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meimichiConcert ticket: way too much money
Concert goods: lots and lots of money
Conclusion: TOTALLY WORTH IIIIIIIIT
Sooo. I woke up early, and then met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
explodinguterus for brunch at Hon-Kawagoe, then had to turn around and run back to catch the train to Ikebukuro.
Now, I'd never been inside Tokyo Dome before. When I was outside yesterday, I thought, "Whoa, this is really huge-looking from the outside." I knew it was bigger than Osaka, but I don't think it hit me HOW MUCH until I got onto my train (forty minutes out of Ikebukuro), and there were probably ten girls IN MY TRAIN CAR ALONE, clutching Arashi totebags with uchiwa handles peeking out of the top.
I was like, "Um, DAMN."
I got there about ten minutes before the doors opened at four, and spent that time turning in my fanclub application. Then I went inside with ease; yappari, nobody checks the ticket names (but I shouldn't have that worry again, huh!). Our gate was the first one let in, I think, and I was actually disappointed when I sat down: "I'm so far away from the stage!!" However, that was when the whole floor was empty: when people started filling in the seats, I realized I wasn't really that far. Anyway, I was in row 35 in the stands, first floor a little right of the middle...so I would say I was pretty much dead center of the Dome. I was definitely better off than people up in the second and third floors, but still far enough away that I was burning with jealousy of the girls in front of me. :( Being on the floor is definitely best, otherwise being right in front on the first floor since then you can see the hanamichi closely when they go by.
And...okay. So, I knew in my head that they had booked the Dome concerts at the last minute because of the nutso peak in popularity causing a wild ticket demand. But you know...hearing they sold out the Dome is totally different from seeing it.
It was fucking insane. I'm not kidding. 55,000 seats in the place and I did not see a single empty one from where I was standing.
I was going to write down the setlist, but frankly I had my hands full just watching everything and trying to keep up with everything going on. I was totally overwhelmed at the beginning, trying to pay attention to how to handle my uchiwa and penlight and whether I should be watching the monitors or the actual band, because you couldn't really see them very clearly when they were on the main stage, but if you watched only the monitors than you would end up missing something (like, I am pretty sure Nino grabbed Ohno's butt during YES? NO? but that's just going from the scream quota and from hearing he did it the night before, I totally missed it. ;P). Plus I was keeping an eye on the girls around me so I would notice when I needed to do something special with my penlight.
Anyway, the lights went out, and everyone turned on their penlights. 55,000 people, and most of them had penlights. The one for the tour is heart-shaped and changes colors, so it was amazing seeing this sea of lights all flashing rapidly; it looked like a rainbow planetarium! Then the stage lights started flashing up a bunch of different words to reflect the "Kotoba no Chikara" theme: I remember "freedom," "rain," "sun," "friendship," "graduation," but there were probably like fifty words or more flashing up and down across the main stage.
There was this big cube structure in the middle of the stage, and then it lit up and you could see the boys' silhouettes inside. The music started up and slowly it opened, and then they came rushing out.
The first set started with: "Everybody Zenshin," "Di-li-li," "Kitto Daijoubu", and "Oh Yeah!"
For the first set, everyone was wearing these ill-advised outfits with feather boas sort of wired to their shoulders. Sho complained during the M.C. that he hated these things, because when they would wave their arms, the wire would make it so the boa would hit them right in the face. (He called the staff to bring out his costume again so he could put it on and demonstrate, and everyone else snarkily asked him if he was going to try to fly. With that amount of feathers, IT WAS A POSSIBILITY.)
I'd heard about the moving stages, but I didn't UNDERSTAND until I actually saw them moving. Holy crap. There were two of them, and since one was larger than the other, they would pass OVER EACH OTHER. So the stages would be moving, and then suddenly on top of each other so they were performing on both tiers. It was AMAZING.
After the first set, MatsuJun introduced everything, explaining the theme of "Kotoba no Chikara," saying, "There are so many words that we take meaning from everyday, so many words in song lyrics that touch us. What kind of words come to mind for you?" Then he introduced Aiba's solo.
Aiba's solo really is cute! It wasn't totally complex, but he put on such a cute show of acting out the lyrics, especially when he sort of ruffled his hair, grinning and looking embarrassed while singing, "terekusakute, nakanaka ienai kedo, kokoro no naka de sakebu, itsumo arigatou..." I think it really benefits from being live; it's such a fairly quiet song on CD, but it seemed really energetic live.
Then was Sho's solo, which was sung at the back of the main floor, closest by to me of all the solos...I love Sho, but this is my least favorite of the solos. *laugh* Even the live didn't really change my mind on that point, as well as he sang it. I liked the sexy red couch setup, but while the amount of juniors around him kept increasing as the song went on, it started with just two and it looked awkward? Like there should have been three to start.
Then "Jidai," "Yes? No?", and "Carnival Night (part two)". I didn't know any of these songs by heart, though especially "Yes? No?" and "Carnival Night" were REALLY fun. Especially screaming out the spelling on "Carnival Night." MatsuJun ripped open his shirt during that song too, causing everyone to scream their lungs out.
After that was Nino's solo. I love this song, it's my favorite on the CD, though I noticed Nino didn't seem to sound as good live as he does on the album (not that I am knocking Nino's voice, he and Ohno are pretty much the glue holding the vocals together on the whole, but Ohno sounded SO much better live than on the CD!). Apparently, a few concerts ago, Nino got really tired and his vision got a little blurry, so he wore his glasses for the solo. In some interview I was reading, everyone was laughing over how the audience was screaming and declaring him to look "moe." *snort* So he said in the interview that he would keep wearing them for the solo Dome performances, and he did!
I really loved it even if the vocals weren't as perfect as the CD, the stage lights were rigged to look like falling raindrops during the song and it was really pretty and peaceful. I really love the, "Korekara wa, chotto kurai no wagamama ittemo ii yo. Demo, watashi ni dake yo...!" bit. At the very end, he ripped off his glasses with a flourish, and everyone went nuts screaming their heads off. *giggle*
Then..."Taiyou no Sekai." Then "WAVE". They didn't really sing it though, they spent the song organizing the whole Dome into doing the wave! This was INSANELY cool, because all three floors of the Dome were doing it, and you just saw this GIANT WAVE OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE and their penlights flashing as they stood. It was SO COOL. D:
Then, "Love Situation." You could tell everyone was holding their breath for the MatsuJun, "Chikazukitai!" bit and sure enough as soon as he said it, everyone went craaaaaaazy.
After that, "a Day in Our Life" and "Hadashi no Mirai"? I think then this is probably where the MC went. I also had trouble following that too; everyone yelled over each other quite a bit. They kicked off with Sho complaining about the costumes, and then Aiba said that during the first set, when they were riding the hanamichi around, he was on the same hanamichi as MatsuJun. They were supposed to take off the boa!coats between songs and toss them off the hanamichi to the staff below. But Aiba was so carried away waving to the fans that he forgot, and MatsuJun had to cross over to him and hiss, "TAKE OFF YOUR COSTUME!" in his ear.
Aiba said after concerts, you just want to go fall asleep. He was drinking and passed out after the concert the other night, and when he came to, his cell phone was in his hand. He looked at it and saw that he'd been writing a drunken email to the other four members saying simply, "ARASHI SAIKOU!!!" but luckily he didn't send it. *dies*
Then Aiba held up Sho's water bottle, which was CRUSHED in the middle, holding up his own normal one for comparison. Everyone was like, WTF ARE YOU CRUSHING THE POOR PET BOTTLE FOR?!! and he was like, "That's just how I drink it! Then the water comes out quicker, and isn't it better for recycling that way?" So they got him a fresh bottle of water and made him demonstrate his PET-bottle-crushing technique. They were all in sleeveless shirts, and he started flexing after he was done (if you saw Shukudai-kun's recent yoga episode, you know he looks pretty impressive doing this). It became this hilarious running gag for the entire rest of the night, where he would just start flexing his muscles for no reason at all.
Around there everyone announced they had absolutely no plan for the MC, though "probably everyone figured that out already." Then they started saying something embarrassing about Sho which I totally missed, and he said, "I don't mind if you say it as long as it's not on TV," and they were like, "You know we're recording for the DVD tonight, right?" ;P
As they were having this conversation, they started on the moving stage at the back of the floor, and as they talked, the moving stage drifted back to the main stage. Then Sho announced that he'd been named the main newscaster to cover the World Cup (everyone cheered like it was news, but this was announced days ago~).
Then they introduced Hey!Say!JUMP, who performed their single while the Arashi boys went back to change. Ummm yeah. There didn't seem that much interest though, almost nobody stood up for them (we were all still sitting from the MC). The only ones standing up with their penlights on seemed to be middle schoolers, from where I was sitting. I frankly am still nursing a grudge over the fact that the hyped-up new group ended up not having Toma in it (whyyyy haven't you debuted yet Tomaaaaaaa), so I really really didn't care. ;P
Then everyone came back out on their stools. They played two messages from fans across the screen, regarding "Kaze." One fan said she'd had a very tough summer, but that when she went to a live, she was fully aware of the lyrics to "Kaze" for the first time. It made her feel like she was able to forget all of her troubles. The second one talked about how when she heard it she realized that summer really was ending and that the lives were over, and how lonely she would be without concert season. Um...it was really more detailed than that, both were pretty deep and touching messages! So then they sang "Kaze," and I was like, "Ohhh, I see what they meant in the messages!" I think this was maybe my favorite of the night, really nicely-done and dramatic.
That led into "HERO," which also turns me all sappy, but at the end everyone was screaming because Nino smooched Ohno at the very end. It was really funny; Ohno was all wild flailing hands and everything. :D
After that? "Yabai-Yabai-Yabai."
OMFGGGGGG.
Okay, for starters, I really really love the song. And that's just...unnatural, because I should not love a MatsuJun solo that much. But somehow, they managed to write a song so disturbingly fun and catchy that I did not even care that he cannot carry a tune in a bucket.
And then the live act is just. GOD. The MJ Walk, right.
So, he starts out on the stage near that cube setup from the beginning, where the cubes are formed into steps. And he starts out walking up the cube steps, until he runs out of steps and JUST KEEPS WALKING UP AN INVISIBLE STAIRCASE, ON WIRES IN THE AIR. ALL THE WAY UP TO THE CEILING. Where he stands UPSIDE DOWN and then dances around ON THE FREAKING CEILING, and then he drops down lightning-fast, so fast everyone screamed because it just didn't seem possibly SAFE for him to drop like a bullet like that. O_O And then he moved back up, turning flips in the air... Then finally he floated back down to earth and started the actual song. As I thought, screaming along, "YABAI-YABAI! YABAI-BAI-BAI!" was as fun as expected. *giggle*
Then came Ohno's solo. I was kind of miffed since the whole group of girls around me sat down for it, and I was like, come on, don't sit down for Riidaa when you stood for everyone else! Granted, the song's beat is so quick that it's hard to move your penlight to, and there is not much in the way to participate on this one. But it didn't even matter because his dancing and singing was just. My jaw, it was on the floor. His singing on the CD is already amazing and he sounded SO MUCH BETTER here, he was just letting notes hang in the air and NAILING them, and at the very end when it ended, everyone around me let out this hushed, "Sugee!!" which was the only song that night meriting that awed reaction. :)
Then..."Kotoba Yori mo Taisetsu na Mono," "Pikanchi Double," "A.RA.SHI," "Sakura Sake," "Be With You," and closing with "Happiness." I think. This might be a bit off; I just stole someone's posted setlist from Osaka since it's pretty much the same, but I am pretty sure that "Kimi no Tame ni Boku ga Iru" was somewhere in this set as well...
"A.RA.SHI" is terribly fun, because everyone knows it, and the hand movements are so easy. So everyone is screaming, "WE! ARE! COOL!" at the top of their lungs while waving their penlights like maniacs. Same deal with "Happiness"; especially waving your arms on the, "Yeah, yeah, yeah!"
I think it was after "Sakura Sake" that they did the farewell speeches. It was really really beautifully-done and heartfelt, and so I was glad I came on the last day. Sho is the one I remembered best: he thanked everyone for coming, and said, "It's been eight years since we debuted. In the last two or three years, during our tours, we've kept seeing so many empty seats. We felt so helpless, and didn't know what to do. And yet, thanks to all of you tonight, we can see people smiling in the front row, all the way to the last people in the very, very back!" He kept pointing over and over, saying, "hitori hitori..." like he could really see every single person. :)
Then came Aiba...who opened his mouth, and promptly burst into tears, turning his back on the camera as he tried to pull himself together. He couldn't though! He managed to get out a very short thank you, and then totally dissolved into sobs!!! (The shrieking at this point became entirely uncontrollable.)
Next was Nino. He opened with, "So...Aiba-san cried, huh." XD He very beautifully said something like, "Arashi may suck at singing, and we may not be the best dancers out there, but we are the band with the most heart!" Then he added that he was sad since tours ending always mean the end of summer, and that they wouldn't be able to meet us for a while...
...but then said, "But the next time we see each other may be sooner than you think. You won't be waiting until next summer..." and everyone went fucking NUTS. He said that concerts are where Arashi is really in their element, and I don't know if he said anything specific, since everyone was screaming so loud just at the hint. But I am guessing that means winter tour, yes? Yes! YES! I'M THERE!
Then came Ohno, who was very to the point, and he smiled and thanked everyone for "coming to the matsuri they'd put on."
Finally, MatsuJun. Um...god he talked so long and it was all really meaningful and yet I am having trouble remembering. He was tearing up the entire time he spoke, though it didn't ever overflow into actual crying. He talked about how so many dreams were coming true; how he'd wanted to do an Asia tour and that had come true. How having two sets of Dome concerts in one summer was such an amazing thing, and that had come true. He added it wasn't because of Arashi that these things were made possible, but because they had all of us supporting them. And then he said, "Please remember...you're not alone. Because...you have me!" and everyone screamed. And then he added, "And you have all five of us! And look around you, you have all of these people here around you as comrades in arms! So all of you, please..." And then he said, "Ore-tachi no yume to...tsukiattekure!" AHHHHHH.
After the speeches were "Be with you" and "Happiness." During Aiba's solo in "Be with you," he was still sobbing so hard that he couldn't sing properly. <33333333 OH, AIBA.
Then, encores! The first was: "We can make it!", "Fight Song," "WISH," and "Love so sweet."
"We can make it!" was great fun. MatsuJun lost the janken for "Fight Song" (this is also hella fun to scream along to) and he had to go up in the bungee swing, which he complained about because "they already saw me up in the air once tonight, one of you should have to do it instead!!" It wasn't anywhere near as eventful as "Yabai-Yabai-Yabai," he kinda just dangled in the air.
"WISH" was great, and then about half of "Love so sweet" was sung by the audience on their own. The girls in front of me were HARDCORE and could do the entire "Love so sweet" hand movements, which were complicated enough I couldn't even copy along. I made up for it by singing as loud as I could, though!
After that, they left, and the "ARASHI! ARASHI! ARASHI!" chant was taken up. They turned off the stage lights, but of course nobody was deterred and we all kept screaming. Then, over the speakers, Sho said mock-wonderingly, "What is it they're all saying? I think they're calling for Arashi!" Then we had to scream louder and louder as he was yelling, "ARE YOU READY? ARE YOU REALLY READY?!" and then they came out for the next encore in their yellow tour shirts. :D The next two were "Future" and "Na-na-na." They were riding the hanamichi through the stadium, and throwing their signboards (MatsuJun got his all the way up to the THIRD FLOOR! Both times!! I felt like, "Yokatta ne!" for the people up high :D), but the group that wasn't on MatsuJun's hanamichi totally missed their cue to get on it, and everyone laughed at them as they were scrambling up and trying to get back on time to catch up with the other one making the rounds. *dies*
Then, they walked backstage again. More yelling. More screaming. More chanting, "ARASHI! ARASHI!" The next one was...oh damn, "Rock You" and "NA-NA-NA"?
One more encore; MatsuJun said they'd specially do one more because it was the final night! "Kansha Kangeki Ame Arashi"! They turned up the house lights all the way, and everyone was put on individual moving carts that got rushed up and down the floor aisles lightning-fast! They all ended up at the back platform and then walked out the back door, yelling their thanks the whole way. Sho was last out the door, and he turned around and waved to yell, "ZERO, ITTEKIMASU!!" and everyone yelled back, "ITTERASSHAI!"
I was scared about getting home, as I thought it'd be a nightmare. Luckily I'd had the foresight to buy my subway ticket home ahead of time, and my gate was the first one dismissed, so I actually made it home in exactly an hour; record time!
Um yeah and so...my fanclub membership = paid for. I'm going to be all overrrr winter con (assuming it is winter con~!), as much as work and travel will allow me to ballot for. D: It also occurs to me that actually getting home from Tokyo Dome was kinda girigiri, so I guess if I went almost anywhere else, it would probably have to involve spending the night...so, potentially difficult, but I'll save my money ne~~~!
Ahhhh I really need to find people to go with next time. It's the only way it could be more fun, is going with other people!
I...need to wake up in five hours. *cringe* Thank god I don't have to actually teach tomorrow. I'm also really hungry. Maybe one of these days I will learn to actually start keeping food in my apartment. I'm too tired to walk down to the konbini.
I also don't know how those boys do it; I felt ready to crash into bed by the end of the concert myself, and all I was doing was waving my penlight and uchiwa.
Concert goods: lots and lots of money
Conclusion: TOTALLY WORTH IIIIIIIIT
Sooo. I woke up early, and then met
explodinguterus for brunch at Hon-Kawagoe, then had to turn around and run back to catch the train to Ikebukuro.Now, I'd never been inside Tokyo Dome before. When I was outside yesterday, I thought, "Whoa, this is really huge-looking from the outside." I knew it was bigger than Osaka, but I don't think it hit me HOW MUCH until I got onto my train (forty minutes out of Ikebukuro), and there were probably ten girls IN MY TRAIN CAR ALONE, clutching Arashi totebags with uchiwa handles peeking out of the top.
I was like, "Um, DAMN."
I got there about ten minutes before the doors opened at four, and spent that time turning in my fanclub application. Then I went inside with ease; yappari, nobody checks the ticket names (but I shouldn't have that worry again, huh!). Our gate was the first one let in, I think, and I was actually disappointed when I sat down: "I'm so far away from the stage!!" However, that was when the whole floor was empty: when people started filling in the seats, I realized I wasn't really that far. Anyway, I was in row 35 in the stands, first floor a little right of the middle...so I would say I was pretty much dead center of the Dome. I was definitely better off than people up in the second and third floors, but still far enough away that I was burning with jealousy of the girls in front of me. :( Being on the floor is definitely best, otherwise being right in front on the first floor since then you can see the hanamichi closely when they go by.
And...okay. So, I knew in my head that they had booked the Dome concerts at the last minute because of the nutso peak in popularity causing a wild ticket demand. But you know...hearing they sold out the Dome is totally different from seeing it.
It was fucking insane. I'm not kidding. 55,000 seats in the place and I did not see a single empty one from where I was standing.
I was going to write down the setlist, but frankly I had my hands full just watching everything and trying to keep up with everything going on. I was totally overwhelmed at the beginning, trying to pay attention to how to handle my uchiwa and penlight and whether I should be watching the monitors or the actual band, because you couldn't really see them very clearly when they were on the main stage, but if you watched only the monitors than you would end up missing something (like, I am pretty sure Nino grabbed Ohno's butt during YES? NO? but that's just going from the scream quota and from hearing he did it the night before, I totally missed it. ;P). Plus I was keeping an eye on the girls around me so I would notice when I needed to do something special with my penlight.
Anyway, the lights went out, and everyone turned on their penlights. 55,000 people, and most of them had penlights. The one for the tour is heart-shaped and changes colors, so it was amazing seeing this sea of lights all flashing rapidly; it looked like a rainbow planetarium! Then the stage lights started flashing up a bunch of different words to reflect the "Kotoba no Chikara" theme: I remember "freedom," "rain," "sun," "friendship," "graduation," but there were probably like fifty words or more flashing up and down across the main stage.
There was this big cube structure in the middle of the stage, and then it lit up and you could see the boys' silhouettes inside. The music started up and slowly it opened, and then they came rushing out.
The first set started with: "Everybody Zenshin," "Di-li-li," "Kitto Daijoubu", and "Oh Yeah!"
For the first set, everyone was wearing these ill-advised outfits with feather boas sort of wired to their shoulders. Sho complained during the M.C. that he hated these things, because when they would wave their arms, the wire would make it so the boa would hit them right in the face. (He called the staff to bring out his costume again so he could put it on and demonstrate, and everyone else snarkily asked him if he was going to try to fly. With that amount of feathers, IT WAS A POSSIBILITY.)
I'd heard about the moving stages, but I didn't UNDERSTAND until I actually saw them moving. Holy crap. There were two of them, and since one was larger than the other, they would pass OVER EACH OTHER. So the stages would be moving, and then suddenly on top of each other so they were performing on both tiers. It was AMAZING.
After the first set, MatsuJun introduced everything, explaining the theme of "Kotoba no Chikara," saying, "There are so many words that we take meaning from everyday, so many words in song lyrics that touch us. What kind of words come to mind for you?" Then he introduced Aiba's solo.
Aiba's solo really is cute! It wasn't totally complex, but he put on such a cute show of acting out the lyrics, especially when he sort of ruffled his hair, grinning and looking embarrassed while singing, "terekusakute, nakanaka ienai kedo, kokoro no naka de sakebu, itsumo arigatou..." I think it really benefits from being live; it's such a fairly quiet song on CD, but it seemed really energetic live.
Then was Sho's solo, which was sung at the back of the main floor, closest by to me of all the solos...I love Sho, but this is my least favorite of the solos. *laugh* Even the live didn't really change my mind on that point, as well as he sang it. I liked the sexy red couch setup, but while the amount of juniors around him kept increasing as the song went on, it started with just two and it looked awkward? Like there should have been three to start.
Then "Jidai," "Yes? No?", and "Carnival Night (part two)". I didn't know any of these songs by heart, though especially "Yes? No?" and "Carnival Night" were REALLY fun. Especially screaming out the spelling on "Carnival Night." MatsuJun ripped open his shirt during that song too, causing everyone to scream their lungs out.
After that was Nino's solo. I love this song, it's my favorite on the CD, though I noticed Nino didn't seem to sound as good live as he does on the album (not that I am knocking Nino's voice, he and Ohno are pretty much the glue holding the vocals together on the whole, but Ohno sounded SO much better live than on the CD!). Apparently, a few concerts ago, Nino got really tired and his vision got a little blurry, so he wore his glasses for the solo. In some interview I was reading, everyone was laughing over how the audience was screaming and declaring him to look "moe." *snort* So he said in the interview that he would keep wearing them for the solo Dome performances, and he did!
I really loved it even if the vocals weren't as perfect as the CD, the stage lights were rigged to look like falling raindrops during the song and it was really pretty and peaceful. I really love the, "Korekara wa, chotto kurai no wagamama ittemo ii yo. Demo, watashi ni dake yo...!" bit. At the very end, he ripped off his glasses with a flourish, and everyone went nuts screaming their heads off. *giggle*
Then..."Taiyou no Sekai." Then "WAVE". They didn't really sing it though, they spent the song organizing the whole Dome into doing the wave! This was INSANELY cool, because all three floors of the Dome were doing it, and you just saw this GIANT WAVE OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE and their penlights flashing as they stood. It was SO COOL. D:
Then, "Love Situation." You could tell everyone was holding their breath for the MatsuJun, "Chikazukitai!" bit and sure enough as soon as he said it, everyone went craaaaaaazy.
After that, "a Day in Our Life" and "Hadashi no Mirai"? I think then this is probably where the MC went. I also had trouble following that too; everyone yelled over each other quite a bit. They kicked off with Sho complaining about the costumes, and then Aiba said that during the first set, when they were riding the hanamichi around, he was on the same hanamichi as MatsuJun. They were supposed to take off the boa!coats between songs and toss them off the hanamichi to the staff below. But Aiba was so carried away waving to the fans that he forgot, and MatsuJun had to cross over to him and hiss, "TAKE OFF YOUR COSTUME!" in his ear.
Aiba said after concerts, you just want to go fall asleep. He was drinking and passed out after the concert the other night, and when he came to, his cell phone was in his hand. He looked at it and saw that he'd been writing a drunken email to the other four members saying simply, "ARASHI SAIKOU!!!" but luckily he didn't send it. *dies*
Then Aiba held up Sho's water bottle, which was CRUSHED in the middle, holding up his own normal one for comparison. Everyone was like, WTF ARE YOU CRUSHING THE POOR PET BOTTLE FOR?!! and he was like, "That's just how I drink it! Then the water comes out quicker, and isn't it better for recycling that way?" So they got him a fresh bottle of water and made him demonstrate his PET-bottle-crushing technique. They were all in sleeveless shirts, and he started flexing after he was done (if you saw Shukudai-kun's recent yoga episode, you know he looks pretty impressive doing this). It became this hilarious running gag for the entire rest of the night, where he would just start flexing his muscles for no reason at all.
Around there everyone announced they had absolutely no plan for the MC, though "probably everyone figured that out already." Then they started saying something embarrassing about Sho which I totally missed, and he said, "I don't mind if you say it as long as it's not on TV," and they were like, "You know we're recording for the DVD tonight, right?" ;P
As they were having this conversation, they started on the moving stage at the back of the floor, and as they talked, the moving stage drifted back to the main stage. Then Sho announced that he'd been named the main newscaster to cover the World Cup (everyone cheered like it was news, but this was announced days ago~).
Then they introduced Hey!Say!JUMP, who performed their single while the Arashi boys went back to change. Ummm yeah. There didn't seem that much interest though, almost nobody stood up for them (we were all still sitting from the MC). The only ones standing up with their penlights on seemed to be middle schoolers, from where I was sitting. I frankly am still nursing a grudge over the fact that the hyped-up new group ended up not having Toma in it (whyyyy haven't you debuted yet Tomaaaaaaa), so I really really didn't care. ;P
Then everyone came back out on their stools. They played two messages from fans across the screen, regarding "Kaze." One fan said she'd had a very tough summer, but that when she went to a live, she was fully aware of the lyrics to "Kaze" for the first time. It made her feel like she was able to forget all of her troubles. The second one talked about how when she heard it she realized that summer really was ending and that the lives were over, and how lonely she would be without concert season. Um...it was really more detailed than that, both were pretty deep and touching messages! So then they sang "Kaze," and I was like, "Ohhh, I see what they meant in the messages!" I think this was maybe my favorite of the night, really nicely-done and dramatic.
That led into "HERO," which also turns me all sappy, but at the end everyone was screaming because Nino smooched Ohno at the very end. It was really funny; Ohno was all wild flailing hands and everything. :D
After that? "Yabai-Yabai-Yabai."
OMFGGGGGG.
Okay, for starters, I really really love the song. And that's just...unnatural, because I should not love a MatsuJun solo that much. But somehow, they managed to write a song so disturbingly fun and catchy that I did not even care that he cannot carry a tune in a bucket.
And then the live act is just. GOD. The MJ Walk, right.
So, he starts out on the stage near that cube setup from the beginning, where the cubes are formed into steps. And he starts out walking up the cube steps, until he runs out of steps and JUST KEEPS WALKING UP AN INVISIBLE STAIRCASE, ON WIRES IN THE AIR. ALL THE WAY UP TO THE CEILING. Where he stands UPSIDE DOWN and then dances around ON THE FREAKING CEILING, and then he drops down lightning-fast, so fast everyone screamed because it just didn't seem possibly SAFE for him to drop like a bullet like that. O_O And then he moved back up, turning flips in the air... Then finally he floated back down to earth and started the actual song. As I thought, screaming along, "YABAI-YABAI! YABAI-BAI-BAI!" was as fun as expected. *giggle*
Then came Ohno's solo. I was kind of miffed since the whole group of girls around me sat down for it, and I was like, come on, don't sit down for Riidaa when you stood for everyone else! Granted, the song's beat is so quick that it's hard to move your penlight to, and there is not much in the way to participate on this one. But it didn't even matter because his dancing and singing was just. My jaw, it was on the floor. His singing on the CD is already amazing and he sounded SO MUCH BETTER here, he was just letting notes hang in the air and NAILING them, and at the very end when it ended, everyone around me let out this hushed, "Sugee!!" which was the only song that night meriting that awed reaction. :)
Then..."Kotoba Yori mo Taisetsu na Mono," "Pikanchi Double," "A.RA.SHI," "Sakura Sake," "Be With You," and closing with "Happiness." I think. This might be a bit off; I just stole someone's posted setlist from Osaka since it's pretty much the same, but I am pretty sure that "Kimi no Tame ni Boku ga Iru" was somewhere in this set as well...
"A.RA.SHI" is terribly fun, because everyone knows it, and the hand movements are so easy. So everyone is screaming, "WE! ARE! COOL!" at the top of their lungs while waving their penlights like maniacs. Same deal with "Happiness"; especially waving your arms on the, "Yeah, yeah, yeah!"
I think it was after "Sakura Sake" that they did the farewell speeches. It was really really beautifully-done and heartfelt, and so I was glad I came on the last day. Sho is the one I remembered best: he thanked everyone for coming, and said, "It's been eight years since we debuted. In the last two or three years, during our tours, we've kept seeing so many empty seats. We felt so helpless, and didn't know what to do. And yet, thanks to all of you tonight, we can see people smiling in the front row, all the way to the last people in the very, very back!" He kept pointing over and over, saying, "hitori hitori..." like he could really see every single person. :)
Then came Aiba...who opened his mouth, and promptly burst into tears, turning his back on the camera as he tried to pull himself together. He couldn't though! He managed to get out a very short thank you, and then totally dissolved into sobs!!! (The shrieking at this point became entirely uncontrollable.)
Next was Nino. He opened with, "So...Aiba-san cried, huh." XD He very beautifully said something like, "Arashi may suck at singing, and we may not be the best dancers out there, but we are the band with the most heart!" Then he added that he was sad since tours ending always mean the end of summer, and that they wouldn't be able to meet us for a while...
...but then said, "But the next time we see each other may be sooner than you think. You won't be waiting until next summer..." and everyone went fucking NUTS. He said that concerts are where Arashi is really in their element, and I don't know if he said anything specific, since everyone was screaming so loud just at the hint. But I am guessing that means winter tour, yes? Yes! YES! I'M THERE!
Then came Ohno, who was very to the point, and he smiled and thanked everyone for "coming to the matsuri they'd put on."
Finally, MatsuJun. Um...god he talked so long and it was all really meaningful and yet I am having trouble remembering. He was tearing up the entire time he spoke, though it didn't ever overflow into actual crying. He talked about how so many dreams were coming true; how he'd wanted to do an Asia tour and that had come true. How having two sets of Dome concerts in one summer was such an amazing thing, and that had come true. He added it wasn't because of Arashi that these things were made possible, but because they had all of us supporting them. And then he said, "Please remember...you're not alone. Because...you have me!" and everyone screamed. And then he added, "And you have all five of us! And look around you, you have all of these people here around you as comrades in arms! So all of you, please..." And then he said, "Ore-tachi no yume to...tsukiattekure!" AHHHHHH.
After the speeches were "Be with you" and "Happiness." During Aiba's solo in "Be with you," he was still sobbing so hard that he couldn't sing properly. <33333333 OH, AIBA.
Then, encores! The first was: "We can make it!", "Fight Song," "WISH," and "Love so sweet."
"We can make it!" was great fun. MatsuJun lost the janken for "Fight Song" (this is also hella fun to scream along to) and he had to go up in the bungee swing, which he complained about because "they already saw me up in the air once tonight, one of you should have to do it instead!!" It wasn't anywhere near as eventful as "Yabai-Yabai-Yabai," he kinda just dangled in the air.
"WISH" was great, and then about half of "Love so sweet" was sung by the audience on their own. The girls in front of me were HARDCORE and could do the entire "Love so sweet" hand movements, which were complicated enough I couldn't even copy along. I made up for it by singing as loud as I could, though!
After that, they left, and the "ARASHI! ARASHI! ARASHI!" chant was taken up. They turned off the stage lights, but of course nobody was deterred and we all kept screaming. Then, over the speakers, Sho said mock-wonderingly, "What is it they're all saying? I think they're calling for Arashi!" Then we had to scream louder and louder as he was yelling, "ARE YOU READY? ARE YOU REALLY READY?!" and then they came out for the next encore in their yellow tour shirts. :D The next two were "Future" and "Na-na-na." They were riding the hanamichi through the stadium, and throwing their signboards (MatsuJun got his all the way up to the THIRD FLOOR! Both times!! I felt like, "Yokatta ne!" for the people up high :D), but the group that wasn't on MatsuJun's hanamichi totally missed their cue to get on it, and everyone laughed at them as they were scrambling up and trying to get back on time to catch up with the other one making the rounds. *dies*
Then, they walked backstage again. More yelling. More screaming. More chanting, "ARASHI! ARASHI!" The next one was...oh damn, "Rock You" and "NA-NA-NA"?
One more encore; MatsuJun said they'd specially do one more because it was the final night! "Kansha Kangeki Ame Arashi"! They turned up the house lights all the way, and everyone was put on individual moving carts that got rushed up and down the floor aisles lightning-fast! They all ended up at the back platform and then walked out the back door, yelling their thanks the whole way. Sho was last out the door, and he turned around and waved to yell, "ZERO, ITTEKIMASU!!" and everyone yelled back, "ITTERASSHAI!"
I was scared about getting home, as I thought it'd be a nightmare. Luckily I'd had the foresight to buy my subway ticket home ahead of time, and my gate was the first one dismissed, so I actually made it home in exactly an hour; record time!
Um yeah and so...my fanclub membership = paid for. I'm going to be all overrrr winter con (assuming it is winter con~!), as much as work and travel will allow me to ballot for. D: It also occurs to me that actually getting home from Tokyo Dome was kinda girigiri, so I guess if I went almost anywhere else, it would probably have to involve spending the night...so, potentially difficult, but I'll save my money ne~~~!
Ahhhh I really need to find people to go with next time. It's the only way it could be more fun, is going with other people!
I...need to wake up in five hours. *cringe* Thank god I don't have to actually teach tomorrow. I'm also really hungry. Maybe one of these days I will learn to actually start keeping food in my apartment. I'm too tired to walk down to the konbini.
I also don't know how those boys do it; I felt ready to crash into bed by the end of the concert myself, and all I was doing was waving my penlight and uchiwa.
