V6 20th Anniversary Concert 2015.09.19-20

[spsn]

It's been a few days since I got back from Japan and damn, I'm currently exeperiencing a heavy doze of Japan withdrawal syndrome, and more importantly, V6 withdrawal syndrome hits me even harder than the last time I went for their Sekubani concert. I went to the 20th Anniversary concert in Yokohama Arena on the 19th and the 20th September 2015. I didn't go to the last day (very truely sadly, but it's the reality, sobs) because I had to catch my flight back to Melbourne and there's just not good flight timing which allowed me to sneak in 1 more concert watching. However, even though I wasn't there for the last days, it doesn't really matter which day you went to theit concert because V6 will make sure that they deliver the high quality standard of performance that they uphold!

Now, from the past concerts that I went to, I always ended up going there alone. However, this time, I was fortunate enough to go with fellow fans, and it makes up to a totally different experience because, well, you can share the joy, the squeel, the whatever excitement and hyperventilating that you had at that very moment with the others, not holding it up and pouring it on the writing to be shared later. And you get to hear what other people think about certain moments in that concert and as we all know, everybody have their own point of view so it's very interesting to have this sharing and because of this, you'll realize that you've missed out certain things and that details just been filled in at the very same time by your fellow concert go-ers, which makes it even more awesome!

Since I get to go to 2 days of the same concert with different seating, I get to see 2 totally different point of view of the concert itself. Now I totally understand why people can go to 4 or 5 times of the same concert because different angle in deed give a totally different concert experience, and this is very very apparent for this particular concert.

The first day we were oh so very lucky to get fan club seats which was on the 2nd level, side view. Personally, while arena will be always our targetted seating position for every concert because well, you get to see your beloved idols up close and almost personal, I prefer to get the further up (but not the far back end) or the center back seating because you get to see the concert stage along with all of the effects, and that's includes the lighting, the complete background view, and the even streamers or whatever thrown (we won't be able to snatch those streamers but that's okay) view.

This kind of view is actually nice because you basically can see end-to-end.

The second day, we get the standing area closer to the stage but at the lower floor. Not a totally bad view, but there's no seats so you basically have to scramp through the sea of heads to get better view, off course, you can move around but it'll be an annoyance to your neighbors. I feel a tad sad for the girls with lesser height because even with my height, it's quite difficult to get full view, let alone if you're only less than 140cm height, and I'm still forever amazed with those ladies who came to the concert in 9cm heels and after all the queueing and waiting, they still can stand for 3 hours straight and enjoy the concert.


See those heads? there'll be more heads when everybody on the front stand up!

Why I specifically mentioned that seating is important especially for this 20th Anniversary concert? It's because for this concert, for once, Johnny's decided to splurge for V6 and they used the budget for the lighting. YES, the lighting. Stage layout itself is quite simple and standard for any Johnny's concert, but combine with the lighting, it's a totally different ballgame. The lighting was so impressive that Arashi concert seems less cool at that very moment (Arashi concerts is the ultimate example of optimization of concert gimmicks and new technology in my book, don't get me wrong). And I can see all of the amazing stuffs on day 1 because I was on the upper floor. There were several performances where I went 'OMG, that's so freaking cool!!!' but the ultimate was when they performed Break the Wall. Yes, on top of the awesome dance choreography (Ken jumping to the front of the formation at the beat always makes my heart stopped), they have the green laser covering the stage and that laser projected a view of a map and that my friend, you can only see that if your seat was on the upper floor! The next awesomeness was during the Supernova performance, they use, again, green laser beam shooting down to circle the members' position. It moves in accordance to members' movement, and that laser beam looks like a rope, that members' can actually touch it and move it around (the illusion!!). Another cool effect is at the center of the stage where they have the reflecting disks circling the center stage and those disks can move up and down, so whatever beams coming out from them can be look like caging in or out and they change color too. I couldn't remember in which exact performance they use this effect because they used it couple of times, but I definitely remember the first time they showed off that effect, I could almost scream (my inner fangirling) 'OMG!! V6, you're the best! Johnny's finally spent money on you!'

On top of lighting, they also maximize the stage. The main stage have this 6 smaller cube segments that can go up and down accordingly, and they first showcased it during Air performance. Air is one of the my all time favorite for the latter V6 songs, so I may have a super bias view here. But when they went up and down on those cubes while dancing and with the cool lighting, it becomes a performance that you definitely won't forget for quite some time. They use these cubes for other performance as well, but I couldn't remember for exactly which performance. Basically I don't remember much after watching the concert except the emotional outbursts and feels, so I have respect for people who can remember almost every single things they talked during the MC etc and write them down in detail on concert reports. Respect!!!

They changed the choreography for Guilty, dancing at the middle section of the stage (not on the circle stage, but spreading in row formation) with chairs. I only thought of this to be so so on day 1, but on day 2, when I can see them from the front side, I felt, 'oh my, they're so kakkoii!'. There're too many performances deserving 360 angles cut! I wonder which ones they'd pick for the DVD. They did acapella for 君が思い出す僕は　僕を愛しているだろう, which was lovely and at the same time showed they can sing and have splendid harmonization, yes, even with Ken's voice. And I applaud Ken that despite his high pitch and duck voice, he sings all his might and not off key and I think that takes high level of confidence and professionalism to do that.

V6 is not V6 without some comedy in their performance. The most fun part was during the medley when they make it as if an attempt to start Sexy Honey Bunny performance where Sakamoto was supposed to make the 'Sexy' remark. On day 1, the first attempt failed because Nagano felt he's sexy enough to do it, and left it with Sakamoto's 'WTF' face but he just meekly kept quiet (this is why we love our Riidaa!). The second attempt, Ken just jumped in with his duck voice 'SEXY' and left poor Sakamoto with his silent 'WTF' face again. And the 3rd one, Sakamoto was so unsure that he needed to check left and right ensuring nobody interfere before he finally made his 'Sexy' remark LOL. On Day 2, Nagano did the first interrupting, and Go (if I remember correctly) did the second, but the best was Sakamoto's face on the 3rd one, after checking his left and right, he had his goofiest grin ever before he did it. I hope they do a digest of this and put them on DVD, come on! V6 is very good at throwing all this digest thingy, hence xxx number of DVD version thrown at us LOL (Johnny's, here's our money!).

This concert gave me a new profound respect for V6. With the little break time (only couple of minutes in between for the slideshows and MCs - but they're still talking during MCs, not fully rested) and no back dancers as distraction, they kept on dancing in full blast, in sync and singing live! Ken ate his own rap during Kamisen's song on Day 1 and Riidaa slipped up (forgot his lyrics?) during Keep On on Day 2 were some tiny minor glitches. And more respect to Riidaa, without regarding his age, he still can go on and on dancing, and even lifted, YES LIFTED, Go (well, he's so damn skinny and light), and spin him in the air using his hands and neck (!!! daujoubuka, ojisan!) during MADE IN JAPAN.

And V6 is not V6 without the oh so entertaining MC. Watching V6's MC during this concert reminded me again that why I love watching V6 concert. They have this consistent dynamic that don't wear you down and you can just listen to them on and on although that'd just mean that 3 of them chattering and the rest of 3 is just LOLing and holding their mikes all the time. The downside of this MC is that your Japanese have to be there to understand them because Inocchi talked so damn fast that Ken deemed Inocchi as a talking machine (I nodded in agreement). My Japanese only allowed me to catch bits and pieces, but I definitely LOL a lot. Compared to previous Sekubani concert when I saw mostly Ken just left the circle and in his own world, in these 2 days, Ken was on fire. He talked as much as Inocchi with touches of goofy Okada, which we definitely don't see on TV (he's the Gunshi Kanbee after all LOL).

Both day's beginning MC started with the survey, and this is when we'll be saying 'V6 is AWESOME!' Inocchi surveyed whether we have fans from each generation, yes, each generation! We know that lots of older Johnny's groups have fans from all generations, but seeing it real time emulates the awesomeness. He started from the fans in their 20s, then moving up to the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and even 70s. Yes, we have fans in their 70s on both days! To which Inocchi either complemented as 'Sexy' or 'Ojou-san!' hehe. But on day 1, we have a fan in her 80s! Her being there was already so awesome! Unfortunately we don't have fans in their 90s LOL! Inocchi noted that V6 can hear the cheering from their hearts, ha! Then how about the 10s generation, oh, fret not, we had quite a number as well. Ken asked whether it's really OK to fangirling over a group of Oji-sans. On day 1, we have the enthutiastic teenagers replying 'Ii yo' (It's OK) to which Ken grinned so widely of approval LOL. Also notably, Inocchi asked for those who feel they're kiddos (kodomotachi) to make some noise, which they did. Off course, Inocchi didn't leave out the guys. I think he got the kick of knowing there're guys attending V6 concerts LOL. And lastly, we have the staffs proclaiming their presence as well XD. On both days, the MC is basically dominated with Ken's OCD habits (I think he's getting worse LOL). Firstly, he won't let Okada go to his house and especially use his bath because he thought Okada will dirty his bath. Okada seemed to be offended (jokingly) saying, you thought that I'm that dirty? LOL. Next, Inocchi noted that Ken likes to touch people (members especially) but it doesn't work the other way around, especially by non-members. We got demonstration on the Ken's inner reaction when the dance teacher touched Ken's hand to drag him to the correct position during dance lesson. Ken said that's because it's the people that he doesn't know, but members are different. Inocchi reprimanded Ken,'but you know sensei!' LOL. On day 2, Ken OCD was during 24Hr TV show talk where HSJ's Nakajima-kun touched his shoulder, his inner reaction was 'yada!!!' but being the adult, his outer reaction was the cool one. Then, on day 1, we had Ken's slideshow on how he pulled a prank on Inocchi because he was recording Suwa show at NHK and the studio for Asaichi was empty. Ken being Ken, took the opportunity to do photoshoots (manager took his pics) goofing around the studio and wrote a message (the sweetest and cutest message) to Innochi, ending the message with 'from sekai no ken' and niko niko ken logo LOL. Then we also had Ken's pet phrase of 'jibun jishin wo motte' (have your own confidence). He used it on Okada when he was pondering over his work, and Ken just happily said that LOL. Then later on, when Inocchi claimed that Sakamoto and Nagano sang on other members' part leaving him worrying whether it's his mistake or not, Ken & Okada re-use that phrase on Inocchi LOL. Day 2 is mostly bits of stories from the 24Hr TV show where they get to interact with their Jrs, and Ken proclaimed that Kawai territory is his (well, nobody in V6 is more kawaii than him, tbh). And they brought up Go & Aiba-chan as SMS buddy and there's 1 moment where Go was supposed to send an SMS to a lady (!!! daijoubuka sore!) but because he's sleepy, the message went to Aiba-chan instead. Hmm, I wonder how Aiba-chan would react, well, depends on what kind of message was that, huh? LOL.

One thing about V6 concert is that they're always on time, very seldom they would entertain the fans on top of the scheduled encore songs, probably only on those last days for each location, and maybe more fan service on the final day at Yoyogi Stadium. But they end it with a very clever way, they just threw Ken back to the stage to give the last bid of goodbye with him acting cute. On both days, we had Ken doing the fake crying and throwing kisses at the end. And when Ken did that, off course it's foregiven, damn you V6!

Extra pics:

The chaos of queue end for concert goods! The fastest way to rob your money, by Johnny's.


The promotion trailer, promoting both the tour (which was heavily full house) and the online game V6 to Himitsu no Koi (basically it's an online otome game that'll throw you into the dark abyss of V6 fantasy land).


Further on the game promo, each day we're given mikuji card. I got Inocchi and Go.


And now, the goods, on top of concert goods, the Lawson nearby also had the special edition goods, eg. those pin badges of all the singles! Love the goods because they don't look tacky! During the concert's encore, I noticed that Ken's t-shirt glitter is different from the others, does it mean that he's in charge of the goods? Hmm, if yes, nice taste!

Well, despite being a group oji-sans now, I find that V6 is as strong as ever! Their music is strong, catchy (after Sekubani especially) and have more anchor now. Their dance is as complicated as ever, and they still do it effortless and look cool at that too. Individually, they're successful in their own merit, especially Okada! They definitely don't look their age, Tonisen seems to get to the preserved stage after they passed the age of 30 and Ken, well, looks like he's in the reversed ageing process (and stabs ladies' self esteems along the way), hence those teenagers can still safely fangirling over them. So, V6 みんなさん,20周年おめでとうございます。May you keep on going strong on your 30th, 40th. You're the best, 最高!

Now, when we're going to have the DVD!!!