Album: moumoon - moumoon

This post has something to do with YUI street live at Sendai.

It has been a while since I listen to a Jpop album repeatedly. If you think YUI sounds like Avril Lavigne, listen to this by moumoon. I actually had the chance to see moumoon for free, when they were opening for DAI free live.

Of course, I was late, so I didn't get to see them =/

Btw, I love Do you remember? by moumoon the most. Great album opener. After ELT, DAI, maybe Ikimonogakari, next will be moumoon.

I'll post about this before I talk about my Hokkaido trip.

Last week I went to STUDIO COAST in Shinkiba (Tokyo) with a Hungarian, to watch some concert for free. They have this so called 'live monitors' which they invite someone to watch some concert, and then these live monitors have to fill in a super simple questionnaire after the concert.


Outside STUDIO COAST. Very few people around.

Basically it means that they need someone to fill up the hall ;P
Finally got to see Jinn（ジン）~ Anime fans might heard of them, Raion and 解読不能.

I'm a big fan of the vocalist, Hitan's blog. She really put a lot of effort to update her blog, she divided her blog into three parts. First daily stuff, then something poetic (her writing is really good), then end with a well taken picture plus caption.

Since Jinn performs quite often, I was sure that I could see them for free someday, and I was correct =D When Jinn appeared, I was like,

OMG what happened to Hitan??????????

Someone she turned into a beautiful girl (can fight with those idol groups), while I was procrastinating and stuff. Don't get fooled by all those Jinn videos in Youtube. I'm so gonna go to their new album tour now, and do some serious exercising.

Oh I saw SCANDAL and HALCALI too, if you know who they are. Apparently Hitan was the oldest among all these female performers. Which means, me, YUI are getting old =/

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On the same week, I went to see GO!GO!7188 twice, once in Tokyo, once in Sendai, which is 5 hours away from Tokyo.


Akasaka BLITZ (Tokyo) is a nice live venue. Second time here. I still could see Yuu san clearly even though I was at the last row. As usual, orange juice. GO!GO! performed Kinkyori Renai *HAPPY*, and unlike my previous GO!GO! live, I got to see ROCK this time~ IT REALLY ROCKS!!

Of course, I was at Yuu's side and stared at her whole night. Funny that Yuu (GO!GO! guitarist) mentioned in her diary that she wishes to have Rin Toshite Shigure guitarist TK's skills.

I would like to exchange guitar skills with you too, Yuu sama.

Because eplus is selling tickets of POLYSICS 「ULTRA FIGHT OR DIE!!!!」 live with no transaction fees, I went to Sendai~


Zepp Sendai is just beside Sendai Station.

Morning 5 am, I left Tokyo by taking local train from Takadanobaba. It only costed me 2300 yen all the way to Sendai because I was using Seishun 18 Ticket.

A little bit of Geography lesson in case anyone is confused.


Red = Hokkaido (of course), Yellow = Tohoku region, Green = Kanto region

As my goal is to visit all 47 prefectures in Japan (so far 14) during my stay, and since I was using Seishun 18 Ticket, first I made a 2 hour stop at Fukushima station.



I had a nice lunch at this Italian Cafe called Lauren & Leaf, it was the best ever lunch I had so far in Japan.


My favourite Omurice, and potato salad =D They are actually Japanese cuisines haha. Restaurants outside Tokyo are so much wider, can camp inside whole day.

I didn't know how I discovered this restaurant online, for only 980 yen (Vegetable Omurice), I got to enjoy free flow of drinks and salad as well (I didn't know about it when I entered the shop).

Seriously, unlimited orange juice, potato salad and cornflakes with sesame salad dressing for 980 yen, I was the happiest girl on earth. Japanese salad is LOVE.


I printed out the voucher from their website, and got free dessert~ (cheap people)

As I had to catch another train to Sendai in 1 hour, I couldn't eat until the lunch time ends. I'm gonna come back again someday...someday.

That would be cheating if I don't visit real tourist attractions. Since I have some time before the live starts, I went to Matsushima, which is 40 mins away from Sendai station, can see so called one of Japan's Three Great Views there. To me, it is just another tourist attraction, reminds me of Kamakura.


I have to make this picture blurry haha. I was wearing GO!GO! tour T-shirt, and that pair of shoes were killing me. Moral of the story: Don't wear new shoes when you are going for a long journey. More pictures of beautiful Matsushima can be found in depyon's blog. He went there few months ago.

Marimokkori is everywhere, as long as it is a tourist spot.



My legs started to hurt and I dragged myself slowly back to the station. It was a Sunday, hence the seats in the train back to Sendai were all occupied. My hand phone battery was running low and I had to meet up with some stranger I know through mixi.

I was planning to skip the opening act by someone called LEO Imai. Since I have promised to meet up with this guy, I entered Zepp Sendai without having dinner. Luckily I bought some onigiri before that. Paid 500 yen for orange juice (as usual), and met with the guy. He is some concert veteran, likes moshing, Chatmonchy and DAI. Too bad I didn't get to talk much with him, too little time, plus my leg hurts.

Because of that, I gave up the thought off diving in mosh pits for the very first time. Plus the venue was only 70% full, I could move around freely.

Artist performed:

1. LEO Imai

I like TAXI a lot. This guy is actually studying in Oxford walao.

2. Fujifabric（フジファブリック）

They seemed to be an established band. First time listen to their songs. They have a bunch of catchy songs, guitarist is cool, this PV is very funny.

3. GO!GO!7188~

They performed C7, so me happy. I forgot about my feet, jumped and screamed like a mad person. Couldn't believe that I would see Yuu twice in a week. I actually joined their fanclub, and plan to attend as many lives as possible in their next Hentena tour (anyone wants to join?). I wonder if I will have the chance to see them performing songs such as 眠りの浅瀬 and 考え事 in the future.

4. POLYSICS

I got interested in them after seeing I My Me Mine and Baby BIAS performance in ROCK IN JAPAN. They have great live presence, and it looks fun to watch their performances. The crowd went crazy when they appeared. I didn't really enjoy as much as I expected. Maybe because of the shoes, or because POLYSICS sang in alien language (their lyrics actually don't make sense). I felt totally out of place. Hence I left during encore. However, of all the concerts I've been to, POLYSICS has the craziest fans so far.

I left Zepp Sendai, and dragged myself to this place.



Sun mall Ichibancho, 15 mins walk (ouch my feet) from Sendai station. The ones who happened to bump into dear YUI were really lucky I guess. I don't know what time YUI went there, should be after concert, which would be around 9-10 pm. I took this picture around 10 pm, and it was quite empty.

Then I wandered around Sendai Station until my night bus back to Tokyo arrived. I had to go back Tokyo because I have classes on the next day (Monday) before our holiday starts (Tuesday). See, I'm a good student.

The next night, I took 30 hours train ride to Hokkaido.

To be continued.

I'm going off to Niigata -> Yamagata -> Akita -> Aomori -> Hokkaido (Sapporo) -> Hokkaido (Hakodate) -> Aomori -> Iwate -> Miyagi -> Fukushima -> Tokyo, to celebrate my first Christmas in Japan.

Hopefully I can survive the coldness of Hokkaido, the land of Marimokkori.

Till then, Merry Christmas~

PS: To Singaporean readers, you might have to wait for your 'late' Christmas presents, and some other YUI fans.

I got jealous of these high school students after I saw this video in YouTube.

1. They got to see YUI.
2. They got to jam one song with YUI.
3. Some of them shook her hands.
4. YUI got really really popular these days......the students were basically screaming when she appeared.
5. When I was in high school, I couldn't even play flute properly =/

I wonder if they get those Sony mp3 for free.

YUI, when are you coming back??

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A little bit of update of myself, I took JLPT test last week, and few weeks ago I went to Kamakura with two Taiwanese, hoping to see some autumn leaves at some place with less crowd.


Taken on top of Hasedera temple （長谷寺）.

No, I didn't really do a proper YUI location pilgrimage like artunee does previously because I was too lazy to do the research.

I went to see the always pissed looking Great Buddha at Kotoku-in （高徳院）.


Dear YUI was once there too.

Then we walked to the Taiyou no Uta looking beach.



I'll do a proper pilgrimage next time...including Yokohama.

Then last Wednesday, I went to see ORANGE RANGE at Budoukan.



Yasukuni Shrine is just nearby, so I went there and see see.

Before that, I always thought that Budoukan is a huge hall, apparently it is not. My seat was at the second floor, facing the stage, I could see everything clearly, the screen on both side were like HDTV or something.

I had the feeling that I was ripped off by Shiina Ringo.

I was sitting next to girls, one of them was alone, the other one was with her friend. At first, they seemed to be normal Japanese girls.

When the hall turned dark, the girl on my right started to scream like hell. The one on my left got really excited. Later she screamed out names quite a couple of times, and danced and jumped along, even though she was alone. I was amazed. Since I'm not really a big fan of ORANGE RANGE (esp. after the cute drummer left), sometimes I kinda felt out of place, I had no idea when to sing along or jump and shout or whatever, but it was fun. ORANGE RANGE knows how to entertain the crowd.

All of us did "human waves", quietly. My first ever human wave with Japanese, which was kinda weird. In Malaysia, when we do human waves, we will like, "YAY" or "WOW" along or whatever when it is our turn to jump off the seat.

The human waves were organised though. My heart skipped a beat when they sang Hana >< That was the song I looked forward most to. And I almost forgot that they sing Asterisk too XD

Summer songs medley (Shanghai Honey, Locolotion, Onegai Senorita) was really fun~ Because I know all the songs, still stuck in Katchan's era.

When they sang the final song, I decided to sneak out early so that I won't stuck with the crowd later. On my way out, I saw the drummer of Flow. We were going out through the same exit, I was behind him, so he was like, looking back as if he thought only VIPs will leave early. Then he walked towards the specials staircase for VIPs.

Concerts are a good place to bump into artists. The tour goods booth was completely empty, so I didn't have to line up for hours =P I bought one T-shirt and wore it to school on the next day. No one noticed it though.

Yeah I don't like crowds and queuing/waiting.

I don't know if the sound setting was bad or the music was too loud, they didn't really sound that good in this live.

Seriously, no more arena halls, unless I have the $$$ to pay for the seats at the ground. I failed to get Mr. Children tickets in Budoukan =/

Watching concerts isn't that fun any more, time to travel instead~ I'm planning to go Hokkaido and Kansai area during winter break, using the cheapest method (JR Hokkaido & East Japan Pass and Seishun 18 Ticket).

Any suggestions on what should I do around new year's eve??

I didn't know that I can collect the goods right after November 25, really sorry about that.



Please leave a comment in this post to claim your stuff, or email me, in case I didn't send you any emails.

Thank you very much.

Sorry for the lack of updates, feel free to examine my room while I'm away.


Entrance.


Desk.

I failed to get Ayu's ticket, so I will go travel instead.

Guess who the artist is??



Hint: Female singer songwriter, guitarist, recently married, and has something to do with YUI.

One of my favourite singer songwriter.

Before that, on Tuesday, I went to some live house for the very first time to see FREENOTE, Pringmin, and Tornado Tatsumaki and experienced so called 'intimate' live. It was at a small live house in Shibuya, and I was in the second row.

Now I can really understand why YUI said that she goes to live houses quite often. There are really a lot of hidden talents in Japan music scene.

Even though I didn't end up being a fan of any of the three bands mentioned above, I can fully understand what 'one man live' in Japanese means now. That live I went was a 'three man live'. It was yet another eye-opening experience. Imagine if YUI, GO!GO!7188, Chatmonchy, Shiina Ringo perform in such live houses......

Special thanks to Steve from Canada for 'forcing' me to go ;)

Back to that female artist I said in the beginning. She got famous with her second single, My Sweet Darlin'.

It was in Hangame Square, Harajuku. Yaida Hitomi (Yaiko) was there to promote her latest single Koi Bus （恋バス）, a collaboration with the legendary Oda Kasumasa.

So this Koi Bus CAFE was opened for a limited period of time to celebrate the release of the single. Yesterday, Yaiko turned to be the owner of the Koi Bus CAFE, and had a live radio show recording inside the cafe.

I shall skip most of the details, because apparently not many YUI fans listen to her songs, since Yaiko debut earlier. But I tell you, before YUI, Yaida Hitomi was THE female acoustic guitar playing, singer songwriter.

Gotta admit that I'm old now. I don't really pay attention to newer artists these days.

So I was lining up outside the Hangame whatever Square shop, the second last person, alone (as usual). The queue was kinda longer than I expected, but not as long as the crazy H&M queue beside the store.

When the CAFE 'opens', we went in.

As I walked pass the entrance and saw the CD booth on my right hand side. Yaiko was actually standing beside our right hand side!!! She was greeting every customers, fulfilling her duty as the owner for the day.

That.was.totally.unexpected.

My mind went all blank, I could only look at her face, double checking my eye sight. The real person is just the same as what you see from your computer screen.

One of the girls in front of me shook her hands, and the thought of doing the same came into my mind. I shook her right hand, and I managed to squeeze out this phrase:

マレーシアから来ました。 (I come from Malaysia)

I repeated twice just in case she didn't hear MALAYSIA clearly, you don't really get to hear that word often, being a musician in Japan.

She seemed to understand, a little surprised, and replied thank you.

Well I guess, that's the best answer I could get from someone like her.

Since I was the second last person in the line, and with the guy behind me could only stare at her and did nothing, Yaiko went to the back and hide from her customers.

I can still vividly remember that how the girl before me reacted, as if it wasn't real, since it happened too fast. I guess that's how most of the people felt when they met up close with someone that admire.

As I was willing to settle at the back, being unable to see the stage for live radio recording, one of the staff told us that we could watch the recording beside the stage. In split seconds, I settled myself in the first row.


After the radio live recording.

Still having this unbelievable feeling, I fell that I had to tell someone about it. So I bragged about it to some random Yaiko fan, she could only congratulate me and ended our conversation. Then I emailed two Japanese girls I know.

The real live recording actually started one hour later. While waiting, I exchanged emails in a super slow typing speed. There was this salaryman uncle standing beside me, taking pictures of the stage. So I was like, asking him to send me the pictures too via infra red, since I didn't have the courage to take pictures openly. But I failed to figure out how to send pictures from his Docomo phone to my Softbank phone.

At least, I managed to talk to three strangers today (Yaiko, random girl, salaryman uncle).

I could see Yaiko clearly when she reappeared, front row, 3 metres away. Some fans were sitting directly in front of her, less than 1 meter. Still, everyone was well behaved, and gave great response whenever the DJ and Yaiko were interacting with them. I guess Yaiko's fanbase are more towards 20s and above, they are more or less have basic communication skill lol.


Source: Natalie Music

It depends on the artist after all, nice artist, nice fans.

I really enjoyed the whole show. during the Q&A session, fans asked about her marriage life and stuff, what is the difference before and after married. Very funny.


How close the audience and the artist were.

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my better mp3 player, the recording I had was super crappy =/

And thanks to the free hot latte (cafe au lait), I remained awake until 4 am in the morning.

From a coffee addict, now I'm completely coffee free, my sleep cycle will be disrupted even just by one cup of coffee.



Hope that Yaiko will have concerts soon =D

After telling more than 5 people that I touched her right hand, it doesn't feel that exciting any more. Actually, nobody really cares haha.

Now I feel like learning the acoustic version of Koi Bus, though it might take forever.

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Misc Announcements:

It's already over November 25, and I still haven't receive any news from Lawson regarding our YUI 3rd Tour Goods......

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Last Friday I went to Saitama prefecture (above Tokyo) for the very first time to see Shiina Ringo sama.

Must put sama （様） because me respect her as a singer songwriter, guitarist, artist, whatever. Even her wiki entry sounds so impressive, can play so many instruments O_O Rejected contract from Yamaha and 'quarrel' with EMI *respect*

Speaking of wikipedia, can someone please edit YUI's wiki entry? It's YUI, not Yui. Plus, revealing her real name is not nice. We should ask the person who edited Ringo's wiki to write for YUI's instead.

Back to Ringo sama. I've been a big fan of hers ever since I listened to her second album, Shouso Strip. Though I don't really understand her lyrics (too difficult), I've been enjoying her various works and collaborations.

I just remembered that she once collaborated with Utada Hikaru XD

And YUI once sang along Marunouchi Sadistic in YUI LOCKS.

She is someone you wished you could be, someone you look up to, someone who lead an interesting life. Even though I cannot remember most of the title of her songs.


Crazy amount of people were lining up to buy goods. Not me, I am not patient enough.

I am just a casual fan, but I really respect her as a musician, and the fact that she quitted smoking. The few things I really don't like about Japan will be tobacco and excessive drinking.

So I paid 8810 yen (most expensive one so far) for the ticket of her 10th anniversary live, and hoping to have a blast in my first ever arena concert.

Sometimes it is better to have less expectations. I actually fell asleep a couple of times during the concert.

WHY?

The arena was freaking huge.

I was far away from the stage, though I moved further front under the staff's instruction, still very far. My seat was located at some awkward place, I couldn't even see the screen clearly. I don't know if it is intentional for the director to show weird angles and stuff on the screen, I couldn't really tell what clothes Ringo san was wearing, which guitar she was using, forget about her facial expression.

And, Ringo sama didn't really try to interact with the audience, nor introduced her band/orchestra. Nothing really flashy. I think she spoke less than 10 lines, it was really a concert.

I was kinda tired, so I slept instead, and got kinda tulan (pissed), I rather watch her concert DVD at home than paying 8810 yen for this.

The moral of the story is: Buy a good binocular, check your seat before going, and don't go to concerts when you are sleepy.


Ringo sama uses Red Tele too!!

But, people sitting around me were excited and all even after the concert finished. Kept saying sugoii and all. I guess it was just me.

I remained seated throughout the whole concert, so did the people sitting beside me. I actually said konnnichiwa (Hi) to people sitting beside me, they were kinda surprised when I did that, and replied konnnichiwa, END.

I was not going to give up, so I found another timing and asked whether if this was her first Ringo concert. First time too.

Enough practice for the day. Next time, two questions.

Good parts of this concert:

- She sang most of the songs with original/similar arrangements. She sang GIPS, Honnou, kabukichou no joou, my FAVEs.

Part of the lyrics of kabukichou no joou:

Coming out of the east exit at JR (Japan Railway) Shinjuku Station,
that’s my courtyard, the Entertainment Kingdom Kabuki-cho.

Kabuki-cho is really located near the east exit of Shinjuku station LOL *Random discovery*

- Orchestra was cool, I didn't even know if I was listening to CD or not.
- Ringo's biography was narrated by her 7 year old son. I was completely awake when that little boy voice said:" Thank you for coming to my mom's.....*awake* WHAT?!!?
- Her dance moves were cute.
- Being in the same place with Ringo sama.

And this time, I was not alone, technically.



I sent a message to this girl when she was asking who would want to go to Ringo sama's concert with her in mixi. And tada, we were in Saizeriya (family restaurant). She bought ticket for premium seats (20000 yen *pukes*), we just met up before the concert and chat a bit.

She likes Fahrenheit （飛輪海） lol.

Now I shall find someone using the same method for GO!GO!7188 and Orange Range concert...

Really looking forward to the release of this concert DVD next year. Gotta watch this DVD in detail, since I missed out a lot.

Happy 10th anniversary, Ringo sama.


Everyone who bought 8000 yen ticket gets this so called お土産 (souvenir). To me, they were just rubbish, marketing gimmick. Whoever wants it, do tell me (except the CD and magazine).

I bought ILY limited edition from Tower Records the other day, wanted to get poster. Since limited edition has 20% discount instead and normal edition no discount, maybe someday I can sell it. They placed that Gekkayo magazine near YUI's corner, once I saw that, I knew that I had to get it......

PS: To members of Electric Mole Forum, I have a (bad) recording for this concert. Email me or something if you guys wanna listen to it.