Just got back from the second performance of KAT-TUN’s latest concert series. What an awesome show!!!
I’ve been debating about how to write this report, since lots of the staging details have already been covered in a bunch of other reports. Here’s what I’m going to do. Anything specific to tonight only will be written normally. Anything general to all the concerts will be in italics.
So, I attended this concert with another American girl, but to protect her identity, I’ll just call her T-san (hope you don’t mind if you’re reading this!)
She took a picture for me in front of Tokyo dome!
The first thing we did was descend into the dungeon of concert goods (seriously, you had to go underground like 4 floors). I bought a penlight, a bag, and a pamphlet. I may post pictures of those later. We amused ourselves while waiting by playing “count the guys”. I think we got to about 10? Actually, most of the men’s restrooms in Tokyo Dome had been changed into women’s, probably a smart move on their part.
After we found our seats (not the very highest up, but pretty close to it. drat), I took a couple illicit pictures of the stage. The theme of the concert is the solar system. Each guy is represented by a “planet”. Kame= Mercury, Jin= Mars, Junno= the moon, Koki= the sun, Ueda= Saturn, and Maru= Venus. Now, if you’ve read the reports, they do a lot of stuff with the different elements (water, fire, earth, etc). That’s because in Japan, each planet has an associated element (think Sailor Moon). In fact, the Japanese name for Mercury literally translates to “Water Star”, Mars is “Fire Star”, and so on.
Oh, and one thing I’ve got to mention about the audience. The cheering and screaming for Jin was easily twice as loud as it was for anyone else. Three times louder than anyone who wasn’t Kame. Okay, and now comments by song.
Rescue- Lots of fire in this one. The whole back wall of the stage was lined with juniors in red. Very cool.
One Drop- Bringing out the water. That whole middle stage and walkway contain fountains. I hate to say it, but Kame seriously messed up one of the “whoas” towards the end.
Lips- No fancy microphones. Instead, they did it on platforms that looked like trees and/or something that had been dragged up from a swamp.
Yorokobi no Uta/Keep the Faith/DUES- I’m putting them together because they were basically a medley. They cycled through these really fast. Too fast if you ask me, since Keep the Faith and DUES are two of my favorite songs.
White Xmas- Very pretty! They used lots of fog machines.
Sadistic Love- I think I liked it, but for the life of me I can’t remember anything specific. I meant to take notes, but I lost my pen sometime early on. Shoot.
1582- If you haven’t heard, Kame’s solo performance was absolutely EPIC. They pulled out all the stops on this one. First, he appears in this hanging red cage wrapped in chains. Then he opens the door, dangles from cage for a while, and then FALLS for real (they had one of those stunt mats on the ground so he wouldn’t kill himself). Yes, Kame does his own stunts. Then, he shows up on top of the stage in a pretty kimono-like robe with his hair all clipped up, looking oh so pretty, and dances with traditional fans and paper umbrellas. Then, he’s lowered down to the stage where he throws off the girly robe in favor of a black robe with one arm out, smears something on his mouth that looks like blood, and waves a sword for a while. THEN he levitates on the fountain by surfing on an upsidedown umbrella. THEN he flys around with some long white cloth. THEN the taiko drumming starts and he’s suddenly wearing white and running through the fountains, getting soaked by them and also by the juniors who are throwing buckets of water in his face. That last bit was rather odd. I kept expecting “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” music to play. So, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Kame pulled out all the stops and then some with this solo. Oh, and I think there were fireworks at some point too.
Pierrot- Why had I never read the lyrics to this before. The English had both T-san and I cracking up in the middle of the performance! The people around us probably thought we were crazy. I mean, there are lines like “I live like a rock and I die like a rock” and “I know that you hate my style. The fact that I’m a rock, but you know what? I hate your ass too!”. So… Koki= a rock. Good to know. Koki went in a cage while a guy rode his motorcycle around him. Looked dangerous, and I kept thinking I was at the circus. It didn’t help that Junno’s solo was next and it involved juggling.
Wind- Junno juggled glow in the dark balls. Jin sang with Junno at the end. When it was over he said, “Sorry for intruding!” Lol.
Rescue Corner- Maru comes out in “Rescue” jumpsuit. Does some beat boxing. Then everyone comes out in jumpsuits except for Koki who is wearing his Dragon Ball costume. Tonight’s special guests were Chinen from HSJ and Massu from News (and Rescue). That Chinen sure is a cute kid (but not as cute as Nino, and don’t you forget it Riida). Once again, Nakamaru failed at bungee jumping. We counted down 3 times too! Then there were some junior performances. Chinen sang “Mayonaka no Shadow Boy” and some Kansai juniors sang something.
Peak, Jumpin Up, No Matta Matta- Nothing specific comes to mind. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy them though!
MC- Was loooong. I thought they’d never shut up. Mostly, they talked about their upcoming dramas and projects. The best part was Jin being teased at the beginning. They wanted him to talk about something, but he was hiding in the back (getting his water I think), and they made him introduce himself. Then he tried to hide again, but they dragged him back out to talk about Bandage (and introduce himself again). We got to hear that adorable Bakanishi giggle. Kame and Jin talked about Gokusen, during which they got kind of close to each other, causing the audience to scream. Junno got picked on for not talking. At the end when they drew for the signed posters, Jin read his ticket like it was a receipt (he said a price in stead of a seat number. Such a Bakanishi). I did not win one of the signed posters they drew for.
Love- Glad to see this performed. It’s one of their better B-sides.
That Seasons Song- Nope, still don’t like this song.
Water Dance- This was a really cool performance. They were sort of weaving back and forth through the fountain. It occurred to me that if anyone accidentally missed a cue and stood in the wrong place he would have gotten soaked.
More Junior Performances- There were a couple girls behind me who were MAJOR fans of Kiss My Foot and ABC. They were screaming so much it sounded like they were being dismembered by wolves or something.
Real Face- Kame did Koki’s rap part at the beginning, and Koki sang Kame’s first solo line. Hahaha! Junno also did the final rap part. I guess they’ve been singing this song enough that they like to mix it up.
Member Directed Section (Ueda)- They seem to be working their way backwards through KAT-TUN, since it was Nakamaru’s turn last night. If you don’t know, this is a section that changes every night, with one member getting to pick the songs each night.
Fight All Night- Oooh! I’m happy Ueda chose this one. The dance sexy, and surprisingly enough, they all seemed to remember it well.
Sparking- Ueda solo, with the other members joining in. When it came Junno’s turn to sing his part, suddenly all of the music stopped and everyone just stood there. He belted it out accapella. LOL. I wonder if he knew that was going to happen or if Ueda was playing a trick on him.
Gloria- Another nice choice. Good job Ueda!
Uh…- I’m not sure what the song that went with all the nostalgic KAT-TUN footage was. Some old album song. Sorry!!!
Ueda Solo- Some nice piano playing to start things off before going into his solo. Poor Ueda forgot his lines during part of it. He dropped to his knees in apology at the end.
White World- Nakamaru did something interesting and hard to describe involving a mix of him and recordings of him moving all around the back of the stage. He sang quite well!
Wonder- Yeah, that’s the name of the Jin/Crystal K. collaboration song. I really liked it! I wonder if there are plans to release it as a real single. I’m sure it would sell well, and looking at the back screens during the performance, it seems like they’ve already pretty much filmed a PV. Jin appeared on a throne with a small harem of female background dancers. All hail Jin, king of sexy.
Battle Corner- Ueda and Junno threw energy balls, Dragon Ball style. Koki and Nakamaru decided not to fight and treated us to some TaNaka instead. This time, they did really funny impressions of Jin! When Jin and Kame were flying around “fighting each other” Jin took a lethal blow on the first pass and hung there like a dead body, twitching occasionally, for the rest of the fight scene.
Ai no Command/Wilds of My Heart- Great high-energy songs for the last set.
Neiro- They had the audience sing the final “Neiro” and Jin said, “Beautiful!”. They asked the audience to check under their seats, and people without stickers turned off their penlights so the audience spelled “Love KAT-TUN”. It looked really cool!
Encore-
She Said- There was no costume change for the encore, so it happened really quickly.They rode around on a spaceship cart for this one.
Peaceful Days- As usual, Junno is a happy bouncy bunny. Surprisingly, even Jin was jumping up and down at the end.
So, thinking the concert was probably over, since that’s where it ended last night, T-san and I waited for a bit and then started to leave. However, just as we were halfway down the stairs, KAT-TUN emerged again. We got a second encore! As we rushed back to our seats, the girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said “Safe!” with the baseball hand signal. Lol.
Will Be all Right- Jin messed up the lyrics a bit at the beginning, so instead of “Tell Me” he sang “Sorry!”. Also, he upended a water bottle on his head, and was looking very very sexy with his hair all wet and slicked back. Anyway, I love this song, so I feel pretty lucky that we got two encores.
Total Concert Time: About 3 hours, 10 minutes.
And now I am very very tired, and I have plans to go to the gym with a friend tomorrow, so it’s bedtime for me. The show was great, I only wish I could have had a better seat. I didn’t know how lucky I was at the Ishikawa concert last summer, even being able to make eye contact with some of the guys! Tokyo Dome is just so big though that most of the seats aren’t very good.
~Celestia~
