[Concert Report] Shota Yasuda Solo Concert 12/15/06 Show 1
Hi everyone, long time no see! Yes, I'm still alive and no, I haven't had the time to do translations... sorry about that!!!
I had the luck of being able to go to Shota's solo concert yesterday. It's been only a week since I got back to Japan and I've already seen Shota (and a few others... you'll see!) live!!!! I have plans to go to a few concerts in Yokohama in a few weeks, too!!!! YAY!!!!!! IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK!!!! Hahaha.
Here is the concert report from yesterday. It's really long, so you don't have to read it all if you don't want to, haha. I wrote it so that I can remember it myself!!
Shota Yasuda Solo Concert 2006 Winter
December 15, 2006 - Shochikuza Theatre 2:00 p.m. start
Guitar solo (his shadow comes up on the screen)
Shota shows up on the “hanamichi” (not the main stage) covered in smoke
DIVE
He’s wearing a costume that is like White Ranger (no helmet, belt or infinity mark on the butt) but has lots of other colors like yellowish green. His guitar is blue. The junior group “OSSaN” is performing as the back band.
Do you agree?
I don’t remember if it was during this song or not, but he asked “Did you bring back up clothes!? (I’m assuming he asked because he wanted to say that this concert will be so exciting that you’ll be needing new clothes by the end of it from all the sweat) If not, you can get t-shirts at the shop!” Honestly, I don’t remember much from the beginning part because I was so focused on the real Shota right in front of me, haha. Somewhere early, he said “I have a warning for this concert: Don’t laugh even when I make mistakes.”
Obachan Rock
The original lyric is “あなたの血をひいてるで” (Anata no chi wo hiiteru de) but he sang it “安田家の血をひいてるで” (Yasuda ke no chi wo hiiterude). Originally it means “I have your (okan) blood in me,” and he changed it to “I have the Yasuda family’s blood in me.”
V. West medley
He sings about three songs and shifts the microphone from center stage to the right side then to the left so that everyone can see him.
Dance
Sexy Shota shakes his hips and dances with the juniors. Includes acrobatic moves such as climbing up the wall and flipping backwards. Even backflipped down from a high stage.
Misetekure
Wearing a very… *unique* costume… bright pink and neon green thunder pattern?? Glows in the dark. Has a hood that covers his cute face. The juniors have those glow-in-the-dark gloves. During the dance, the lights go down and all you can see are those hands and Shota’s bright costume. In the middle of the dance, they switch “Shota” to someone else (does this mean that they have MORE THAN ONE of those pink/green/neon/Godzilla costumes???) without most of the fans noticing… then…
Ai no katamari
Appears out of nowhere to the right side in the crowd. He’s just standing there in a black suit that looks like the one they wore for Kanashii Koi, Rainy Blues, Eden and Mugendai in the Heat Up DVD. Starts singing Kinki Kids’ Ai no Katamari acapella, then walks to the stage with a hat on and sings and dances to the song.
Mirai no mukou e
Shota is alone on the stage and the stage has this beautiful lighting and curtains as he sings Mirai no mukou e ever so beautifully. He held the mic stand as he sang the “Tatoeba-” part originally sang by Subaru. He held his right hand up occasionally and it looked beautiful. This was probably my favorite song of the afternoon even though he made a minor mistake in the lyrics, haha. He said “遠い街” (Tooi machi = Town far away) instead of “違う街” (Chigau machi = Different town)
Yajirushi
He takes his jacket off and shows his colored shirt as he sings Yajirushi with the juniors. Three little kids sang the rap part. The stage was moving round and round.
Kanfuu Fighting
He comes out with his puffy red costume. He had a yellow green tank top underneath it (he was zipping the jacket up on stage). The juniors behind him are doing all sorts of things like kendo, karate, boxing etc. and Yasu keeps on tsukkomi-ing them and saying it’s not kangfu. Then this one skinny little (yes, smaller than Shota) kid wearing nothing but black short pants comes out with a blue mask on and him and Shota keep fooling around with each other. It was a cute scene J
I think after this song is when he started talking A LOT. He said how he’s happy to see everyone here and he made everyone smile and say “niiiiiiiiiiii.” He said that there were 90,000 calls for the solo cons for the three of them in total, adding that he’ll probably get yelled at by saying this, haha. Remember, at the time of the calls, there were only three shows each planned. Shochikuza only fits 1,000 people so imagine how hard it is to get the tickets! Wow! Then he named his fans “Yasuda-ler” and everyone was like “Nooooo, Shot-er!!” some people were like “How about Chipa-ler?” Apparently someone’s request sounded like “Asupara (asparagus)” to Shota and he was like “What the heck are you talking about, how am I an asparagus?!” and the fans were like “we didn’t say that!” Haha. So I guess us Shota fans are “Yasuda-ler” in his books, haha. He also asked the people on the third floor, “I’m small, but can you see me?”
Mikan
From here on, we were asked to sit down and enjoy the show. He had to drink water because he was thirsty, and the crowd urged him to chug it. They had the “ikki! ikki!” call going and Shota was like “This is not an izakaya!” They had the microphone and guitar set up on the hanamichi and he said he was going to sing a few songs. He said he never sang his songs in public, so he sang Mikan. He said the name of Subaru BAND’s new song but I don’t remember what exactly it was… something like “Higher Position” or “High Position.” They are singing it in the nation tour right now so I’m sure we’ll find out soon.
He had his drawings on the screen that went with the song. He said “Please pay attention to these drawings because they have meanings.” When he said this, he said it so that it kinda meant “be careful when you see these drawings” so the fans were like “???” and he realized what people were wondering about and was like “Hey, you never know, things might pop up from the screen! Be aware!” The first drawing was of a “man” (more like a black blob, haha) that had a red heart and red lines on his arms and legs. Shota said it represented the blood and that this man was in good condition. The next picture was of the same “man” but the background had blue tear marks and such falling on top of him. Those tear marks looked like “鼻水” (=runny nose) in Shota’s words. Then in the last picture, the “man” looked sad and lonely with more blue marks in the background. Some of the tear marks formed the Chinese character “涙” which means “tears.” It was subtle so it took people time to see it, but once they did, they were all like “wow!” Kimi reminded me that Shota also chose to write the letter “涙” during the calligraphy episode of Honjani. The character “涙” is also used for Ryo’s drama “一リットルの涙”
While he was on the hanamichi, the crowd started going “Whooooooo!!” and he took a pose with one hand up and waving and smiling brightly saying “You guys make me feel like I’m a Hollywood star!!” and so we went on to cheer on him like that for a while until later on he said “Okay, it’s starting to sound like a siren!”
Kimi to Boku (Yasu’s original)
This was a very nice song!! He messed up the lyric in the end and was like “Ahhh I messed up the end! I was so close! Gaaaa!” After singing it, he explained how he came up with the lyrics. He had the idea in his head during the concerts in Hokkaido, finalized it in a 岩盤浴 (a type of hot spring, I guess) and completed it the day before the concerts began. It’s basically a cute love song where the lyrics are like “I wake up earlier so that I can see you sleeping” or “We race to the bathroom sink to see who can grab the toothbrush faster” and such. He described how it’s his ideal situation with his wife and he is going to have his left arm up when he sleeps so that his wife can sleep on his shoulder; he’ll wake up and see his wife’s face that looks like a puppy and say, “dear, you’re so adorable”; they’re going to race to the sink and brush as fast as they can and gobble and spit etc. Haha, it was very cute how he described this whole thing.
Mou kimi igai aisenai (Request)
On the screen, he showed a list of songs he can play and looked around the crowd and asked them what they would like to hear. He probably had more than ten songs on the list. I forget if it was before or after this, but he showed two pictures of his niece that he desperately adores. The first one was of his family: him, the baby, his sister, his mom and his dad. All of them except for Shota and the baby had a black line on their eyes so he was like “Don’t they look like criminals or something?” He went on to say that his sister and dad had the same nose and his dad’s blood runs well in the family. They all kind of have the same face. His dad is from the southern islands, maybe near Okinawa or something. His dad has a poster of Kanjani8 on their wall. Their dog was in the picture as well. I don’t know which J-Web entry he’s talking about but apparently, his sneakers were missing? He found out that it was his dad who used it, and he was like “He was the one! He does look like a criminal in this picture with the eyes crossed out and all though, haha.” The next picture he later showed was of him and the baby… the baby was cute, yeah, but MY GOD Shota was more adorable!!! He was wearing a green shirt and was facing the baby with his mouth wide opened. The baby was sticking her hand out to Shota’s mouth. SO CUTE. In other shows, apparently he had a slideshow of the baby that ended in her butt showing and a video clip of him asking for the baby to hand him his digital camera case. Some people got to see Ohkura, Suba/Yasu, Maru and Ryo’s pictures from when they were shooting Eito Ranger pictures. I guess they’re going to be on the calendar? I’m not sure. He also had a clip or pictures from his earlier days. You can see he put a lot of time, effort and thought into this “request” segment! He basically had something prepared for every single song!
Samurai Blues (Request)
The girl who requested Samurai Blues was standing just a few rows behind me. Exactly a few rows behind me because she was on the edge of the second floor just like me. So, obviously, instead of looking at her, I directly stared at Shota who was looking up in the direction. Because she was wearing black, he was like “You look like a Kuroko-san (like a prompter).” He sang the first verse and the rest beginning from his solo part, “Namida kakushi ten wo aoida” on his acoustic guitar.
Mugendai (Okinawa version)
I don’t remember if this was before the requests or not… but!! Shota arranged Mugendai on his own and played on an instrument called “一期一会” (Ichigo Ichie) This “ichigo” is not the strawberry; “ichigoichie” is a phrase. It’s like a guitar but not really because it only has four strings. It’s probably like a mixture of a guitar and a shamisen. It’s very different from the way you play a guitar, so Shota asked us if he can look at his cheat sheet, haha. Apparently, the music in Okinawa uses a different scale. It sounded like a totally different song even though the lyrics were exactly the same. It was SO GOOD, though!!! I don’t remember exactly how it went, but I loved how he sang the word “mugendai.” He said he worked hard arranging the song. He should record this and add it as a bonus track for the next album or something! Come on, Teichiku! They should have an album that has solos of each member included in it!!!!!! TEICHIKU!!!!
Eden
Before they sang this, Yasu introduced BAD Boys. They came in saying “Whoooooo!” just like the crowd. I don’t really know their names, but from left to right it was Muro, Nakama, #3, Shota, Kiriyama, #5 and Yamazaki. I don’t know which was Nakata and which was Hamada. Anyway, Shota asked all of them what time they had gone to bed the night before. Most of them went to bed at like 1 or 2 in the morning. Shota said “geez, these kids nowadays!” #3 said that he can fall asleep immediately, and Shota said he could too. #3 said “I can fall asleep in 10 seconds,” Shota was like, “Ha, that’s nothing, I can go to sleep in 9!” “I can go in 8!” “Then I can go in 7!” “I can go in…” “Enough!!” and Shota throws his water bottle on the floor, haha. Immediately after that, Shota asked Kiriyama “What time did you go to bed?” and Kiriyama was like “I can fall asleep in 5 seconds.” Haha, everyone got a good laugh out of that. He said that he went to bed at like 2:30 or something because he had a lot of HW to do. He was working on a long report. He never said this before, but he is studying pre-school nursery education? However you call it. Shota asked him if he wanted to become a pre-school teacher and he was like “No.” Then he explained how he liked kids and he’s even practicing the piano. He’s at level 4 in something, and one of the girls in the crowd said “I’m at 3 (better)!” and Kiriyama was like “…ahh, man!!” and kinda sulked, haha. Yamazaki basically sleep all day long and was like “I’m actually sleeping right now as we speak.” Shota was like “What the heck are you talking about; your eyes are ‘pachikuri’ opened!” (‘pachikuri’ is like a sound effect for opened eyes… although, it’s really ‘pacchiri,’ so there’s another Yasuda-language for you, haha)
Shota then said that he watched “Home Alone 2” on TV that night and asked the others if they had. Shota was “laughing like an American kid” while watching the movie. He said that Hamanaka (Bun-chan) looks like Culkin. So, they called up Hamanaka to the stage and Shota let him introduce himself. Shota was like, “Yo, why do you act like you didn’t want to be called up? You don’t like me?” and Hamanaka was like “It’s not like I don’t like you, but… thanks for inviting me!”
While Shota let the BAD Boys advertise their concerts that start the next day, Shota prepared his guitar for Eden. He sang the first verse and the others joined in for the chorus. The part where Subaru usually sings (originally partly by Uchi) “Arifureta kibou no utawo mae ni shite” was sung by (I think) #3 and #5 while Shota sang the part where Ryo sings in the background.
During the second show on the 14th, Subaru and Maru showed up. According to reports that I’ve read, Subaru walked up to Yasu and grabbed his crotch (his way of saying “good job, keep up the good work?” lol). They said that they just finished working with the Kanou-sisters who are known to have huge breasts. They said that they were the biggest boobs they’ve ever seen. Maru kept on saying how this concert was so Yasu-ish and has a very kind, nice atmosphere. Subaru pretended (or was he really?) that he was on the phone with someone while Maru chugged his water. Yasu asked them to join them for Eden, but Subaru was like “I’m not that cheap. Is Shochikuza going to pay me? Are they going to put money in my bank account?” They sang Eden together and Subaru sang Yasu’s favorite part (he asked Subaru to sing it for him because he liked it so much) “Arifureta-”
So anyway, after BAD Boys and Shota, who broke a string on his guitar during the song, sang Eden (Maru and Baru were not there for my show), Shota introduced OSSaN while the BAD Boys cleared up the stage. OSSaN is very young; somewhere between 14 to 16 years old but are way taller than Shota. Of course, he’s jealous of their height, haha. He said that OSSaN practiced the band just for Shota’s concert. The O guy (sorry, no clue what their names are) apparently is a big fan of Shota’s but he never acts that way. So, Shota said, “You know, you should show me that you like me. For example, come up to me (as he skips) and say ‘好きです’ (Sukidesu) to me!” Haha. The SSaN went to an izakaya after the concerts the night before and had things to eat. Yasu was like, “Izakaya!? Aren’t you underage?!” They didn’t have alcoholic beverages (I sure hope so! They’re what, in middle school!?) but they had food there. O didn’t go with them because his house is on the other side. One of the SSaNs complained that when they went to Starbucks, O used his paper bag (that he was keeping to put in comic books that he was going to borrow) as a trash bag and threw it away. Shota asked what O’s blood type was and he said “A” and Shota was like “That’s the same as me! …Is that why?” …that made no sense now did it, haha. Maybe it was for #3 of the BAD Boys when they were talking about how they can go to sleep quickly. I don’t remember!
Junior medley
By the way, Shota was wearing his red Kanfuu costume all the way up til here. He finally got a break with this junior medley!
Christmas medley
First they sang “見上げてごらん夜の星を” (Miagete goran yoru no hoshi wo). Shota reappears wearing the yellow/blue costume he wore in Hatenaki Sora from Heat Up. Then they sang “Can you feel this Christmas,” the same song Uchi and Hina sang in the Excite DVD. Then Shota asked the crowd to dance along to “１０年後の今日の日も” (10 nengo no kyou no hi mo). I think at the end of this medley, there was a shooting star in the background. It was pretty J
Act Show / Who’s Food
This is the solo song that he has in the nation tour right now. He was wearing white/black/check kind of costume. He wore this til the end of the concert (before the encores). It was long so I’m assuming he sang two songs… “Act Show” is like a rock song where he keeps on saying “Act show, act show!” which kinda sounds like “Hakushon (achoo! as in sneezing)” haha. I guess in the nation tour, Maru has his solo, then Yasu, then Hina, and then all three of them get together and sing. I’m not sure what these songs are exactly, though!
Osaka Romanesque
Once again, he was alone on the stage and sang Romanesque nicely. “It’s not the end, yet! You want more, don’t you!? Let’s go!”
Amechan
Purin
He sang both of these songs rock version (same as Spirits). The background dancing by the juniors were really cute. They kinda swung left and right. On the screen, there were drawings probably by Yasu of candies (held tightly by scary looking fingers with lots of lines in them) and purin (urging the fans to sing along). They jumped up and down a lot.
Kuchibue no mukou
Sukiyanen, Osaka
Shota had his new shiny Eito kun, and all the juniors were dancing in the back as well. It felt like this is when the whole entire building was definitely ONE. It was fun!!! This song ended the concert, before going into the encores.
(encore)
Mugendai
Shota’s wearing his pink t-shirt and has an acoustic guitar with him. He starts strumming it and asks everyone to sing Mugendai along. The beginning part is too low for girls, so they sang it an octave higher… which created problems later on, haha. THEN!!! WHILE EVERYONE WAS SINGING!!!! ALL OF A SUDDEN!!!! WE SEE SOMEONE APPEAR FROM THE HANAMICHI!!!! A reddish shirt and dark colored jeans… shoulder-length wavy hair!! OH MY, HINA!!!! …WAIT, THERE’S MORE!!!! White pants and khaki jacket… TACHHON!! AND GYAAA!!! ANOTHER ONE!!!! Skinny… red/pink stripe shirt and jeans… RYO!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!! Shota apparently didn’t know they were coming either so he was pleasantly surprised. They didn’t say anything, but Hina and Ryo squished Shota’s hair and Tacchon gave him a little hug as he walked by him. They sang Mugendai together.
Kanfuu Fighting
They stayed for Kanfuu Fighting as well. This probably was the loudest the crowd has gotten! We all danced and sang together. The crowd did the “Sora ga haretara!” “Yabure kaburede!” and I think Shota said “Genki ga naitoki” (he might not have) then Hina said “Positive kibun de!” Crowd “Iyaya” Tacchon “Yay yay yay! (with one leg up)” Ryo “Ahaha” All “aaaahhhh” EVERYONE was singing, it was so much fun!!!!! The three guys didn’t say anything but kept on applauding Shota and gave him the attention that he rightfully deserves.
(encore 2)
He came out for the one last time and said his thank yous and good byes. He kept on waving until the curtain totally touched the ground.
In other concert reports that I’ve read:
- Before the concerts began, Shota got text messages from the K8 members. Ohkura’s was plain and simple without words; it only had a fist mark emoticon, telling him “good luck.” Shota responded with a smiley face and a fist. Love doesn’t need words <3 Hina’s was like “Yo, good luck! If you screw up, that’s the end of it for the both of us (him and Maru)!!” Yoko called Shota and told him good luck because he probably can’t make it because of the drama. Ryo’s messages was, “Yasu, who are you? (lots of space) Yasu, that is you <3” with a heart mark in the end that Ryo rarely uses. Subaru’s was the one on the chimp/otokomae exchange telling him to “be yourself,” almost making Shota cry (he couldn’t cry because there were people around him). The one person left… Mr. Maruyama… did not send him anything, haha. Yasu understood as his partner that he was probably concentrating on trying to make his concert a good one as well.
- I guess on Day One, Shota asked everyone if they were wearing the bracelet that came with the Kanfuu Fighting CD. He said he has one as well but it is red. Subaru came up to him one day and shyly said, “Yasu, let’s exchange these.” So Subaru’s wearing blue and Shota’s wearing red. He was wearing it when I saw him on the 15th, too J Actually, you can see him wearing red in the Music Station performance and a few other places as well. Love!
I had the luck of being able to go to Shota's solo concert yesterday. It's been only a week since I got back to Japan and I've already seen Shota (and a few others... you'll see!) live!!!! I have plans to go to a few concerts in Yokohama in a few weeks, too!!!! YAY!!!!!! IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK!!!! Hahaha.
Here is the concert report from yesterday. It's really long, so you don't have to read it all if you don't want to, haha. I wrote it so that I can remember it myself!!
Shota Yasuda Solo Concert 2006 Winter
December 15, 2006 - Shochikuza Theatre 2:00 p.m. start
Guitar solo (his shadow comes up on the screen)
Shota shows up on the “hanamichi” (not the main stage) covered in smoke
DIVE
He’s wearing a costume that is like White Ranger (no helmet, belt or infinity mark on the butt) but has lots of other colors like yellowish green. His guitar is blue. The junior group “OSSaN” is performing as the back band.
Do you agree?
I don’t remember if it was during this song or not, but he asked “Did you bring back up clothes!? (I’m assuming he asked because he wanted to say that this concert will be so exciting that you’ll be needing new clothes by the end of it from all the sweat) If not, you can get t-shirts at the shop!” Honestly, I don’t remember much from the beginning part because I was so focused on the real Shota right in front of me, haha. Somewhere early, he said “I have a warning for this concert: Don’t laugh even when I make mistakes.”
Obachan Rock
The original lyric is “あなたの血をひいてるで” (Anata no chi wo hiiteru de) but he sang it “安田家の血をひいてるで” (Yasuda ke no chi wo hiiterude). Originally it means “I have your (okan) blood in me,” and he changed it to “I have the Yasuda family’s blood in me.”
V. West medley
He sings about three songs and shifts the microphone from center stage to the right side then to the left so that everyone can see him.
Dance
Sexy Shota shakes his hips and dances with the juniors. Includes acrobatic moves such as climbing up the wall and flipping backwards. Even backflipped down from a high stage.
Misetekure
Wearing a very… *unique* costume… bright pink and neon green thunder pattern?? Glows in the dark. Has a hood that covers his cute face. The juniors have those glow-in-the-dark gloves. During the dance, the lights go down and all you can see are those hands and Shota’s bright costume. In the middle of the dance, they switch “Shota” to someone else (does this mean that they have MORE THAN ONE of those pink/green/neon/Godzilla costumes???) without most of the fans noticing… then…
Ai no katamari
Appears out of nowhere to the right side in the crowd. He’s just standing there in a black suit that looks like the one they wore for Kanashii Koi, Rainy Blues, Eden and Mugendai in the Heat Up DVD. Starts singing Kinki Kids’ Ai no Katamari acapella, then walks to the stage with a hat on and sings and dances to the song.
Mirai no mukou e
Shota is alone on the stage and the stage has this beautiful lighting and curtains as he sings Mirai no mukou e ever so beautifully. He held the mic stand as he sang the “Tatoeba-” part originally sang by Subaru. He held his right hand up occasionally and it looked beautiful. This was probably my favorite song of the afternoon even though he made a minor mistake in the lyrics, haha. He said “遠い街” (Tooi machi = Town far away) instead of “違う街” (Chigau machi = Different town)
Yajirushi
He takes his jacket off and shows his colored shirt as he sings Yajirushi with the juniors. Three little kids sang the rap part. The stage was moving round and round.
Kanfuu Fighting
He comes out with his puffy red costume. He had a yellow green tank top underneath it (he was zipping the jacket up on stage). The juniors behind him are doing all sorts of things like kendo, karate, boxing etc. and Yasu keeps on tsukkomi-ing them and saying it’s not kangfu. Then this one skinny little (yes, smaller than Shota) kid wearing nothing but black short pants comes out with a blue mask on and him and Shota keep fooling around with each other. It was a cute scene J
I think after this song is when he started talking A LOT. He said how he’s happy to see everyone here and he made everyone smile and say “niiiiiiiiiiii.” He said that there were 90,000 calls for the solo cons for the three of them in total, adding that he’ll probably get yelled at by saying this, haha. Remember, at the time of the calls, there were only three shows each planned. Shochikuza only fits 1,000 people so imagine how hard it is to get the tickets! Wow! Then he named his fans “Yasuda-ler” and everyone was like “Nooooo, Shot-er!!” some people were like “How about Chipa-ler?” Apparently someone’s request sounded like “Asupara (asparagus)” to Shota and he was like “What the heck are you talking about, how am I an asparagus?!” and the fans were like “we didn’t say that!” Haha. So I guess us Shota fans are “Yasuda-ler” in his books, haha. He also asked the people on the third floor, “I’m small, but can you see me?”
Mikan
From here on, we were asked to sit down and enjoy the show. He had to drink water because he was thirsty, and the crowd urged him to chug it. They had the “ikki! ikki!” call going and Shota was like “This is not an izakaya!” They had the microphone and guitar set up on the hanamichi and he said he was going to sing a few songs. He said he never sang his songs in public, so he sang Mikan. He said the name of Subaru BAND’s new song but I don’t remember what exactly it was… something like “Higher Position” or “High Position.” They are singing it in the nation tour right now so I’m sure we’ll find out soon.
He had his drawings on the screen that went with the song. He said “Please pay attention to these drawings because they have meanings.” When he said this, he said it so that it kinda meant “be careful when you see these drawings” so the fans were like “???” and he realized what people were wondering about and was like “Hey, you never know, things might pop up from the screen! Be aware!” The first drawing was of a “man” (more like a black blob, haha) that had a red heart and red lines on his arms and legs. Shota said it represented the blood and that this man was in good condition. The next picture was of the same “man” but the background had blue tear marks and such falling on top of him. Those tear marks looked like “鼻水” (=runny nose) in Shota’s words. Then in the last picture, the “man” looked sad and lonely with more blue marks in the background. Some of the tear marks formed the Chinese character “涙” which means “tears.” It was subtle so it took people time to see it, but once they did, they were all like “wow!” Kimi reminded me that Shota also chose to write the letter “涙” during the calligraphy episode of Honjani. The character “涙” is also used for Ryo’s drama “一リットルの涙”
While he was on the hanamichi, the crowd started going “Whooooooo!!” and he took a pose with one hand up and waving and smiling brightly saying “You guys make me feel like I’m a Hollywood star!!” and so we went on to cheer on him like that for a while until later on he said “Okay, it’s starting to sound like a siren!”
Kimi to Boku (Yasu’s original)
This was a very nice song!! He messed up the lyric in the end and was like “Ahhh I messed up the end! I was so close! Gaaaa!” After singing it, he explained how he came up with the lyrics. He had the idea in his head during the concerts in Hokkaido, finalized it in a 岩盤浴 (a type of hot spring, I guess) and completed it the day before the concerts began. It’s basically a cute love song where the lyrics are like “I wake up earlier so that I can see you sleeping” or “We race to the bathroom sink to see who can grab the toothbrush faster” and such. He described how it’s his ideal situation with his wife and he is going to have his left arm up when he sleeps so that his wife can sleep on his shoulder; he’ll wake up and see his wife’s face that looks like a puppy and say, “dear, you’re so adorable”; they’re going to race to the sink and brush as fast as they can and gobble and spit etc. Haha, it was very cute how he described this whole thing.
Mou kimi igai aisenai (Request)
On the screen, he showed a list of songs he can play and looked around the crowd and asked them what they would like to hear. He probably had more than ten songs on the list. I forget if it was before or after this, but he showed two pictures of his niece that he desperately adores. The first one was of his family: him, the baby, his sister, his mom and his dad. All of them except for Shota and the baby had a black line on their eyes so he was like “Don’t they look like criminals or something?” He went on to say that his sister and dad had the same nose and his dad’s blood runs well in the family. They all kind of have the same face. His dad is from the southern islands, maybe near Okinawa or something. His dad has a poster of Kanjani8 on their wall. Their dog was in the picture as well. I don’t know which J-Web entry he’s talking about but apparently, his sneakers were missing? He found out that it was his dad who used it, and he was like “He was the one! He does look like a criminal in this picture with the eyes crossed out and all though, haha.” The next picture he later showed was of him and the baby… the baby was cute, yeah, but MY GOD Shota was more adorable!!! He was wearing a green shirt and was facing the baby with his mouth wide opened. The baby was sticking her hand out to Shota’s mouth. SO CUTE. In other shows, apparently he had a slideshow of the baby that ended in her butt showing and a video clip of him asking for the baby to hand him his digital camera case. Some people got to see Ohkura, Suba/Yasu, Maru and Ryo’s pictures from when they were shooting Eito Ranger pictures. I guess they’re going to be on the calendar? I’m not sure. He also had a clip or pictures from his earlier days. You can see he put a lot of time, effort and thought into this “request” segment! He basically had something prepared for every single song!
Samurai Blues (Request)
The girl who requested Samurai Blues was standing just a few rows behind me. Exactly a few rows behind me because she was on the edge of the second floor just like me. So, obviously, instead of looking at her, I directly stared at Shota who was looking up in the direction. Because she was wearing black, he was like “You look like a Kuroko-san (like a prompter).” He sang the first verse and the rest beginning from his solo part, “Namida kakushi ten wo aoida” on his acoustic guitar.
Mugendai (Okinawa version)
I don’t remember if this was before the requests or not… but!! Shota arranged Mugendai on his own and played on an instrument called “一期一会” (Ichigo Ichie) This “ichigo” is not the strawberry; “ichigoichie” is a phrase. It’s like a guitar but not really because it only has four strings. It’s probably like a mixture of a guitar and a shamisen. It’s very different from the way you play a guitar, so Shota asked us if he can look at his cheat sheet, haha. Apparently, the music in Okinawa uses a different scale. It sounded like a totally different song even though the lyrics were exactly the same. It was SO GOOD, though!!! I don’t remember exactly how it went, but I loved how he sang the word “mugendai.” He said he worked hard arranging the song. He should record this and add it as a bonus track for the next album or something! Come on, Teichiku! They should have an album that has solos of each member included in it!!!!!! TEICHIKU!!!!
Eden
Before they sang this, Yasu introduced BAD Boys. They came in saying “Whoooooo!” just like the crowd. I don’t really know their names, but from left to right it was Muro, Nakama, #3, Shota, Kiriyama, #5 and Yamazaki. I don’t know which was Nakata and which was Hamada. Anyway, Shota asked all of them what time they had gone to bed the night before. Most of them went to bed at like 1 or 2 in the morning. Shota said “geez, these kids nowadays!” #3 said that he can fall asleep immediately, and Shota said he could too. #3 said “I can fall asleep in 10 seconds,” Shota was like, “Ha, that’s nothing, I can go to sleep in 9!” “I can go in 8!” “Then I can go in 7!” “I can go in…” “Enough!!” and Shota throws his water bottle on the floor, haha. Immediately after that, Shota asked Kiriyama “What time did you go to bed?” and Kiriyama was like “I can fall asleep in 5 seconds.” Haha, everyone got a good laugh out of that. He said that he went to bed at like 2:30 or something because he had a lot of HW to do. He was working on a long report. He never said this before, but he is studying pre-school nursery education? However you call it. Shota asked him if he wanted to become a pre-school teacher and he was like “No.” Then he explained how he liked kids and he’s even practicing the piano. He’s at level 4 in something, and one of the girls in the crowd said “I’m at 3 (better)!” and Kiriyama was like “…ahh, man!!” and kinda sulked, haha. Yamazaki basically sleep all day long and was like “I’m actually sleeping right now as we speak.” Shota was like “What the heck are you talking about; your eyes are ‘pachikuri’ opened!” (‘pachikuri’ is like a sound effect for opened eyes… although, it’s really ‘pacchiri,’ so there’s another Yasuda-language for you, haha)
Shota then said that he watched “Home Alone 2” on TV that night and asked the others if they had. Shota was “laughing like an American kid” while watching the movie. He said that Hamanaka (Bun-chan) looks like Culkin. So, they called up Hamanaka to the stage and Shota let him introduce himself. Shota was like, “Yo, why do you act like you didn’t want to be called up? You don’t like me?” and Hamanaka was like “It’s not like I don’t like you, but… thanks for inviting me!”
While Shota let the BAD Boys advertise their concerts that start the next day, Shota prepared his guitar for Eden. He sang the first verse and the others joined in for the chorus. The part where Subaru usually sings (originally partly by Uchi) “Arifureta kibou no utawo mae ni shite” was sung by (I think) #3 and #5 while Shota sang the part where Ryo sings in the background.
During the second show on the 14th, Subaru and Maru showed up. According to reports that I’ve read, Subaru walked up to Yasu and grabbed his crotch (his way of saying “good job, keep up the good work?” lol). They said that they just finished working with the Kanou-sisters who are known to have huge breasts. They said that they were the biggest boobs they’ve ever seen. Maru kept on saying how this concert was so Yasu-ish and has a very kind, nice atmosphere. Subaru pretended (or was he really?) that he was on the phone with someone while Maru chugged his water. Yasu asked them to join them for Eden, but Subaru was like “I’m not that cheap. Is Shochikuza going to pay me? Are they going to put money in my bank account?” They sang Eden together and Subaru sang Yasu’s favorite part (he asked Subaru to sing it for him because he liked it so much) “Arifureta-”
So anyway, after BAD Boys and Shota, who broke a string on his guitar during the song, sang Eden (Maru and Baru were not there for my show), Shota introduced OSSaN while the BAD Boys cleared up the stage. OSSaN is very young; somewhere between 14 to 16 years old but are way taller than Shota. Of course, he’s jealous of their height, haha. He said that OSSaN practiced the band just for Shota’s concert. The O guy (sorry, no clue what their names are) apparently is a big fan of Shota’s but he never acts that way. So, Shota said, “You know, you should show me that you like me. For example, come up to me (as he skips) and say ‘好きです’ (Sukidesu) to me!” Haha. The SSaN went to an izakaya after the concerts the night before and had things to eat. Yasu was like, “Izakaya!? Aren’t you underage?!” They didn’t have alcoholic beverages (I sure hope so! They’re what, in middle school!?) but they had food there. O didn’t go with them because his house is on the other side. One of the SSaNs complained that when they went to Starbucks, O used his paper bag (that he was keeping to put in comic books that he was going to borrow) as a trash bag and threw it away. Shota asked what O’s blood type was and he said “A” and Shota was like “That’s the same as me! …Is that why?” …that made no sense now did it, haha. Maybe it was for #3 of the BAD Boys when they were talking about how they can go to sleep quickly. I don’t remember!
Junior medley
By the way, Shota was wearing his red Kanfuu costume all the way up til here. He finally got a break with this junior medley!
Christmas medley
First they sang “見上げてごらん夜の星を” (Miagete goran yoru no hoshi wo). Shota reappears wearing the yellow/blue costume he wore in Hatenaki Sora from Heat Up. Then they sang “Can you feel this Christmas,” the same song Uchi and Hina sang in the Excite DVD. Then Shota asked the crowd to dance along to “１０年後の今日の日も” (10 nengo no kyou no hi mo). I think at the end of this medley, there was a shooting star in the background. It was pretty J
Act Show / Who’s Food
This is the solo song that he has in the nation tour right now. He was wearing white/black/check kind of costume. He wore this til the end of the concert (before the encores). It was long so I’m assuming he sang two songs… “Act Show” is like a rock song where he keeps on saying “Act show, act show!” which kinda sounds like “Hakushon (achoo! as in sneezing)” haha. I guess in the nation tour, Maru has his solo, then Yasu, then Hina, and then all three of them get together and sing. I’m not sure what these songs are exactly, though!
Osaka Romanesque
Once again, he was alone on the stage and sang Romanesque nicely. “It’s not the end, yet! You want more, don’t you!? Let’s go!”
Amechan
Purin
He sang both of these songs rock version (same as Spirits). The background dancing by the juniors were really cute. They kinda swung left and right. On the screen, there were drawings probably by Yasu of candies (held tightly by scary looking fingers with lots of lines in them) and purin (urging the fans to sing along). They jumped up and down a lot.
Kuchibue no mukou
Sukiyanen, Osaka
Shota had his new shiny Eito kun, and all the juniors were dancing in the back as well. It felt like this is when the whole entire building was definitely ONE. It was fun!!! This song ended the concert, before going into the encores.
(encore)
Mugendai
Shota’s wearing his pink t-shirt and has an acoustic guitar with him. He starts strumming it and asks everyone to sing Mugendai along. The beginning part is too low for girls, so they sang it an octave higher… which created problems later on, haha. THEN!!! WHILE EVERYONE WAS SINGING!!!! ALL OF A SUDDEN!!!! WE SEE SOMEONE APPEAR FROM THE HANAMICHI!!!! A reddish shirt and dark colored jeans… shoulder-length wavy hair!! OH MY, HINA!!!! …WAIT, THERE’S MORE!!!! White pants and khaki jacket… TACHHON!! AND GYAAA!!! ANOTHER ONE!!!! Skinny… red/pink stripe shirt and jeans… RYO!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!! Shota apparently didn’t know they were coming either so he was pleasantly surprised. They didn’t say anything, but Hina and Ryo squished Shota’s hair and Tacchon gave him a little hug as he walked by him. They sang Mugendai together.
Kanfuu Fighting
They stayed for Kanfuu Fighting as well. This probably was the loudest the crowd has gotten! We all danced and sang together. The crowd did the “Sora ga haretara!” “Yabure kaburede!” and I think Shota said “Genki ga naitoki” (he might not have) then Hina said “Positive kibun de!” Crowd “Iyaya” Tacchon “Yay yay yay! (with one leg up)” Ryo “Ahaha” All “aaaahhhh” EVERYONE was singing, it was so much fun!!!!! The three guys didn’t say anything but kept on applauding Shota and gave him the attention that he rightfully deserves.
(encore 2)
He came out for the one last time and said his thank yous and good byes. He kept on waving until the curtain totally touched the ground.
In other concert reports that I’ve read:
- Before the concerts began, Shota got text messages from the K8 members. Ohkura’s was plain and simple without words; it only had a fist mark emoticon, telling him “good luck.” Shota responded with a smiley face and a fist. Love doesn’t need words <3 Hina’s was like “Yo, good luck! If you screw up, that’s the end of it for the both of us (him and Maru)!!” Yoko called Shota and told him good luck because he probably can’t make it because of the drama. Ryo’s messages was, “Yasu, who are you? (lots of space) Yasu, that is you <3” with a heart mark in the end that Ryo rarely uses. Subaru’s was the one on the chimp/otokomae exchange telling him to “be yourself,” almost making Shota cry (he couldn’t cry because there were people around him). The one person left… Mr. Maruyama… did not send him anything, haha. Yasu understood as his partner that he was probably concentrating on trying to make his concert a good one as well.
- I guess on Day One, Shota asked everyone if they were wearing the bracelet that came with the Kanfuu Fighting CD. He said he has one as well but it is red. Subaru came up to him one day and shyly said, “Yasu, let’s exchange these.” So Subaru’s wearing blue and Shota’s wearing red. He was wearing it when I saw him on the 15th, too J Actually, you can see him wearing red in the Music Station performance and a few other places as well. Love!