Japan Day 7
Finding the theatre
Getting to the concert theatre took some navigating between trains. Dragged Wilson up at 6am to catch the 7am train. He says he has never woken up so early for a very very long time. lol. Anyways, about 2 hours later, we finally reached the theatre. It was only 9am and there was already a 100m long queue of, guys. xD The concert starts at 2:30pm by the way.
First encounter with the fans
We got into the queue anyways. Started spotting all the crazy fanboys, and a few girls. They had badges and jackets, idol t-shirts, all over the place. Little did we know all this was even before they ‘transformed’. There were even really old balding uncles in the queue.
After about an hour plus of waiting they let us in batch by batch. I was wondering why they let us in so early? The concert doesn’t start in another 3 hours. Realized after we got in that the queue was to buy their concert tour merchandise. There were sealed packs of random photos, posters, towels, fans, glow-sticks, t-shirts and other miscellaneous trinkets. It was like ordering from McDonalds, huge pictures of what’s available on the table. Just point to them and you’re set. I regret getting only 3 towels, should have gotten another one and some t-shirts. Argh.
The actual concert
After another 2 hours and some lunch, we were in the theatre! On the way in they displayed a huge board of signed towels by each member together with their greetings. I’m sure those could fetch quite a price. We were seated 12 rows from the front, a bit to the left side. The theatre was small so the view was ok. Anyways we took our seats and waiting for the place to fill up. Quite surprised at the number of security personal in the theatre. One at every exit plus several patrolling. We found out why later.
The Transformation
This was the amazing part. As the place filled up with fans, they all started changing into their colored t-shirts (each singer has their own color). I saw this 40 year old guy in a pink Sayumi t-shirt, along with a pink towel wrist band. xD As the minutes closed in they started putting on their glowing wrist bands, towels and other amazing glow stick contraptions. Best part was they started STRETCHING! like before exercise stretch. ZOMG it felt like the whole theatre was suiting up to go for war can!
And we’re LIVE!
Finally Mano Eri came on stage to start the show with her new single. At this point the whole theatre was standing. Looks we won’t be sitting for the entire show. She played her new piano single, and looked like a little angel with all the back lighting. Anyways after her opening, she went back in and the lights came on again together with the ‘waiting’ ambiance music. After a minute or so they suddenly cut the lights and sound, and the whole lot of them poured out in their yellow costumes (see photo above). The whole theatre just exploded in cheers!
Was quite surreal seeing them on stage live. I didn’t know Takahashi was so short compared to everyone else. And Eri was tall! xD Koharu & JunJun was even taller. The first 2 songs were super explosive, there was so much energy in the theatre, people jumping and screaming, dancing along with them. Yes they know all the moves! zomg. One guy even brought a huge turtle soft toy for Kamei. xD
After the first two songs they did their self introductions, then launched into Pepper Keibu. Ahhhhhh! lol. They also sang a bunch of new songs which i’ve never heard before. The new songs had less of a crowd reaction, as in they couldn’t follow along. But once they started with one of their older singles like Ambitious! The theatre exploded again. Now we know why there were so many security personnel. The dancing and screaming can get really out of hand. lol. There was even one part, in one of the songs where they showed on the huge screens what actions you should be doing and when to yell “YEAH!”. Hahaha super super fun@~
Encore!
After 21 songs, they ‘ended’ it and went back stage. But like all their concerts i’ve seen on the DVDs, this was the part where everyone shouts encore. Everyone was yelling encore! for like the longest time, felt like 5 minutes maybe? Before they all came out again and started on another 2 songs.
At the part where they did their individual goodbyes you could see the respective fans jumping up and down while they spoke. So if like Sayumi was speaking you could see a few guys in pink shirts jumping up and down. Then if Reina was speaking you could see people in blue shirts jumping. lol.
That’s all folks
After we were out of the theatre, we saw people looking like they’ve just ran a marathon, sweating and panting. They would then transform back to normal looking people at this point. But you could still see hints of their concert attire, like a pink shirt peeking out, or glow sticks in their bags.
Now i know why people go to their concerts, it’s not really for the singing, more like the experience and dancing along with them. Seeing the entire audience dancing the same moves with the idols was quite a sight.
Next year, front row seats anyone? This time i’ll be buying myself a handful of glow sticks plus an orange t-shirt :D
