2nd concert in Kanagawa

Today's schedelude was dominated by concert I had not originally exactly even planned to go since it was on band I have little interest but since the previous concert was so fun experience I figured I would do it one more time if possible. As I like to leave myself good time(since I'm so easily losing my way!) I left early up. Trip would be tad more complicated than before even though it was close by as I had to change trains couple times and once had to make damn sure I go to right TYPE of train as only one was going where I needed to go. Thankfully I got all the way to Shiori without incident and started the walk to Yokosuka. Found the station and pulled up my map to see where the concert hall was. And then noticed I had made critical error on previous night planning. Closest station to the concert hall was not Yokosuka as I had thought but...Shiori! Yes the one I had just walked about 15 minutes...Bloody bloody BLOODY hell. Well at least this time error was not me finding my way but me being bit of careless with google map previous night. Found to station I wanted to go. I just wanted to go to wrong station!

Well back to station, eyeball bit, go to direction I thought was correct. Didn't find anything that would fit the bill. Found big building, went to it, saw name kanji's and compared with my map. Actually found the building in my map and...I had actually overshot and went past the concert hall. Whoops! Good thing I arrived early. Still plenty of time. So back toward and looking around saw two buildings which might be the 2 buildings on map, one of them holding the concert hall. So I started to circle the building I thought was correct and found map of building. Bit of comparing kanji's and found out it was on the fourth floor.

With still some 1.5 hours before the concert(I DID say I like to go early. I had also planned to see sights a bit) I decided time for lunch since I might not get anything before coming home somewhere between 22-23. For restaurant I spotted Chinese restaurant sporting claim of being world famous. Well good enough place and I do love Chinese food. Ordered set of meal plus for fun dessert that looked good. Not sure what the set consisted of except chahan(which I have made myself several times by the way). Chahan was good, one part was okay(one in 2nd picture) but the last one(right in first picture) was bit of ”meh”. I could eat it all but by far worst Chinese food I have tasted so far. Hard to say why but it was just hard to eat.

Dessert proved to be ice cream at least by the taste of it. Very, very good. Meal set me down by about 1200 yens(390 yen or so for the dessert)

I then walked around, went through big building with lots of stores(And saw one of the most beautiful kimono I have seen here. Price was ”bit” of my league though...). Book store there was ridiculously hot for some reason.

Then came time to head concert and I got instantly verification I was on the right place when I approached the building as huge stream of people started to appear with veritable sign of colours being seen on t-shirts. Clearly audience of the daily performance with many wearing official t-shirts showing favourite member colours so you could even see tide of men in pink t-shirts.

The second concert for me was more of a new experience as this time I pretty much knew only the name of the band(Morning Musume), some history of it, have listened few of their songs and could recognize only one of the members, who is also the one soon to graduate(this being her last tour with this band). Since I can't identify who's who I won't describe individual clothesh to detail of last concert(also 50% more members to cover which adds to the trouble).

Concert was bigger event than previous one as not only it had the main area where I was sitting there were FOUR additional floors surrounding the stage and place was not if 100% full then very full. Few empty seats here and there.

Concert actually started with 2 songs performed by the graduating member's new band. The songs weren't actually that bad and more rock-type than I expected. Might actually pay some attention to that band in future. 

Then the member introduction video started playing after which band showed up. For dresses they had these yellow dresses made of lots of small pieces in layers. Would have been rather dull clothing(yellow not being my favourite colours) but the layers added nice touch. And as expected this being J-pop band skirts were quite short baring lots of legs.

They performed several songs which included almost all the songs I could recognize during the concert. One notable event was when they started performing their newest single one of the girls actually tripped off and fell on all fours. Well guess accidents happen and she recovered quickly from the accident. 

(Actually the clothes are these ones)

After this all but 2 girls left leaving the two do talk show on the subject of ”what if you suddenly turned men”. Wtf? Then they headed for cloth change and rest of the members performed a song I had encountered before but after seeing the HORRIBLE costumes for the single didn't dare to even listen it. Whoever got bright idea of dressing girls like little chickens was not thinking clearly at the moment. Than,k god those clothes were not used so only reason I realized what song it was was from little chicken birds on the screen. Brrr.

Clothesh for this part were pretty normal looking apart from being very colourful. Everybody wore different type of clothes with common element being square pattered piece with lots of bright colours(red, white, blue, yellow etc). Some had top, other skirt etc.

2 girls joined and another song. Then series of songs sung by small groups of 2-4 girls.

Graduating member then pulled solo song having changed to this very adult, very beautiful red dress with one of the most ridiculous boots I have ever seen. Song was one of the best ones of the concert for me(I wonder why sad themed songs are my favourites generally) and the girl(at least she was over 20 so I had no worries about enjoying the sights) was very beautiful. Alas this clothing was only done by her for this song and she headed for clothing change while half the band appeared with by far worst clothing(IMO) of the night.

New clothes could be described as a bit like nurse clothing except more colourful and very plastic looking, very cheap looking and made the girls look bit fat actually which is pretty neat stunt to pull off on THESE girls who look more like they eat handful of rice each day and that's it. Rest of the members came up(have to wonder how fast the girls manage to change their clothings though. 4, maybe 5 minutes to get out of stage, into dressing room, do complete clothing change including shoes/boots and get back to stage). At least some members had belt like parts giving more shape to the clothing and reducing the ”I'm fat” look a bit. More songs and then they threw out their outer layer revealing these skin-revealing outfits. Turquoise colour, skin tight tops, skin tight pants, shoes. Revealed good part of stomach, pretty much entire legs and generally arms and shoulder as well.

Groan. They couldn't have had this clothing in PREVIOUS concert? Well okay it's not like they were nude(might not even raise eyebrows on the outside really) and the colour was damn pretty. I'm probably just being overly sensitive. It's not like showing of stomach section is end of the world and about same amount of bare legs is visible everytime you go to train here when there's another middleschool or higher girl in sight. And overall more revealing clothes can be seen in the street in summer...

During the first song with these clothes the graduating member gave some extra eye candy with her moves shaking her bottom pulling up slightly the outer layer of her skirt(showing off more layers). Not to level of tastelessness and won't be a lier and claim I didn't enjoy the show.

I'm having serious trouble finding the correct songs since these vary between shows and don't have specific set list for this concert so yeah I'll just skip these. Too much trouble to try to find them.

Once next songs were done it was time to wait for encore. 5 minutes of rhythmic chanting of ”EN-CO-RE! EN-CO-RE!” with about half the crowd shouting first, then the second half so you had constant chanting going on.

For encore they performed one song that I could actually recognize(one-two-three), members thanking crowd and chatting part and then yet another song. Clothing was again stomach&leg revealing. Some had full sleeves(might just have on one arm though), some had sleeve that didn't actually connect to other clothes which I found rather interesting look.

And I sure stand out. There were couple times where camera was showing aerial view of the crowd and it took me whole lot 5 seconds or so to spot myself...Okay so I had idea of where the camera was so knew rough area to look but on a sea of dancing and jumping Japanese there's one tall guy who's mostly just standing(maybe drumming floor a bit on tune but that caused just some shaking on shoulders). Very easy to spot!

I just can't get myself to jump around like the others! Too embarassing! For me it feels quite unnatural to not just be silent and enjoy the show even though that's pretty stupid here when performers are EXPECTING you to jump and shout in unison! Just can't help it!

(Also my left leg is still suffering from chafes and putting weight on it is painful. Not sure it would even stand all that jumping around)

So what did I think of the concert? Not as good as the last one. Set list wasn't quite the same level and not recognizing anybody besides graduating member was bit dull. Clothes were also less interesting except for the solo song by graduater(apart from the damn boots) which was bloody good looking. Still not bad experience and no regrets for coming here. As I said after last concert there are worse ways to spend 2 hours than watch bunch of pretty girls(though few years more on them wouldn't have been bad) in pretty clothes dance on stage :)

Favourite songs from concert were the one in 3rd video(and have to admit all that leg shaking wasn't exactly annoying sight...), initial 2 songs from the new band, graduating member's solo song, 4th video clip here and part of the medley but can't remember what a bloody song was the one I enjoyed most.

On my way I again got to enjoy the relative easy of use of the Japanese railways as even though I was winging it(the trains I had planned to go were timed in case concert lasted longer than it did so I was early up moving back home) had pretty easy time to find the correct trains to board into to get myself back to home.

Oh and final nail to coffin for my list of how I managed to go to wrong directions. Going to station I found out there was pretty much straight route to the hall from the station. Just go to right rather than left and climb ladders and you are on your way. Like 2-3 minutes...

Tomorrow I finally get to enjoy Sakura as the cherry trees have started to bloom in Tokyo. Full bloom is predicted on next week. Looks like this year they are earlier than in previous years as the March is warmer than usual here(meanwhile in Finland it seems March is colder than usual(has even possibility of being all-time cold) and Finland might practically skip spring and go almost straight from winter to summer...Seems I timed my trip nicely!). Will go on a day to the Yoyogi park in Harajuku and then on the evening go play some Go. Last time was before I started to use the JR pass so about time I stop by there too.