I have been listening to Jpop for over 13 years now starting with Kiroro, Speed, Zone and Morning Musume. I remember reading in the jpopmusic forums posts by this Korean American (I think) guy who went to Japan every year for Momusu concerts and he would always show pictures of his loot. What a life, I thought. Didn`t really do anything jpop related last year but this year is going to be different.
Ever since Zone broke up in 2005, there hasn`t been a female band good enough to replace them. I don`t consider Day After Tomorrow, DAI, Brilliant Green etc to be in this category. Maria did a nice cover of Hana Hana`s Sayonara Daisuki na Hito which I actually got to sing yesterday but that`s it. What happened to Nakanomori band? Euphoria did a nice cover of Single Bed and I can`t remember what else... until came along Scandal. If you`ve never heard of Scandal,
SCANDAL - SAKURA Good bye BS hi 投稿者 ayane52
There are three songs that I wanted to hear:
1) Sakura Goodbye, Scandal`s best song IMO.
2) Doll - best muffler spinning song
3) Taiyo to kimi to egaku story - cause I find the single to be overproduced but should sound awesome live.
Found out Scandal was doing a tour after booking my flight to Japan. At the beginning I was planning to go to the Sapporo concert. Then changed to Sendai and finally Nagoya. Somewhere along the line I had to pay $200 extra for changing twice and the full price of my flights. It was a very very costly decision but I had to do it because I would regret it if I didn`t. Thankfully bframe5 was kind enough to offer to secure me the tickets and later decided to go as well.
Walking down train station toward Zepp Nagoya.
So after lunch, took the Kintetsu train to Nagoya, wandered around and then took train to Zepp Nagoya. I bought 2 Scandal t-shirts for 3000 yen a piece and a muffler for 1500. The live was free standing but you had to line up according to the numbers. Long story short, what we should have done was just wait at the head of the queue and walk up when they called our number range instead of standing in line under the evening drizzle. Oh well, live and learn.
If you`ve ever seen jpop concerts, audience participation is key and here are the ways to get in the action.
1) The hop and thrust your pointed index finger upwards.
2) Point at the ceiling and bring it down 20 degrees in a chopping motion. Repeat and mix up the speed of the chopping.
3) Muffler waving.
4) Clapping including the double clap, single clap. Sometime accompanied by wooooos.
5) Wave/swaying back and forth.
Where Scandal sort of suffers a bit is that most of it is action 1 and 2. Not a complaint but rather a comparison with the lots of jpop concerts I have seen. The best participation song of the night was Doll, cause it was the only song of the night with a muffler waving chorus. All of this wouldn`t matter as long as I got to hear Mami`s nice riff at the beginning of Sakura Goodbye. Guess what, they didn`t sing the song! WTF! How could you not sing your best song at a live!!!??
Gah. Someone needs to pay for leaving this song out! I had a feeling it would be like that as the song wasn`t sung during Scandal`s last concert series before this. Some random observations and notes:
- Had this electric feeling shoot up my whole body when the lights went off at the start of the concert.
- Haruna was talking about how Rina wrote the song Emotion about her life at 18/19. Rina got really chocked up during the song and was throwing her hair down to cover her face and even ended up having to stop to recompose herself. All I can say is kawaii~~~~
- When you enter the venue you have to give them 500 yen for a drinks coin.
- There were no photo signs and I was asked when entering whether I was carrying a camera. Didn`t catch anyone taking pictures but I should have tried to take one during the last song.
- Lots of people screaming Mami`s name including myself
- They wasted at least 30 minutes of the 2 hour concert on bantering. Its nice to have a bit of a break and crowd interaction but we were there to listen to Scandal sing, not talk. Scandal have more than enough good songs to fill 2 hours.
- Tomomi looks better in real life.
- I want to marry Mami when I grow up.
- Being around 30 metres from the stage is weird in that you can see them well but not too close. Its sort of like watching the concert in 3D. I think I caught Mami looking at me many times.
- If they had played Don`t be Lazy, I would have died of happiness.
- Mami`s my favourite member but the others have raised my level of admiration much.
- bframe5 signed up for the fan club Scandal Mania for 5000 yen. His member number is around 3000 and I believe they have a fan club only event in July.
- I believe Zone have two reunion concerts in August. Gaaaaaaaaaaah. I need a teleporter to Japan.
- The fact that they didn`t sing Sakura Goodbye is depressing. I feel like my life isn`t complete until I hear Mami play that song live.
- Scandal songs sound better live, even the songs I don`t particularly like.
Edit. Some things that I forgot because I was bloody tired and half asleep doing this post:
- Girls get their own section at the front right hand side of the floor in front of Mami. WTF. How do I make a complaint to the sexual discrimination department of Japan?
- There were some moms that went along with their middle school kids.
- Two guys went out to tune the instruments as the fans would have gone crazy if the members did it themselves. They also helped the members change guitars afterwards.
- Looking at the fans in front to follow their hand signals detracts from Mami staring. On the other hand, there`s no point going to a live and standing still.
- The live house was divided into main floor, raise middle floor (where I was) and reserved elevated seats at the back. Bframe5 prebooked the tickets but you had to go in and confirm the tickets when they were up for sale and I think that determines your number and thus how close you can get to the band.
- There were some ojisans but generally it was a pretty young crowd with a healthy number of female fans.
- I`ve got another concert to go to in Osaka next weekend. Hint - she is a HelloProject soloist. Expect lots of ojisan fans and fat bespectacled fans carrying backpacks. Hhhmm, sounds like a description of me.
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