So, yesterday a friend called me up and said she had gotten hold of tickets (for 3rd performance) for me. Well, not really, she just found a guy on mixi who was selling his since he couldn't go. No info about seats but the price was two for 15,000 yen, so I thought it was still gonna be worth it even if the seats were gonna suck. Didn't have anyone to go with so called up zabitan and of course he wanted to go. I left the dealing of the tickets to my friend so the guy wouldn't flake out or anything just because I'm a foreigner. So I had no idea how things were going until around 3pm today. She had decided to meet the dude at 3:30 and I was still kinda doubtful he would actually show up. But he did! And handed us the two tickets. I looked at the seats and saw it was ARENA SEATS! OMG? It said A6 so wasn't sure if that was at the far back or front. Yep, you guessed it right, it was front seats! Well, not really absolute front, but we were sitting at the front right section, near the back, with an aisle just next to us. Since they used like 4 different stages (main, middle, left, right) we had a great upskirt view on the right stage. And we could see the middle section really well too. At the main stage it was a little hard to tell who was who with some girls having the same outfit and hairstyle. This crazy luck must have all been because I bought that Team B lucky charm on Friday.
About the concert itself. The set list is probably gonna be up soon, so I won't go into detail. But it all started off Matsui Sakiko, I think, playing piano. Then Ponytail at the main stage and Nusumareta Kuchibiru at the middle stage, also Boku no Yell back at the main stage with all the girls in soccer uniforms. SKE made an apperance with Gommene Summer and Shoujo wa Manatsu ni Nani wo Suru. SDN also made an appearance with some, to me, unknown song. When Enkyouri Poster kicked off at the left stage I went crazy since it's one of my absolute favorite songs. Choose Me was on the right stage so had great views of Team YJ. Unfortunately both songs were short versions. After a couple of other songs SDN made another appearance with Yuuwaku no Garter, all over the stages with lots of chairs. They throwed the garters like 1 meter, so no chance of getting one. Watarirouka performed Seishun no Flag which I'm really starting to like. I think it was around here that they did a few songs from the new stages, which I haven't seen yet, so didn't recognize the songs. Then the usual single line up, all of them were great and I could sing along to most of them. River was best but too short. They even cut that silent part with Acchan/Takamina. Aitakatta was really great too. Somehow it still works after all these years. I went crazy everytime I saw a girl I really like at the middle stage.
Before the encore they showed the new music video for the Team Dragon song on the screen. I had only heard it once before, and today I started to like it. I might get Yukurin version.
Encore was yeah, fucked up. Well it had the two of the new songs that are coming out with the new single next month. Senbatsu one was ok, but Undergirls song was so-so. I think they did Ponytail again with all the members. Then the kenkyuuseis started doing janken (rock-scissor-paper), while crying. Four of them would be able to participate in the big janken senbatsu that are gonna be at Budoukan in September 21st. The only ones I like, Yokoyama Yui and Mori Anna didn't make it. No clue who the girls were. The rest of the members starts drawing numbers from a box to decide who's gonna meet who in the big game. In the middle of everything Erepyon steps up and makes her announcement which you already know of already. Members start crying and the rest of the number drawing is just "wtf just happened".
In short, me likes:
- First of all, crazy luck that we got good seats so cheap.
- Enkyouri Poster, River, Aitakatta performance.
- Most noticable member for me today I think goes to Ucchi. Love her in Zannen Shoujo, and she was up on the right stage at the second Ponytail all the time. And when all of the members were lined up, you could easily see where she was because she's so small, even smaller than Takamina!
- Different stage use. Also in the middle stage they raised it in one or two songs. They only raised the main stage during Team Dragon's performance, and the piano intro.
- Glow sticks. I only brought one myself, but it was awesome seeing the whole arena being lit up by glowsticks when it was completely dark. Kind of different from just seeing it on DVD.
- The goods they sold were great too and it was a really good thing that I bought what I wanted yesterday. Today it was raining and I didn't have time anyway. Some stuff might have sold out too.
- All groups were there. AKB, SKE, SDN.
- The janken senbatsu is a good chance for lower ranked girls to get noticed, and to see if singles will still sell even if not a top girl is in. But it still feels ruthless to decide it by janken.
Me dislikes:
- Erepyon's new hair and her graduation. Even if she was never among my favorites, she was still a part of AKB. Now that part is gone. And there was no real graduation song for her. Actually no real graduation song at all. 10 nen Zakura doesn't count as one for me since it way too pop-ish.
- Kobayashi's new hairstyle. I liked her long straight her much better.
- That during some songs that were performed on the middle stage, they didn't turn around, so only the audience in front could really enjoy it.
- No Majisuka performance. I saw that they did it during the day concert though. Damn. I love Majisuka Gakuen.
- That there some songs that I didn't know. All my own fault, though.
- No small unit songs. Watariroukas Seishun no Flag with 5 members was the smallest group. Would have loved Maria, Zannen Shoujo, 16-nin Shimai no Uta or along those lines. But I guess that's for the Top 100.
I think that's about it. Overall, really great concert, I had the best time ever. Now I can die happy.
Yoyogi just before going in.
Newspaper they handed out when leaving the arena, and the ticket. It's about the janken senbatsu and an official guidebook is coming out August 31st. Yay, more stuff to not have enough money for.
No comments:
Post a Comment