I had made a reservation at Takami Sushi the night before the concert. It's a swank little place on the 21st floor (there's even a patio area) in the middle of downtown. Since I had made the reservation before the trip started, it was only for Tom and me. But we brought along our new friends Lamp and Matt, and Takami had no trouble accomodating. It was a good place, although to be honest I've had sushi that was just as good here in Iowa; since the prices are similar, I enjoyed it. We were the only ones there who weren't wearing collared shirts... but the restaurant itself told me via email (it took them only 8 minutes to reply to my question) that jeans and sneakers were acceptable attire.
The other side of the 21st floor is an even-more-classy nightclub called Elevate, and it actually advertises itself as a filming location, if you have any movies that need to be shot there. Among other music videos filmed there, Britney Spears' "Womanizer" chose it as a location... I know, that's your favorite song, how cool is that? Upscale attire is mandatory for that side of the building, but anyone who doesn't consider a Tanaka Reina t-shirt to be formal wear is waay too uptight for my tastes.
Afterwards, Matt and Lamp dragged me to the AX After Dark dance in the Westin. We were ID'd 3 times within a few steps, then given a wristband to show that we were over 21. Hold on to that thought. We were told that if we took off our shoes, we'd be booted from the party. Okay. Every wild party I've ever been to starts when someone says, "I'm taking off my shoes!" I paid 80 bucks for my new Nike's just a week before I left, so they were staying on my feet.
Why the wristband, I don't know. They weren't serving alcohol (although maybe the pretzels were laced or something), and on top of that the whole venue smelled like a big armpit. So we made one pass through the place, found only a few people lounging about, and headed directly for the Bonaventure Brewing Company. I mean, we'd just spent our day in the presence of Morning-friggin'-Musume, and we had to celebrate.
We had ourselves many a drink that evening before we joined forces with another Musume fangroup. The leader of that group was a big bald guy with a moustache, and if his name isn't Vinny, he should change it to that, 'cause I can totally see it.
In contrast to our group's collective misfortune of being shut out from the autograph session, this dude was *there*. So he was excited, and at that point had a lot to drink. So he was practically (by which I mean he pretty much was) yelling about his love of the group, in an hilarious monologue that could not be aired on television. We just doubled over in laughter, he was so excited. I felt a little embarrassed about his choice of language but believe me, I couldn't have done anything about it. And we all just enjoyed the moment. I repeatedly told him, "that's so cool, I'm happy for ya." Well anyway, we shut down the bar with those guys and we knew that if anyone wanted to give us any trouble, we'd just send in the big drunk guy.
With our evening capped off from all that weight-training and zen meditation (by way of listening to the big guy tell us all the explicit things he would do to our beloved Musume), we were in perfect shape for the concert the next day.
The queue formed at 12:30, and the concert began at 2:30. We'd gotten there early and hung outside the venue listening to Morning Musume do a soundcheck. If you could jump high enough, you could see the VTR screens, and in addition, the speakers were loud enough to confirm that they were in there practicing away. Moze and I grabbed a quick $85 lunch at the AX cafeteria and got in line. Since our seats were already confirmed on the ticket, there was really no reason to show up at 12:30, but what else did we have to do?
AX decided that the best place to queue was in the sun outside the venue. They went around with bullhorns and threatened to kick us out of the concert if we tried to take pictures. Okay, we got it. Nope, tell us again...
Not much happened in line, although we talked to a guy from, what-was-it, North Carolina(?) who was in his late 50's and like us, had come all the way to AX to see the Musume concert. When we finally got to our seats, we met up again with Mage, who told us about C-Zone, another Jpop girl group who'd be doing a couple of smaller shows in the merchant hall on Sunday.
A guy just a couple of seats over noticed that Moze and I didn't have glowsticks so he offered one to each of us. Giving me what was presumed to be a pink glowstick, he asked, 'do you like Sayu?' I replied that I did, in fact, think myself a fan of Sayu and graciously accepted the gift. It turned out to be orange, which I'm told is Kamei Eri's color, but that's not the point. I had a glowstick and whoever's color I happened to get was the one I would claim. I had made a declaration on this site some months ago that I was planning to kidnap Eri if I ever saw her in person, and although she's safe for now, there's always next time.
They blared AC/DC music from one of their newer albums for most of the pre-show time. Huh. Eventually they started playing those terrible AX promo videos on the VTR, and one of those was the 'Tour of Little Tokyo' video, where they hung out by the 'red thing' like we did, and the music was '3, 2, 1, Breaking Out!' so whenever it started all the fans would mime along with glowsticks, until the music stopped abruptly and everyone went, 'Awwww...' until the video was over. This happened several times.
As for the show, well, it was all new to me, but not to the seasoned Japanese veterans in front of us who had two glowsticks of every color in the waiting. I've seen a few concert DVD's in my life and I knew what was to come. The group took the stage, everyone stood up, and the short girl behind me got upset about it. Okay, fine; for your sake, we will all sit quietly and watch the Musume perform. Not a chance. To that girl, I'm sorry a thousand times if you couldn't see over me, but clearly AX does not care about you, and it was not in the plans when they decided to hold such an event with a flat viewing area. I'd have sat down if it meant you could have seen the stage better, but the reality was that neither of us would have been able to see the show at that point.
Hopefully I have a few fresh things to say about the concert which everyone's already been talking about, because my knowledge of performance (from both an audience and a performer's perspective) is one of my strong points. You all may watch Haromoni like it's going out of style, but I know what a good concert should be.
From my perspective, it was great. I was in the seventh row, center, and I could see everything and hear everything. Anywhere else in the hall, further back or more to the side, I don't know. I don't think the hall was ideal, just a square room with a concrete floor and some 8,000 yay-hoo's (myself included) going nuts as the show went on as planned. I don't know what the view was from the back of the hall, and frankly, I don't care, because I had a great seat.
The girls sang and danced wonderfully. It was guaranteed to be epic just based on circumstance. But overall, it seemed kinda shoddy. The sound system was pushed beyond a comfortable limit, even sounding 'broken' in certain parts of the show. The girls deserve some sort of medal for being able to put on a decent performance with all that sound just beating 'em in the head. Sayu was particularly off-key in a few places, but again, with the sound system, it's hard to blame her, and if you were there to hear recorded-quality music, ya should have stayed home and listened to the CD. I, on the other hand, pretty much stared a hole through Koharu, but I managed to get a glimpse of all the other girls; enough time that I could pick them out in a police lineup after they mugged me on the street.
Next issue was the space for the audience. At one point (I think it was) Reina advised us, 'everybody JUMP!' and my reply was, 'this is not advisable, Reina!' as we would either rack ourselves on the chair-back in front of us, or the chair-seat behind us. My legs touched the chair behind me the whole time, and likewise, my waist touched the chair in front of me. I could not jump, although I wanted to.
Then there was the strange choice of the setlist. The girls came out and performed all their songs but one, and then Tsunku came out to announce the winners of the AMV (amateur music video) contest. We heard '3, 2, 1, Breaking Out! (Short Version)' three times while the winnning videos were played, and the girls danced to themselves every time the song played. Yossie, under the alias 'HANGRY' (which fooled no one) came out to explain that Rika (a.k.a. ANGRY) could not make it to Los Angeles because she was 'angry'. Lame, lame, lame joke. No one really needed an explanation for her absence, but having offered that, clearly they could have come up with a better excuse.
The audience's energy was sapped by the end of the presentation, and the girls wrapped up the show by doing '3, 2, 1, Breaking Out!' for a second time. It was a blink-or-you'll-miss-it kind of thing. By the time our energy had picked up again, the song was nearly over. They said their goodbyes and left the stage. 8,000 people chanted "EN-CO-RU!" for what I'm told was 12 full minutes but no encore was given. Instead, several of the AX crowd-controllers came out looking frustrated and waved their arms like a football referee does when a field goal kick is called 'not good'. Someone got on the microphone and said, 'the show has ended, please exit to your right' and AX staffers along the way ordered us to keep moving, like it was some sort of weird death march. I am a fast walker, and I was going as fast as the crowd would allow me, and they kept yelling at us to keep moving. We were moving, dammit.
It was clear -- and I love you guys and thank you all for the hard work putting the show together and all the time you spent that week -- but it was *clear* that no one on staff knew who they were dealing with. No one even bothered to come up with a hypothetical for the outcome of the show. A sane group would have thought, "you know, this group is known for having some real fanatics; what do we do if they refuse to leave the venue?" Did they think that we would file out quietly and just accept that the show was over? The decision which the AX staff decided to go with is this: act confused, tell everyone to leave immediately, and be staunch about it. Tell everyone to keep moving.
Mr. Tsunku, was an appropriate encore for your first actual American show just a repeat of *one* song? Did you hear the frenzy that was 8,000 people calling for an encore? Just wondering.
Oh well, I've seen Morning Musume in concert. And not just any concert, but the first (and until they get so popular over here that we can't get rid of them, the *only*) concert on the US mainland. I was sweating like crazy while it was going on, I've never pumped my arm so many times in my life. I lost my voice for about a week yelling along with the songs and as well, in responding to the MC parts, where they asked us questions like, 'Minna-san genki desu ka?' (Reina got that honor) As I and others have mentioned, the appropriate American response to that question is "I'M FUCKIN' GENKI!'
They did the song I had expected them to do, "Ame no Furanai, etc...." with the Chinese solo lines, and when those occured, even in the seventh row, you could not hear them singing. I know at least one other fellow blogger was perturbed by that; I decided the opposite, and every time I hear that song, I'm reminded of how much support we gave to JunJun and LinLin. Sure, I may crack a few jokes about how I won't accept Chinese Musume, I mean, I really think it goes against the whole point of the group, but whatever... the American crowd clearly has their backs. And all that disrupting of the song was intended to be support on their behalf. Yeah, we ruined the best part of the song, but it's seriously one of the best moments in audio-recording history, and we just had to say something to show our love.
In conclusion, I don't think I can ever go to an American concert again that doesn't include choreographed yelling, glowstick waving, and fist pumping. Aside from seeing Slayer in a tiny little Iowa venue, for me it was Best. Concert. Ever. Minus the glowstick waving, the Slayer show was pretty similar, although I was further back in the crowd for that.
Well then, next episode (maybe there'll be pretty pictures for that)... Part 5, including Hello!Party and the Tsunku Q & A session, et al. Bai bai!