past our row at top-top-speed. Then "Hadashi no Mirai" started, and Jun's truck was about 20 feet away from us. It was kind of cool following along with the furi in real time, following his lead!
"Oh Yeah!" I tried so hard to learn the furi and forgot the more complex bits, but nobody else could do it well either around me, so that was okay. :3 "Kotoba Yori Taisetsu na Mono" was great and amped up the tension as always.
They closed with "YOUR SONG." The audience sang the "la la la" bit alone. Very, very nice as a closing song.
They took their final bows, and Jun did the, "What's our name?" bit as they bowed, which made me really happy.
The people around us really weren't calling for the encore, but after the Friday thing everyone else was screaming bloody murder, especially in the stands. Both of us were screaming at the top of our lungs, and those two ladies in front were just bouncing up and down screaming their heads off. :3
They came out in tour t-shirts for the encore. I was so happy since I love "Do my best." They went on the moving stage, and...seriously, the whole night, whenever a member walked down or up the catwalk, they were always looking the other way or just never looked at us...Sho came very close, but always seemed to be looking in back of us...actually he seemed to be really lacking in energy the whole time. I heard he got injured during the Arashi-chan taping on Thursday, maybe that was why... But. Anyway. THEN.
THE MOVING STAGE CAME OVER AND MATSUJUN TOTALLY SAW ME AND MY UCHIWA AND OMG. PEACE SIGN FAN SERVICE ITADAKI.
YAY. \o/
"Kansha Kangeki Ame Arashi." I cried out loud, "Ehhh!!" since I knew they had closed with it on Friday, and I thought, "They can't be only doing one encore?! Are they that rushed?!"
But we screamed our lungs out again, and they all came back out in GORGEOUS pastel suits in their signature colors. Nino joked that he had dressed up while everyone else was in their street clothes. They talked a bit more casually, and mentioned Ohno's drama. Then Jun introduced "One Love" as the Hanadan Final theme, saying they were singing it as a present to the audience, and they sang it. So gorgeous. I love this song so much! You know the bit at the beginning of the trailer? It sounds so much like the Hanadan BGM that I thought it was, but no, that's the intro of the actual song! I'm completely in love with it. I can't remember all the lyrics, but I thought they were perfect for Hanadan. I remember the second verse had to do with something like how "even now there are some times I can't be honest about my feelings." The furi for this involves the pinky finger up. It is much easier than Love so sweet, everyone copied along pretty easily.
They left, and I really really really thought they would come back and close with "A-RA-SHI." It seemed impossible that they would go twice without singing it; I was convinced they'd wanted to close with it on Friday but were running overtime and Sho had to leave. But no. The final encore was "Pikanchi Double." I love that song, it's one of my favorites, but...it was really unfulfulling as a closing song. Though Jun forgot to sing his solo, it was so cute. <3
People have suggested they're going for a more "adult" image this tour and album, but it honestly doesn't feel like a full concert without "A-RA-SHI." I don't get it. Why leave it out...? :/ Why sing Pikanchi Double instead? I felt if they'd closed with "A-RA-SHI," it would have felt more complete. But because I was still really expecting them to sing it, it was a shock when they finished there... They all filed out, and Jun was last, crying over his shoulder, "Saikou ni tanoshikatta ze!"
To me, I feel a bit like last year was probably lightning in a bottle somehow. Last year had it all: the album was great, the setlist struck a perfect balance between old songs and new, and there was a joy to it all that is hard to put into words. I feel like it was the point right when they were hitting it big, but right before any pressure really came on strong. This year, I know they said they wanted to do things totally different so it wouldn't be another year just like Kotoba no Chikara, but despite the impressive set pieces, the concert just felt rushed somehow...
I prefer everyone dancing around being dorks during the performances to the big budget set pieces (not that there wasn't some of that; there was one moment they were dancing, where Nino waved Ohno over and held out his hand as if to say, "Let's walk together hand in hand!" and when Ohno went over, Nino dashed off at top speed down the stage. REJECTED. <3). The final speeches, the signboards, the singing of "A-RA-SHI" are all things the audience loves as forms of connection, and I was really baffled that they would do away with all three in one swift blow. :/ I could care less about the signboards, but no "A-RA-SHI" makes the concert feel like it's missing a vital organ, and I truly love the aisatsu. All this combined with much-shorter-than-usual encores made it feel rushed and incomplete.
Yeah~ I liked it a lot, but I'm hoping for better things from Tokyo where they won't need to rush. I guess we'll see! Not that I can really complain; it's mostly just that it simply wasn't as good as last year. But seeing OhmiyaSK + Matsujun fanservice + the Hanadan song = altogether more than enough fun for me for a night! :3
I'll probably post more later if I remember more or...it's not four in the morning anymore. Ew. SLEEP NOW. And back to Tokyo tomorrow morning. :(