madara_blog (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} madara_blog) wrote,@ 2008-04-11 16:28:00 |
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"Hello Pro Party!" with Aya, W and Melon K – does it get better than this?
So I ordered and got “Hello Pro Party! 2005 ~Matsuura Aya Captain Kouen~” and watched it—twice, so far. What a great show! Easily one of the best Hello! Project concerts I’ve yet seen. Only seven performers are featured, including three of my all-time favorites in the J-pop universe—Aya, Nono and Aibon. Joining them is Melon Kinenbi, a group also high on my list. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of them better than they are here.
This is the W concert performance I’ve been looking for. As readers may remember from my March 8 entry, I was disappointed in the two actual official W concerts I’d watched, the ones where they performed with Berryz. In response, I’d gotten a recommendation for this concert, which I'd never heard of before, from Kappa and then an endorsement of it from Gypsychilde. Granted, W only does two songs by themselves as W. But both Aibon and Nono also each do a solo number and they both perform with the other women in different configurations, either separately or together. So we get to see a lot of Aibon and Nono. All told, one or both of them are in 17 numbers here. And they’re around older women, not the kids from Berryz. So they can act older--always a good thing in my book.
W’s performance of “Dekoboko Seventeen” here is easily one of the best numbers I’ve ever seen them do on stage. The other song they do by themselves is “Ai no Imi wo Oshiete!” which I’ve seen them do on “Hello Morning” and is pretty good, too. They perform “Robokiss” with Aya and Nono spanks Aya a lot in this one (again, always a good thing…) Aibon does a solo of Miki Fujimoto’s “Boogie Train” and I must say I think the song is better suited to Aibon. Nono does a solo of Aya’s “Ne~e?” and I have to say she out-Ayas Aya. When Aya does her perky schtick and broad gestures playing to the crowd, it’s because she’s…playing to the crowd! She’s giving them what they want (and nothing wrong with that, either). When Nono does it, she’s doing it for Nono. She’s having fun with it for HERSELF! And WE in turn have fun. (Gypsychilde linked to the videos of these Aibon/Nono solos in her response to my blog entry of February 23.)
The real revelation here is Melon Kinenbi, the first time I’ve seen them do so many numbers in one show. They’re a real sexy, high-energy four-girl group just like another J-pop favorite of mine, Max. I’ve always liked Ayumi and Masae a great deal, mainly from seeing them in shuffle units, so I enjoyed every precious minute of seeing them give it their all here. But I also got to appreciate the other two, Hitomi and Megumi, a lot more. MK does two numbers by themselves and two numbers with Aya, including their most blatantly sexy number, “Nikutai wa Shoujiki na Eros.” Ayumi and Masae perform with Aibon in one number, an exciting and catchy piece called “Anata Nashi de wa Ikite Yukenai,” and Hitomi and Megumi perform with Nono and Aya in another, a cover of the old MM song, “Daite Hold on Me!”
All seven girls perform a total of seven numbers together, including a Country Musume song, “Honey Pie,” two Morning Musume songs, “The Peace” and “Love Machine,” three Aya songs, including a rousing opener of “Yeah! Meccha Holiday,” and a finale of the H!P 2004 anthem, “All for One & One for All.” Their rendition of “Love Machine” is not only complete, but it has new lines for each of the seven girls devised for this performance. It’s also the first time I’ve seen it performed by someone other than Morning Musume.
All seven really enjoyed performing around each other and seemed to fuel each other’s energy. This is the first time I’ve seen so much of Aya outside one of her own solo concerts. And she really seems to enjoy working with the others. Granted, she gets most of the attention and the crowd chants her name most of the time, but she clearly doesn’t mind being upstaged by the antics of Nono and Aibon. And it IS her birthday, after all.
One big problem I had with this concert was one I have quite often with these things: the technical work. Even with only seven performers, the cameramen and the switcher couldn’t keep them in medium shot. The closeups are way too close and the long shots way too long in this relatively small arena. Every so often, they get a correct angle that lets us see all the relevant performers doing a bit of clever choreography, prompting me to yell at the screen, “That’s it! Keep it there, keep it!” And of course they cut to a closeup. Worse, the switcher misses numerous cues, so the camera’s focused on one non-singing performer, while we hear the line coming from another. I kept hearing Nono, but seeing someone like Megumi, who wasn’t singing. Not good. When I hear Nono doing a solo line, dammit, I want to SEE her!
Anyway, it was great to finally get a concert DVD that gives me as much Aibon and Nono as I want. And with Aya and Melon K as very welcome bonuses, I couldn’t go wrong.
Meanwhile, the Aibon thread over on MM-BBS revived the whole discussion of Aibon’s behavior and her exile and termination and possible comeback. I want to say something about all that but I’ll save it for a future entry.
So I ordered and got “Hello Pro Party! 2005 ~Matsuura Aya Captain Kouen~” and watched it—twice, so far. What a great show! Easily one of the best Hello! Project concerts I’ve yet seen. Only seven performers are featured, including three of my all-time favorites in the J-pop universe—Aya, Nono and Aibon. Joining them is Melon Kinenbi, a group also high on my list. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of them better than they are here.
This is the W concert performance I’ve been looking for. As readers may remember from my March 8 entry, I was disappointed in the two actual official W concerts I’d watched, the ones where they performed with Berryz. In response, I’d gotten a recommendation for this concert, which I'd never heard of before, from Kappa and then an endorsement of it from Gypsychilde. Granted, W only does two songs by themselves as W. But both Aibon and Nono also each do a solo number and they both perform with the other women in different configurations, either separately or together. So we get to see a lot of Aibon and Nono. All told, one or both of them are in 17 numbers here. And they’re around older women, not the kids from Berryz. So they can act older--always a good thing in my book.
W’s performance of “Dekoboko Seventeen” here is easily one of the best numbers I’ve ever seen them do on stage. The other song they do by themselves is “Ai no Imi wo Oshiete!” which I’ve seen them do on “Hello Morning” and is pretty good, too. They perform “Robokiss” with Aya and Nono spanks Aya a lot in this one (again, always a good thing…) Aibon does a solo of Miki Fujimoto’s “Boogie Train” and I must say I think the song is better suited to Aibon. Nono does a solo of Aya’s “Ne~e?” and I have to say she out-Ayas Aya. When Aya does her perky schtick and broad gestures playing to the crowd, it’s because she’s…playing to the crowd! She’s giving them what they want (and nothing wrong with that, either). When Nono does it, she’s doing it for Nono. She’s having fun with it for HERSELF! And WE in turn have fun. (Gypsychilde linked to the videos of these Aibon/Nono solos in her response to my blog entry of February 23.)
The real revelation here is Melon Kinenbi, the first time I’ve seen them do so many numbers in one show. They’re a real sexy, high-energy four-girl group just like another J-pop favorite of mine, Max. I’ve always liked Ayumi and Masae a great deal, mainly from seeing them in shuffle units, so I enjoyed every precious minute of seeing them give it their all here. But I also got to appreciate the other two, Hitomi and Megumi, a lot more. MK does two numbers by themselves and two numbers with Aya, including their most blatantly sexy number, “Nikutai wa Shoujiki na Eros.” Ayumi and Masae perform with Aibon in one number, an exciting and catchy piece called “Anata Nashi de wa Ikite Yukenai,” and Hitomi and Megumi perform with Nono and Aya in another, a cover of the old MM song, “Daite Hold on Me!”
All seven girls perform a total of seven numbers together, including a Country Musume song, “Honey Pie,” two Morning Musume songs, “The Peace” and “Love Machine,” three Aya songs, including a rousing opener of “Yeah! Meccha Holiday,” and a finale of the H!P 2004 anthem, “All for One & One for All.” Their rendition of “Love Machine” is not only complete, but it has new lines for each of the seven girls devised for this performance. It’s also the first time I’ve seen it performed by someone other than Morning Musume.
All seven really enjoyed performing around each other and seemed to fuel each other’s energy. This is the first time I’ve seen so much of Aya outside one of her own solo concerts. And she really seems to enjoy working with the others. Granted, she gets most of the attention and the crowd chants her name most of the time, but she clearly doesn’t mind being upstaged by the antics of Nono and Aibon. And it IS her birthday, after all.
One big problem I had with this concert was one I have quite often with these things: the technical work. Even with only seven performers, the cameramen and the switcher couldn’t keep them in medium shot. The closeups are way too close and the long shots way too long in this relatively small arena. Every so often, they get a correct angle that lets us see all the relevant performers doing a bit of clever choreography, prompting me to yell at the screen, “That’s it! Keep it there, keep it!” And of course they cut to a closeup. Worse, the switcher misses numerous cues, so the camera’s focused on one non-singing performer, while we hear the line coming from another. I kept hearing Nono, but seeing someone like Megumi, who wasn’t singing. Not good. When I hear Nono doing a solo line, dammit, I want to SEE her!
Anyway, it was great to finally get a concert DVD that gives me as much Aibon and Nono as I want. And with Aya and Melon K as very welcome bonuses, I couldn’t go wrong.
Meanwhile, the Aibon thread over on MM-BBS revived the whole discussion of Aibon’s behavior and her exile and termination and possible comeback. I want to say something about all that but I’ll save it for a future entry.
