Apologies for any references people don't get...will do my best to make it readable for everyone, but I know that won't be fully possible >.<
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Okay so, looking at video of the concert it seems the "real" intro video actually wasn't first? O.o
So I'll start from a bit before the concert started, since there was something real quick that I forgot to mention in the last post anyway...
And I'll be including video when possible ^^
As everyone waited for the concert to start, we were all in quite high spirits...cheered and chanted and yelled our favorite members' names and so forth pretty much non-stop. After a bit, I realized I could kind of lean over the barrier and see under, and even behind, the stage, and soon enough I saw little fuzzy leggings and pink shoes wandering around (same outfits as the autograph session that day)...there was Momusu! Yelled Aichan's name as loud as I could in their direction a few different times haha, no reaction (not that I exactly expected one...I was more just doing a cheer/chant thing than trying to get her attention) but it was still really cool to see them backstage~
Soon enough the lights dimmed and everybody went crazy...but they started the concert with this really lame video of intl fans speaking in embarassingly poor Japanese lol, some of the same footage Japan Expo used to promote MM's appearance at the con when it was announced a few months ago actually (hated it then, hated it even more the second time -___-). After that spectacle they started the concert in the same way the Japanese MM spring tour ones started...big ol' silhouette of a wolf in front of the moon on the screens (first song is called "MOONLIGHT NIGHT ~Tsukiyo no Ban da yo!~", hence the moon...thing...). In the Japanese concerts all the fans would howl when this came up haha, so I howled my lungs out..silly, but fun :P
Shortly after that the girls walked out on stage (in cute little pink outfits w/fluffy white stockings and bunny ears...adorable :3) and everybody went even more crazy. On top of that, you seriously could not have had a better concert starter song if you tried (plus such a cute dance~)...not even kidding, you could cut the energy in the air at that moment. Great performance, as expected, although there seemed to be some lighting issues at first? O.o Kinda weird...
(video of Moonlight Night here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arQGRXjjQuI)
A couple minutes into the concert, I managed to drop my Aichan muffler towel >.< Thought about trying to grab it, but I was so crammed in there was no way I could have leaned down to pick it up...and I was here to enjoy the concert, so I pretty quickly shrugged it off and accepted the fact that my precious Aichan towel would get trampled for the next 2 hours, then got back to having a good time :P
Anyway, after "Moonlight Night" came "Kimagure Princess". I love this song, one of the few MM songs I know a good portion of the dance for...although the dance is sort of...unfitting? for a guy to dance to, honestly haha...but I didn't care, danced my heart out~
(crap intro video and first two songs here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPV3Z-GaQH0)
(another video with some footage of the audience beforehand, closer to the stage and no crap intro video :P http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AwqxWiBcTs)
After that the girls walked off stage, then there was the REAL opening video...actually took me a minute or two to realize it had started because the screens were mounted directly to each side of the stage, and I was too close to see them all that well. Had to really strain my neck to get a good view, so...to be honest, I only really paid close attention to Aichan's bit lol (which, by the way, seemed much short than the other members'...what was up with that? :/ )
Still, concert opening videos are always awesome...feels great to cheer for each member individually, then really let loose when your favorite comes on screen haha
The volume of the crowd when each members pops up is a good gauge of popularity :P
(real intro video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cOHrtutAwU)
Immediately after the opening video finished, MM came back on stage in new outfits (the ones they wore at the FNAC session on Thursday) and they started up into the next song, "Renai Revolution 21". One of MM's older singles (released late 2000) from the peak of their popularity, ask any Japanese person to do a dance from a MM song and they'll probably do the one from RR21 :P
Not one of my favorites, but still a really fun song live.
After that came the member introduction MCs...each girl introduced herself in Japanese, with a little French thrown in. Pretty normal stuff, except...throughout all the events, one of the Japanese fans (and Carlos, they had signs in both Japanese and English...I was there when they made them, they thought about having a sign in French too, but asked a couple French fans and they said English would be ok) had been promoting a special plan to sing happy birthday to Sayumi after her introduction MC, since her birthday was July 13th. SO...after her MC finished, the whole audience broke into a very...interesting rendition of happy birthday hahaha (getting 4000 people, all from different countries with different native languages, to sing in unison isn't exactly easy), it took the members a little bit to figure out what was going on. Eventually Gaki and Aichan caught on and had the whole audience sing it again.
Sayumi's reaction was awesome, she looked she was about to cry and her voice was kind of shaking...said (rough translation) "why??? wait a minute, what should I do?? I'm shocked, [can't understand for a bit] Wait a minute, I'm so happy, what should I do...this is so unexpected, I'm trembling...normally I'm good with words, but I really can't say anything right now [bit more I can't understand] ...merci~!" or something to that effect. One of the best moments of the con for sure...you can really see the love the fans have for these girls with stuff like that ;_______________________________;
(RR21 and intro MCs here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsFCAjSxBNM)
(continuation of previous closer video, includes intro video...can hear the audience better if you want to see how loud the cheering is for each member :P http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MOVjKiypHA also includes RR21 and part of the MCs)
After that was "Seishun Collection", Morning Musume's latest single...came out on June 9th, not even a month before the concert. Most people seemed to think it was only okay, but I loved it...made a point to learn the hand motions for the chorus before going to France, since I knew they'd be performing it live. Way, way awesome~~
Then came "Nanchatte Renai", MM's 40th single that was released last August...pretty much everybody loves this song. Definitely a great song, but not one of my favorites live...
"Resonant Blue" after that...Morning Musume has seriously performed this single on every tour since it was released back in like...early 2008. It's a good song, but I don't want to see it in another concert setlist for a very, very long time...
(no video for these songs ;_____;)
At some point during the previous few songs, a very short (presumably young) girl all dolled up in cosplay stuff (little gothic-lolita dress, hair up in pigtails with big poofy scrunchies, etc) pushed her way up to the front and forced her way in right next to me. I looked over and the girl who was standing next to me before looked at me with an apologetic face and just said "she's short...". It sounds funny in retrospect, but at the time I wasn't exactly happy as there really wasn't room for another person there and I spent the rest of the concert struggling to keep from getting pushed back into the second row (although it didn't seem to affect the experience too much, as I definitely remember the concert itself more than fighting against this girl lol). On top of that, she spent the entire rest of the concert yelling "kawaii ne!" ("so cute!") every few seconds for no reason at all...people who are familiar with fans of Japanese stuff will know why that's pretty much the most obnoxious thing ever >.>
Anyway, after "Resonant Blue" MM walked off stage and some random chick came on...obviously this was where Yuko would do her bit, and sure enough after some "is everybody having a good time" and so on, out walked Yuko...accompanied by lots of cheers and chanting of her name from the audience ^^ (and constant yelling of "kawaii ne!" from my wonderful new concert partner -___- At one point the girl on stage with Yuko said, in the direction of this girl, "kawaii desu yo ne?" - "yes, she is cute isn't she?" - as if to give a subtle "YES PLEASE SHUT UP" lol...also of note, Yuko is almost 40 now...a bit odd to be calling her cute, and you could tell that from the girl on stage's tone of voice :P)
For Yuko's bit, she introduced three of her favorite Morning Musume songs (all very early ones, which makes sense since she was only with the group for its first 3 or so years), and they played a portion of the music video for each on the screens. This was actually really, really cool cause the entire audience sang along to every song. Yuko was clearly quite touched by that and actually started crying partway through...which just made everyone sing even louder ;_______; Again, the love the fans have for these girls is really out of this world...
After Yuko, MM came back on stage in new outfits (big blue Japanese traditional dress things) and performed a medley. Luckily it was the medley from their spring concert tour...so I knew all the sudden changes between songs and all the chants, etc to go along perfectly with it. So much more fun when you can dance/"sing" along with the members~
A really, really good medley too...started with "LOVE Machine", their best-selling single from 1999 and a great live song, then switched to "The Peace", released in 2001 (not one I'm terribly fond of just because my friend Cal went through a phase where every time he came over he wanted to watch the music video lol...a bit tired of it because of that). After that was "Kanashimi Twilight", a more recent (2007) high-energy song but still not a favorite of mine...then "Koi no Dance Site", another earlier song that came out right after "LOVE Machine", in 2000. So so SO much fun live...could possibly be my favorite song live actually, I just totally lose it when the chorus hits haha, absolute insane energy. After "Koi no Dance Site" came "Roman ~MY DEAR BOY~" (2004), a definite fan favorite, and for good reason (it's grown on me quite a bit recently, kicked myself for not learning the dance already...). Then, finally, "Koko ni Iruzee!" (a ska-influenced single from 2002) to finish it all off...and really, you couldn't have a better finisher for the medley. Really fun, high-energy song (SKA!!! omg lol), and a nice sing-along bit at the end...which, for this medley, they did something really special and had a bit where just the audience sang. Honestly I was concerned about the fans knowing what to do there (Japanese fans are good at that kind of thing, but from my experience Western fans aren't so much...), but for the most part I guess it ended up fine.
(already posted this awhile ago, but video of the medley here http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=105762044 I'm in there, right around 3:40 :P)
After the medley there was another MC...but sadly, I can't remember the exact details. Taking the language barrier into consideration, I'm assuming it was just some quick "is everybody having fun" in French with some Japaense bits thrown in or something (feel bad not being able to remember, I'm sure there's an audio recording of the concert somewhere...if I find it, I'll update here with what they said...). There was a costume change here, from the blue Japanese dresses into little sparkly light blue one-piece dress things. Pretty sure they just threw off the blue and the light blue was underneath :P
I do remember that I had to take a serious breather at this point, had been jumping around and screaming for a good hour so far, at least, and I could definitely feel it. Had to push on though, still lots of concert left~
After the MC came "Ame no Furanai Hoshi de wa Aisenai Darou?" Chinese language version, from their latest album "10 MY ME" that came out this year in March. This is another song like "Resonant Blue" for me, really good but so over-played...and having two different-language versions didn't help much lol
Still, as the first slower song of the concert it was a nice change of pace, and even my least favorite MM song is amazing live haha...and it's actually a very pretty song, so I still loved it.
Next was "Onna ga Medatte Naze Ikenai" (released February of this year), back to high-energy...I really love this song, but it's actually a little disappointing live because there's really no good opportunity for chants and the dance is a little complicated. Still nice to see it though ^^
Then came another of my favorite MM songs live, "Souda! We're Alive!"...a single from MM's days of massive popularity (2002), and one of their more musically interesting songs. Really funky and catchy, and the chorus hits you out of nowhere..almost brings me to tears every time, so uplifting ;_________;
After "Souda!"..."Mikan", from late 2007, the song I mentioned to Yuko when she interviewed me. As always, super super fun song live. Very simple and lots of energy, with good chants and a simple dance for the audience to do as well. Kind of a staple live song, I feel.
Next..."Genki Pika Pika", another song from this year's album "10 MY ME" and one of my favorite songs at the moment. Just kind of a simple feel-good song, nice little hand-wave move during the chorus for the audience to do along with the girls too.
Then came the "theme song" for the convention, "Tomo" (which means "friend" in Japanese), the b-side to their most recent single "Seishun Collection". Such a pretty song, and the lyrics are really touching...I'll admit, I teared up on this one. Really a great way to finish the concert...
(video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoWEHy9rJyU)
And, after "Tomo", MM said their goodbyes and walked off stage. Of course, everybody knows that when a group walks offstage it's never really "The End"...the audience almost immediately started cheering for an encore (which, at MM concerts, sounds like "ON-CORE-AY" lol...Japanese :P). This was huge for me (and a lot of other fans, I'm sure) because chanting for an encore is just as much a part of MM concerts as the songs themselves (everybody knows the group will come back out, but it's the spirit of the thing~), and last year at Anime Expo we didn't get an encore (all the fans up front stayed and chanted until security pretty much pushed us out the door...beyond disappointing...).
SO...we all chanted our lungs out for a few minutes, and the girls walked back out on stage, this time wearing the Japan Expo exclusive t-shirts they sold at the MM booth and little shorts...seriously adorable, I'm a sucker for girls in just normal old clothes :3
Everybody cheered, went crazy...and the girls started up on their last song, "HOW DO YOU LIKE JAPAN?" (from their album "Rainbow 7", released in 2006). Another high-energy number, lots of "ooh!"s and "hah!"s for the audience to join in on...definitely a good finisher.
I'm not sure what happened, but at one point Aichan ran into some kind of problem and had to slip backstage for a second...then RIGHT as a line of hers came up she flew back on without even flinching, if you weren't watching her I doubt you'd have even noticed. Handled like a pro, as expected of Aichan~~~
Soon enough the song was over. At the end of every MM concert, the members all line up and join hands...then bow and raise their hands up, bow and then raise them again. The audience cheers and raises their hands in unison with MM, kind of a tradition at their concerts...so they did that, waved one last time and walked off stage.
And, with that, the concert was over...continued in the next post~
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Aaaaaaand here's some more video lol...nice up-close footage, bits and pieces from all over the concert (including some songs that aren't in the videos I linked to above). There's a series of 5 videos from this recording but this is just one, if you look in the 'Suggestions' on the right you can find the others ^^
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjxYlAx9TB0
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