AKB48 LIVE in Yokohama

Asakusa + Rain
Day 8 in Japan! More than halfway through our trip. The weather completely killed any mood I had for photos. To add on to the crazy winds, it drizzled the entire day too. Not wanting to get my camera wet, I took less than 10 pictures today.

Went to Asakusa in the morning. Amidst the drizzle and wind, we still made our way all the way to the main shrine, which we later discovered was covered up for renovation. ._.||| Wilson was supposed to get a pair of wooden swords, something he said he wanted to get since our last trip, but in the end he found them too expensive, and decided to pass.

Yokohama!
Yes today was another concert day. Heading to see AKB48 at the Yokohama Arena in their largest concert yet, with a 17,000 strong audience. AKB48 has gotten insanely popular in Japan now, but unlike Chad, I couldn’t get on the AKB48 bandwagon. Yes they have crazy catchy songs, cute dance steps and crazy PV budgets, but they just don’t appeal to me as much as Morning Musume. Plus there was just too many of them shuffling all over the place within their own subgroups to keep track of.

Wilson had lunch with us at Yokohama before he parted ways with us, heading back to Tokyo. Concert ticket was out of his budget. I was quite keen to see what kind of show AKB would put up, seeing as how they had such high production values in everything else.

We braved the cold winds and rain, queuing outside the arena with thousands of other fans. Majority of the AKB fans were in their teens, and we saw a lot more female fans around too. More mainstream, compared to the older (and I mean businessman older type), nearly all male fans of Morning Musume.

Last week we were quite worried about the seats, but it turned out quite ok, close to the stage, but at a very strange angle, at the corner. Watching the concert from such a tight angle, with this camera crane that blocked our view half the time, was quite annoying. I’m not going to go through their setlist, since I only knew like 3 of the songs they sang. lol.

Concert Impressions
Because of our strange angle and distance from the stage, I couldn’t see any of their dance routines or formations, and they hardly made any effort to interact with the crowd on the sides except the encore songs where they ran around waving. Compared to the Musume concerts last week, I felt like a sideline spectator, vs an actual participant.

The concert started a bit slow with 1 popular member leading random mash-up groups singing solo songs. It was until they got to the RIVER segment that I got quite excited. They looked so mega cool doing their stomps, flames and sparks spewing out all over the stage. Electrifying performance! Another part they had cardboard hearts floating down during the encore song. Didn’t know what it was at first, until some of them grabbed it and went omg WTF signed stuff! Lol. Each heart had an autograph from one of the girls. No we didn’t manage to grab any. :(

What wotas?
The crowd was less hardcore, very mainstream. Apart from small clusters of crazy jumping people up front, the rest of the audience was generally more reserved, just watching and clapping along. They couldn’t hold the encore chant all the way through like in the Musume concerts. xD There wasn’t any color codes for any of the idols, so everyone was dressed in normal clothes. The sea of 17,000 glowsticks was quite a sight though.

Conclusions
The way the concert was done, it felt more like a show, with hardly any interaction between the girls and the audience. Felt like they were performing FOR you instead of with you. Yes, people were dancing along with all their moves, but the girls didn’t actually encourage you to sing along, or jump together, like they did in the the Musume concerts. The huge arena was a major factor too. The larger the arena, the less personal it felt.

I felt some of the songs were very high pitched and loud, since so many girls were singing at the same time. If we had better seats, maybe somewhere in the middle, in front, I might have had a better opinion of the experience, but as it was, the Musume concerts where much more fun for me. :)