Beat Laments The World

A metal-infused take on Asian music & other stuff

Maybe it’s time I finally whipped this out. Only took me a year and a half to hit “publish“. I’m getting better at this blogging stuff. In case you forgot, reviewing a concert H!P Metalhead style meant, first and foremost, to get drunk. The secondary, optional goal was to maybe write something about it if still possible. I wrote this in early June of ’09 but wasn’t happy with it because it’s a shit post. You can see I reached my drunken high in the first part and here I was basically just getting pissed off. But, in honor of it being the blog’s 3rd birthday today, I’ll go ahead and publish it anyway. Psh!

Another weekend, another bottle of vodka and most of all another look at the H!P Awards ’09 baby.

What will it take to get you to wipe that fucking smile off your face, Makoto?

16. Egao ni Namida ~THANK YOU! MY DEAR FRIENDS~ (Aya Matsuura with Melon Kinenbi, Atsuko Inaba, Yuki Maeda, Biyuuden, Morning Musume’s 8th generation, Berryz Koubou, °C-ute, Hello! Project Eggs)

Oddly random song choice or is it just me? Wouldn’t this have been exactly the concert where you’d just want to see the age-old classics performed one last time before being forgotten about? Right? Instead they went with an album cut from Ayaya’s first. Ah well. I suppose it’s in the spirit of H!P (and Tsunku): expect the unexpected. However, I’m a huge fan of everything-Ayaya so you won’t see me complain.

17. Hare Ame Nochi Suki (Morning Musume Sakura Gumi)

Though I don’t have much to say about this, it’s a performance I approve of. It’s a classic ain’t it? “I love you for what you are” and all that. Very good. Here, have an Ai-chan.

18. Ai no Sono ~Touch My Heart~ (Morning Musume Otome Gumi)

Errr… skip. I hope I’m not the only one who found Otomegumi completely inferior to Sakuragumi. Don’t both of Otomegumi’s songs just bore you to tears? Besides, that euphenism (is that the word?) “touch my heart” is silly. That shouldn’t be proper English at all. (Well, unless it was meant literally. But then this would be a death metal song.) A long time ago there must’ve lived an English version of Henkka, sipping on… brandy? What do Englishmen drink in the first place? Brandy? Scotch? Anything cheap that tastes like piss? My point is, a long time ago there was a Brit Henkka, coming up with new words when drunk. And he was doing a piss-poor job.

19. co.no.mi.chi (Buono!)

I’ve made my opinion on Buono! known time and time again, so I’m not going to go into that here. Song is typical Buono and I’ll leave it at that. *shrug* To go a little off-topic though, I must say that having recently seen the Hybrid Punch DVD, I liked it alarmingly much. You know, even compared to DVD’s of groups I actually like. The live band significantly adds to the fun! In addition to that, from what I’ve seen Buono usually plays more of the club type places rather than seated halls, right? That’s a real chance for a mosh pit! In a way I’m sort of glad that Stockholm gig for Buono never happened, because I didn’t intend on going. Knowing what I know about their live show now, I would’ve been pissed off at myself later.

20. Debut! Koisuru Kado ni wa Fuku Kitaru (Ice Creamusume)

Now this is something I was looking forward to: Ice Creamusume’s debut H!P concert performance. Instant rewatch! Honestly if you asked me why I like this group, I wouldn’t have an answer for you. Like, two or three of these girls are unattractive as ass but I still like them all, mostly for Shen Shen and Lightbulb. In any case, the song is catchy idol goodness and you gotta love the Shen Shen solo part. Only complaint is I would’ve liked the Chinese version more, just works better for me. Still, definitely one of the highlights.

I love those expressions of shock and disgust.

After the song there’s a talk segment and oh boy… they could’ve done with a couple more Japanese lessons before this. Remember back when Junjun and Linlin joined Momusu? I remember Junjun especially not being very good at Japanese either, but this here is on a new level of incompetency. Actually it’s kind of adorable. I won’t make any claims about being better at Japanese than them but really, all but one of them can’t get through a sentence without freezing up halfway, completely blanking out, forgetting what they were trying to say and standing there looking like they’re about to pass out. My personal favorite is ReiRei‘s fail at 02:15 onwards, it’s like watching a trainwreck. Alright, to be fair it’s probably the nervousness. I’m not sure how I’d manage a self-intro in Japanese either if it was in front of an arena full of wota.

PS. Where are these girls? I want to see them again!

21. Hitoshirezu Mune wo Kanaderu Yoru no Aki (Puripuri Pink)

Hey, it’s everyone’s favorite MILF group! It’s not a very remarkable performance if you want me to be honest but hey, it’s Puripuri Pink! Still, MILF groups are the kind of thing you can’t see in H!P anymore and that is a tragedy.

22. Magic of Love (Atsuko Inaba & Yuki Maeda)

Oh yeah! Now if there’s one song in this whole concert that got skipped over the most, I’ve no doubt it was this one. Why people, why? Taiyou to Ciscomoon is non-skippable. F’ing A! I’m not going to comment on Yuki‘s vocals anymore because I’m sure you know about her already, and Atsuko‘s not a bad vocalist herself.

While we’re on the subject of vocal perfection, what’s everyones’ thoughts on T&C? I previously thought it was basically just me and Charmy who loved this oldie but goldie group, but as it turns out, I’m hearing more and more reports of people missing this unit. It’s unexpected but very welcome. T&C fans unite! If only someone would share that new DVD release already…

23. Screen (Natsumi Abe)

The face of Morning Musume, no? And who said she couldn’t look sexy if she wanted to? *points to above picture* The song choice would warrant complaining about but I’m not going to. Looks like they decided to keep promoting the new stuff until the very end which I really think is a shame. I thought Screen was a pretty cool track actually but I would’ve much preferred a classic Nacchi single instead… but more on this at the end of the post.

24. Suki na Senpai (Morning Musume’s 5th Generation)

Now here’s a spot-on song choice. I think the question is, how does it compare to the 2006 version when Konno and Ogawa graduated? I think it’s sort of funny. The same performance as in 2006, by the same four girls, and again it’s the same two girls graduating. I think it’s fair to say this is the only time this will happen. Certainly there’s a lot less tears involved this time around which results in a more listenable end product, but on the flipside it’s not nearly as memorable. I don’t think anything will beat the 2006 version

25. Romantic Ukare Mode (Miki Fujimoto with Hello! Project Eggs)

Of course… the holy grail of a song for all Mikitty (and wotagei) fans everywhere. If this song was a person, I would buy her a drink.

26. Kacchoii ze! JAPAN (Biyuuden with Berryz Koubou, °C-ute and Hello! Project Eggs)

• Solid song, unremarkable performance. Again.
• Biyuuden was about tits and ass. What are the Kids and Eggs doing here?
• Rika is idol perfection.

27. Naichau Kamo (Morning Musume)

Bleh.

28. Resonant Blue (Morning Musume)

Best song of 2008. Still, bleh.

29. Namida no Iro (°C-ute)

Oh Kanna, Kanna… Maybe if you were still here, your ex-group wouldn’t suck as much.

Alright, that’s wishful thinking. Kanna was great but I’m doubtful one serial groper could change things much. Aside from the odd good track here and there, it’s as if C-ute are fearlessly journeying on the path of suck in a seemingly unstoppable freight train of shittiness.

Alright, my write-ups for these performances are getting more and more inane with each passing song. This just isn’t making an impact on me. Something’s wrong with either me or this concert. It doesn’t feel like the event that it’s supposed to be. Come on, H!P as we knew it is was changing! Pretty much like everyone’s graduating dammit! Why won’t anyone show any emotion?

*sigh* Continuing on with brief mode.

30. MADAYADE (Berryz Koubou)

*blank stare*
*reminder to self: make next vodka sprite stronger*

31. Morning Coffee (Morning Musume 1st Generation)

Alright, I admit: this one was sweet. Really sweet.

32. Koko ni Iruzee! (Morning Musume and Morning Musume OG)

Although I’ll say this performance didn’t feel half-assed for a change, it is one of my least favorite as well as most overperformed Momusu singles. I’m beginning to feel like I want to die.

33. LOVE Machine (Morning Musume and Morning Musume OG -> All)

One last time with the whole gang huh? Alright, I approve. This was spot-on.

34. Michi Naru Mirai e (All)

*deep sigh*

While there’s all of the girls on stage partying it up, the song choice is yet again making me scratch my head. I’m going to call this a pretty unremarkable of a song. Never found it memorable in the least. Beat me up if you have to.

35. ALL FOR ONE & ONE FOR ALL! (All)

Alright. For the final, the song choice was to be expected. This is quite acceptable. It started off great, but only at the very end of the concert was there a glimpse again of the momentousness that this concert was supposed to be all about. You can see the sense of finality in Yuko’s eyes when she painstakingly raises her hands up at the very end of the song, signaling the end of an era.

How was it, then? Well, I’m going to be honest and say it could’ve been better. A lot better. So many of the performances felt lifeless and stale, and there were several poor song choices sprinkled all over. The setlist could’ve been so much more solid. And honestly, I could’ve done without all the silly “award” bullshit thrown in between every other song. You can keep your damned awards.

Overall, it does seem to me like they didn’t really think of this so much as an end of an era rather than just a new beginning, a Hello! Project Version 2.0. Seeing how it all played out after this concert, it’s easy to see why that is: basically all of those who graduated are still more or less around doing stuff. For me, this concert was nowhere near the awesomeness it should’ve been.

I’m giving it a rating of 1/3 of the guy on the left. Not the silly Nordic Berries one on the right, that stuff is for girls. It has 0.5% less alcohol, what is up with that? That is 0.5% less fun. You will spend 0.5% more time on getting drunk. You’ll have to hurry. It will be like a goddamn race to get drunk before you pass out. And that’s no good. Take it easy and stick with the good stuff. You’ll enjoy watching the concert more, too. In any case, good night and sweet Elder Club dreams.

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