Came home late on Friday night (it's amazing how much work you can get done when there's no one else left in the office).

Surfed around on a couple of AAA fansites and found that someone had uploaded their most recent Buzz Communication Tour onto YouTube! Seems like it was available on WOWOW (a Japanese pay TV station - from what I understand, you pay for programs that you want to watch) and someone must've recorded it and uploaded it.

I love this person so much, whoever you are.

She uploaded all the songs as separate videos (no MCs, but that's okay; I just hope the tour DVD is the same recording!), so I immediately looked through and zoomed in on "one more tomorrow". Ever since I first heard that song, I've wanted to see how it would look performed live, mainly because Shuta and Shinjiro sound amazing on it, and from what I can understand of the song, it's a bittersweet kinda piece.

And I wasn't disappointed; this performance really is beautiful.
(EDIT: YouTube took down all her uploads, but I managed to find it on DailyMotion!)



one more tomorrow by AyanoEtsuko

I'm not too crazy about the costumes (I don't like Shinjiro's cloak, and why on earth does Nishi look like he's wearing a sheet with sleeves??) but to get to the point: Shuta's voice is heartbreaking, and even though I wish Shinjiro would get parts that stretch his vocals more, his voice really *is* suited for low notes; absolutely melts hearts, I tell you.

And it's good to see that the two of them get to sing so much more solo parts in this concert; even the newer songs have more solo parts for them instead of just sticking them in the refrain. Good to see that they've come such a long way from their early days.

It was recorded during one of the two Saitama Super Arena shows, and some of the camera angles give really different shots from what I've seen in their previous Lives; in particular, there's one camera that's fixed into the floor, front and centre of the main stage which gives some nice close-up shots of their dances. But it's awfully hazardous, coz that little camera sticking out of the stage is also in the middle of the "runway" that they've got leading down to another stage in the middle of the arena.

No one trips over it though, although I'm sure Hidaka came close to it during one song; you'd think they'd have learned from Shinjiro's tripping incident in 5th Anniversary that it's not a good idea to walk backwards when you know that the stage isn't entirely flat.

So, after I got over how lovely they all sounded, I noticed the background. It's an LED wall. In "one more tomorrow" they create this very nice effect by making the display "respond" to the boys' dance moves. Just before Shuta starts singing the first verse, the display creates a starry ball of light where Hidaka is, in the middle, and mirroring his action where he lifts his hand up to where Shinjiro's standing, the ball of light moves to Shin-chan's position and hovers around him while he dances and Shuta sings. Then Shinjiro waves it off to Shuta later on, and the passing around ends with the beginning of the chorus; the whole backdrop bursts into a shower of stars.

Here's the cool thing: the whole backdrop is composed entirely of LED modules that they can actually stand and walk and dance on. After one event a couple of years back, I know that the price of just one of those panels numbers in 5 digits, and that's in Singapore dollars. The price in yen must be astronomical. And can you imagine the number of panels that were needed to cover all that backdrop space on stage..?! Seems like Avex is really splashing out on these boys and girls now.

And this is a touring stage. I'm used to their tour stages being a lot less elaborate than the stages that they have for anniversary concerts, because hey, they have to be able to set it up and tear it down quickly and all that. But maybe this was only for the Saitama shows; they were billed as the "Deluxe Edition", after all. But the effect that it contributes to the whole performance is amazing. It's going to be hard to outdo themselves for 6th Anniversary. :D

And the introductions; when they did their self-introductions, Shinjiro started his with a long, loud, "Maidooo~!" I squealed, honestly. I miss the "maido call" thing that he used to do during concerts, and I'm pretty sure from the loud scream that went up when he did it, that there're plenty of other fans who've missed it too.

Someone, please make him do it for 6th Anniversary and please let it be on the DVD. XD

I loved this whole concert; looked like everyone was having so much fun! Not that they look like they're *not* having fun in their other Lives, but really, it's a combination of the song line-up and how the members work the crowd and all the little funny interactions that happen between some of the members on stage - one of the main reasons why I love this band is just because they're so much fun to watch when they perform. :)