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.
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