>>>T.M.Revolution - YEAR COUNT DOWN REMIX VIII (2004.12.12 @ Zepp Tokyo)
Yeah. I guess in the middle of this concert I had a thought along the lines of "When I write my Live Report, I need to start it with 'Well...wow',"...so there you have it. But seriously folks. I left the house for my long boring trip to Odaiba, the magical man made island where Zepp Tokyo is, where I had last been two days in a row to see Daisuke Asakura. It looked really dead compared to last time... the few lonely trees were devoid of leaves and the sky was grey and cold wind was rampantly trying to make me miserable. I was about to be rather shocked by just how miserable some Japanese would make themselves for the sake of lookin' good.
I went into the Fast Kitchen above Zepp to get a Cocoa Float (when I was that cold? i'm a dipshit) and relax while waiting for my friend Adusa to be released. Now to quell all confusion: Takanori had three concerts at Zepp Tokyo in three days. One was Saturday the 11th, two were Sunday the 12th. On Sunday, one began at 1:00, the other at 6:00. I was only going to the 6:00 one, mostly because tickets were sixty bucks a pop. So right now the outside of Zepp was mostly abandoned - except for the cosplayers I snapped a photo of, and a few stragglers such as myself. I felt somehow less of a T.M.R. fan because I wasn't in there at that moment. Ah well. So back in Fast Kitchen I
met up with a friend of Adusa's who was apparently quitting the Kenichi
Ito fandom and selling me an original JG80-IM, the silvery grey guitar
Ken played most often in Iceman, autographed. She gave me the key to the
locker it was stored in back in the station. I felt excited, yo. I got
a texty from Adusa and went to go find her. Holy crap flinging monkeys!
Zepp had seemingly exploded people. As we waited to get smooshed inside, Adusa and her friends kept giggling and waving to this short chubby guy in an orange (TURBO color!) t-shirt. We were waiting right by the press and special people only entrance, so he was hanging out. He kept doing the moon walk for us and bowing. I asked who he was and was told he's the manager and overall big boss of TURBO, Takanori's fan club! Well, here's a man I've wanted to get my hands on for a while. The girls kept giggling and cooing to him and beckoning him to us, and he finally actually came over. One of them yelped "Kichatta!" (Ach he came over!!). They kept giggling and poking the poor man. Adusa said of me, "Don't you know this is Gin, who made takanori-nishikawa.com and [the fan club] BRIGADE?! Don't you know Americans are waiting?! WELL?! THEY ARE WAITING!" And he was like ah ah yes yes I know about all of that! So sorry we've been so busy! And bowing a million times to me. What a cute chubby guy. One of the girls kept grabbing his necklace and staff badge and fiddling with it. Poor guy!!
They jammed into the first song, Wheel of Fortune from Seventh Heaven and the new song Mugen no Ark from the Ignited single right afterwards. He was rather brilliant, head banging Wild Rush monkey-style and jumping up and down. He also grabbed two plastic cups of water and flung them out into the crowd. He had a little "MC", you know, the random label for "chatter". His best line was about the zipper on his suit. "You'd like to see this zipper pulled down to about.... (slowly grabbing his crotch) here, right?" And as fangirls screamed, my friend herself screaming "NUGE!" (UNDRESS!!), Takanori started covering his face shyly and shaking, going "Iya Iya!". Golly gee whillackers Takanori, you sure got shy after fondling yourself just a second ago. Then it was Web of Night IN ENGLISH!! SQUEEEEEK! The song I had promised myself I had to hear live! And he didn't screw the English up very badly! I'm so proud of you, Takanori. I started to get seriously into this thing then, screaming when he finished and realizing that unlike a concert in America (the only other place I'd seen Takanori until this point), I could yell ANYTHING I wanted and NOBODY would understand me! So I got clever, yelling "YOU'RE SHORT! TAKANORI! SHOOOOORT!" amongst other things inappropriate for my child friendly website! Well, I think so. He turned and grabbed his suit and zipped it down, tying the arms around his waist and showing off his tight black muscle shirt and a little white shirt he had on over that. A really, really remixed version of PIN UP LADY began, so remixed that when he mumbled "Nostalgia isn't it?" I was just thinking WHAT SONG IS THIS!! He had to start singing lyrics and then I got it. Er, specifically the lyrics "Pin up-a laday!". *blush* As that ended the green laser effect pointed up at the disco ball, somehow forming a strange sort of Christmas Tree looking light display. Cool! A super super remixed version of Burnin' X'mas then began, but the bells made it obvious even to my stupid ears. He had us sing "KOI NI ASOBUUUU~!" and looked very gleeful through the entire song. It was still so remixed it seemed to have nothing to do about Christmas, but that's all right. It was amazing. I love it when they play old school songs, which is rare. He pulled off the white shirt so he was now just in the tight black shirt and his armbands (with the pants of the white suit). Such a typical Takanori outfit. He did some more chattering, mostly talking to himself in a really crazy way. He is nutso.
This is another I'd hoped to hear live... next was White Breath. As he sang it, having us sing a lot of the main chorus, bubbly snow began to fall, the same kind from Yohei's last E-Machine live, only this bubble snow was bigger, yet could only manage to fall onto about half of the live house. A fan kept blowing the majority of it into one section and I saw people who looked like it was all clinging to their hair. Giggle. It was still rather beautiful, although I feel grateful really that I was just far back enough to not get doused in anything. T.M.Revolution lives in Japan are DANGEROUS, fool. He went and did the INVOKE single next - Pied Piper and INVOKE, of course. When INVOKE played my friend next to me got very emotional and just rested on the railing, watching Takanori and not moving once during the whole song. I understand where she's coming from, I have songs that do that to me also. He was very passionate doing INVOKE, of course, as usual... it IS the song that freed him from his slump in my opinion. The final three songs were a mad rush of purely amazing, good, well written (of course, my Dai-chan!) heart poundingly rocking songs... Zips, LOVE SAVER, and finally, the song that is a number one hit, Takanori's first in years, Ignited. LOVE SAVER is one of my top T.M.R. songs of all time and I felt very emotional watching him perform it for the first time, throwing stuff around and bouncing up and down to the beat. Zips is a song I've never owned an MP3 or the CD of, but I've heard many times, and it's just wonderful live, as you know if you went to PMX. Ignited was by far the most well done song all night, hands down. When the music began the crowd got wilder than it had been yet. Takanori was flying across the stage like mad, it was an amazing performance, including smoke explosion effects as well as much self groping and rubbing and water throwing. When he finished he left along with the band, but we just sat there chanting TURBO! TURBO! for another ten minutes before he came out again.
So anyway. He talked a bit, more of it mostly being to himself in lots of loud, random voices... at one point we were laughing at him and he kinda paused, then stuck his arms straight behind him and bent over, going CHUU! CHUU! and making squeaky sounds and cute kissy faces. We all screeched at this cuteness. It was damn cute, people! And he knew it, that's why he did it. Damn, he knows how to play with his fans. They did Seventh Heaven's URUWASHIKU SEKAI ("Graceful World" on the english album) and Goin' for the first Encore, Goin' starting with this really, really awesome drum solo, that Takanori like bounced around in front of the drummer for. After Goin' ended with a bang, quite literally. Streamers shot out everywhere during the song, they left. And came back again for a SECOND encore. Yay! Before they played the last song, Takanori praised his drummer over and over again, having him stand and take a bow, then repeat the drum solo he'd done before. They ended up with Out of Orbit much to my delight, and the band left first, leaving Takanori to run around in circles, try to make us scream louder (First floor! Second floor!! FIRST FLOOR! SECOND FLOOR!) and bouncing around waving. He finally headed offstage after a few minutes of antics while people waved around the crushed plastic cups and streamers they'd caught. Otsukaresama deshita. Thus a Turbo live in Japan has been proven as much different from the rather calm ones in America with the nice chairs. I think I could have died during this crazy thing and nobody would have noticed. It was the biggest, most insane live I've ever been too, and it was wonderful. I can't wait to go back and get all smooshed and crushed again (no, seriously)! And my next live report will
be Access. Oh, Jebus in heabun, I won't survive.
OFF-SHOT WITH GIN AND
FRIENDS!!
Set List
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Well....
wow.
Please
take a looksee at the date. December 12th. Now have a lookee at the Seventh
Heaven cosplayer and her friend on the left. Yes that is a female. Yes
she was DAMN COLD! She had a white-colored Takanori with her also, but
that particular girl was huddled in a coat crouched over on the ground
and shaking. I also saw an amazingly cool Ignited PV cosplayer, who unfortunately
was running around so I didn't get a chance to stop her for a photo.
I
stood on the little walkway above Zepp (you can see it in the photo on
the right) and stared, transfixed, as thousands of people came pouring
out. It was thrilling for this little Ken fangirl, used to four hundred
people at my regularly attended lives. Even Daisuke holding concerts in
the SAME place was not this much - maybe 1500 people at most - but it worked
out because Daisuke had seats. I was soon to discover that you can cram
4000 people into Zepp, as long as the entire place is one big hot, steaming,
sweaty mosh pit of people all squeezed together and beating each other
up whenever we lift our arms to rock out. Oooh man, it's awesome.
We
finally got in (Adusa, me, and a friend of hers were all in "M" block,
meaning just far enough back to see without him being TOO small!) and crammed
together at a railing. We chatted until the announcement was made and the
lights dimmed. Everyone was chanting "TURBO! TURBO! TURBO!". How surreal.
The band all came out and played a rocking intro, then finally Takanori,
making everyone scream their heads off. He was wearing what looked like
a janitor's outfit - a one piece white suit with a zipper down the front,
and a giant grey skull and crossbones on the back, Triple Joker style!
Plus his hair was HALF BLACK AND HALF WHITE. Amazing! Spectacular! Short!
I
must mention that throughout all of these songs and the entire concert
he probably threw a total of ten or more cups of water at us, probably
totally dousing the front few sections multiple times. He also would drink
down half a cup and then spit it out all over the front rows. I'm not sure
if I am happy or sad I wasn't all the way up there to be honest. One time
he actually held the water in his mouth, sloshed it around, then squirted
it all out through his teeth. I hope he'd brushed that morning.
The
band returned and so did Takanori, now wearing a black t-shirt with some
sort of motorcycle and random words on it, baggy grey shorts, tight black
leggings, white knee caps and white shoes. I'm totally digging his black
and white thing. Or is it a Black or White? theme. Haha, I made a funny
T.M.R. joke.
