Saturday, May 16, 2009

KAT-TUN Tokyo Dome Report: May 16th, 2009

Ok, in the end I decided to go to the concert tonight. I'm glad I did as it turns out that I won't be able to attend tomorrow night's concert as originally planned.


I managed to get decent seats, on the left side of the stage on the 1st floor of the stands. Since I used my cell phone to take a picture of the stage it's not so good, but it should be able to give people an idea of what the stage looked like. Also of note is that before the concert there are six big balloons that are made to look like planets (or four planets and the sun and moon) that are floating around the stage. It looks pretty cool and the moon has a silhouette of a rabbit making mochi on it.

The concert kicked off with animated versions of KAT-TUN being shown boarding an airplane(space craft?). Then the stage lights up and Morimoto Shintarou shows up in a uniform to 'direct' the plane. You also get a good view of the cages that line the back of the stage that has Juniors dancing in. Eventually things go dark and the main attraction emerges on a moving platform.

There was something wrong with Jin's mic in the first or second song they sang, but the entire night had little problems popping up here and there. Like which screens had subtitles or a moment or two where the subtitles just didn't show up.

Anyway they pretty much went through the songs rather quickly. Kis-My-Ft2 came out on roller skates for either the second or third song, which made me squee inside to see them all so close when they passed the left side of the stage.

For Sadistic Love everyone had moved to the stage by then. KAT-TUN stood on pieces of the stage that could and was moved around (by the Juniors). Eventually by the end of the song Kame was in the piece that was a cage. It was hoisted up to the top left side of the stage where he hanged, waiting for the giant air matress beneath him to be ready for him to land on when he jumped. I was actually surprised at how quickly he made it to the top of the stage, costumed changed and all after that. Usually there's a switch so the performer can have time to change costumes as someone else is doing the stunts, but there was not way that happened this time around.

From the very top of the stage Kame's solo began. He was dressed in the kimono, with his hair put up (as much as it can be). He was then lowered onto the stage, via a rope, as he performed his song, 1582. Not long after reaching the stage he stripped down to the black male kimono. He then made his way to the very center stage area where he rode an upside down umbrella, that was made to look like the water was raising it, though if you looked closely you could see the wires from above. It then moves on as he flies around the stage with two long strips of white cloth, that kinda look like really long scrolls. After he's touched ground again lights turn off for him and go to the main stage where Koki with some Juniors are set up with taiko drums. Koki drums away and a Junior begins to sing an old fashioned song. As he sings the lights turn on that center stage that has started up the fountain, which Kame is going back and forth through getting completely soaked. But apparently that's not wet enough as Juniors on that stage have buckets full of water, which they proceed to splash/dump on Kame.

After Kame was done with getting wet, it was Koki's solo, Pierrot. Kis-My-Ft2 were his backdancers of course, and they had the swishy gold outfits on for it. Part way through Koki had a motorcycle brought out for him, which he road up to a motorcycle cage. He got in and so did someone else (I'm assuming professional stuntman). Only one of them actually road around the cage, which I'm assuming was the stuntman, they were both wearing identical costumes with helmets on. When done with that Koki drove over to a trolley cart with clouds on it, where Junno, Fujigaya, Kitayama and Ishigaki where waiting for him.

For Junno's solo, Wind, he stays on the outer portions of the stage and two carts are used to carry the members of FiVe around as they play. It starts out with Junno asking Koki for help, which eventually Koki agrees to and then with Fujigaya and Kitayama they sing a bit of the song. They then get off the cart, as it makes it way to the center of the dome. Once there Juniors have come out from pretty much everywhere to line the stage walk paths and Junno gets off the cart and proceeds to tap dance. When he stops tap dancing to continue with the song he sounds bad, and Jin comes out of the other cart Junno wasn't on and picks up the song for him. After a short dance break Junno sings again, without the issues he had last time and finishes the song fine. I know at some point he juggles too, in the dark as the balls glow, but I can't remember where in the song he does this.

We get another Rescue inspired segment from yesterday's concert. With Junno's and Jin's help Nakamaru finds the guests of the night that join them onstage. Tonight it's Chinen Yuri and Masuda Takahisa. Massu got a lot of applause and screaming when he was shown, he is also sporting two-tone hair (really light on top with a dark fringe on the bottom) now. When they were walking back to the carts to take them to the main stage Jin was pulling at the back of Massu's shirt. The rest of the group shows up and Koki is wearing his Dragon Ball costume, claiming to be Krillan from the series.

After a brief introduction they move on to the bungee segment. Nakamaru honestly looks scared about doing this, so I feel a little sorry for him. But I still want to see him jump too. Tonight it was Kame whispering things in Chinen's ear to tell Nakamaru. Then Chinen on his own asked about Nakamaru's hair (I think about why it's still short), and later when Nakamaru was refusing to jump said something to the effect that he's done it. (Which he did do for the Hey! Say! JUMP debut con, IIRC.) In the end Nakamaru didn't jump, he did feebling try a bit the final time and bent his knees a couple of times but got no further.

Nakayama Yuma comes out to pimp the upcoming Junior concert next month. He is there with one of his group mates, I believe it's Shigeoka Daiki (I could be wrong though, as I didn't really catch his name). All the guests introduce themselves, and Jin lines up to introduce himself as well, but now's not the time for this.

To finish up the segment Chinen joined by Nakayama and a bunch of the younger Juniors sang Mayonaka no Shadow Boy. Then Nakayama leads the group in another song, which I don't remember the name of. Once done they exited and KAT-TUN came out with cubes that they climbed on and were lifted to swing above the audience in the arena section.

Nakumaru teasing is continued, as Ueda was sharing the same cube as him. So Ueda made sure to give the cube a good shake once it was airborne.

After the next few songs Koki asks everyone to sit down as it's time for the long MC, which indeed was rather long. They stuck to mainly talking about the dramas and movies that they are participating in. At the beginning though Jin had snuck to the back of the stage to drink his water, but Nakamaru called him out on it. He finally made his introduction the first time this happened. He kept trying to sneak back there for a while but Nakamaru kept bringing him out to join everyone else in the talk. The gave away posters again, and Jin was being a dork about reading the ticket stub, then Koki followed his example.

Started back up with Love and followed it with 春夏秋冬(will look up romanization later). Water Dance then began, and KAT-TUN danced around the water streams on the center stage. Then they turned the stage over to the Juniors.

A.B.C.-Z came out after KAT-TUN disappeared again. They performed Vanilla, like they did the night before. Kis-My-Ft2 came on after them and performed Fire Beat, no Kis My Calling tonight.

KAT-TUN came back out singing Real Face. Ueda was in charge tonight and the songs he chose to perform were, Fight All Night, Sparking, Gloria and Tsuki no Michi. During Sparking Junno ended up singing all alone without even the music, as the rest of the group turned their back to him. When he complained about it he let himself fall to the ground, same with Koki for some reason.

Ueda had a rough time with his solo. The mic wasn't turned up on his keyboard and the first time they went to fix it they began playing a music track. Thankfully they quickly fixed that and turned on the right piece of audio equipment. Ueda did mess up playing once and then while he was singing he forgot lyrics. At the end he dropped to his knees and apoligized.

And just to mention this as I am a big Yamashita Shoon fangirl, the Romeo & Juliet footage was of all three Johnny's members involved in the production, Ueda, Shoon and Hasegawa Jun. They all got solo footage and I'm praying that somehow this means that there will be a DVD at some point. The scenes looked good and I really want to see the whole thing.

Back to the concert, after Ueda, it's Nakamaru's turn. He used the full main stage for his intro dance. Near the midway point of White World, ghost-like figures are pulled out. You can see the wires they're hanging from and there are two on each end of the stage. Those four are walked (they actually have two strips that are moved like legs for this) to the center of the main stage to finish up the song.

Jin then appears on his throne. And the four 'ghosts' take off their sheets to reveal the four female dancers for Jin's solo.

I actually liked Jin's new solo (which is more of duet), Wonder. But that might be because I'm a Crystal Kay fan. Also to note both Jin and Crystal Kay are credited as lyricists for the song, which is probably why it lacks Engrish (minsus the mispellings that I'm blaming on the person typing the subs). For those not familiar with Crystal Kay, she's a J-pop artist (she's been a guest on Cartoon KAT-TUN a couple of times, IIRC) that is half-African-American and half-Korean but was raised in Japan for all of her life. Becuase of her upbringing she is completely fluent in English and Japanese, which is why I'm crediting her with making sure the lyrics make sense and flow well. But I found the song rather nice, and while it mentions dancing it's lyrics are tame, centering on the theme that no matter where you come from it shouldn't matter who you fall in love with. A far cry from the infamous Lovejuice.

The battles were amusing. First off was Junno vs. Ueda, as they attacked each other with the stage background lighting effects while making Dragon Ball fighting poses. (Or at least Junno did, he really seemed into it.) Then there was Tanaka vs. Nakamaru and they ended up making fun of Jin by imitating him. Then it was Jin vs. Kame. For this they first brought out these huge balloons that were shaped like the cartoon versions of them. Then Kame and Jin appeared. Kame took up a Peter Pan-like flying pose while Jin hung like a corpse. Jin showed some signs of life like once mid-air and that was about it.

Then it was Wilds of My Heart followed by NEIRO, and the audience sang the last word of the song. Then they asked everyone to turn off their penlights and for those with read marks on their chairs to turn them on. 'We Love KAT-TUN' was spelled out. They then departed the stage, but that only meant it was encore time.

The came out quick for the first encore of She said... and Peaceful Days and thanked the Juniors then. The drummer for FiVe had Nakamaru's name on his forehead for some reason. They only sang two songs for the first encore, but came out for a second encore singing one more song, Will Be Alright. Koki,who was shirtless by this time, had a towel that he ended up throwing into the crowd.

And that ended the concert.

I want to write more, but I need sleep so I shall do that now.

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