Great spread of musicians and songs overall. Superior to the 2023 version in my opinion, overall!
Before going to the Kajiura showcase, other artist performances I liked:
-
Haruna Luna's live performance of that her newer slightly edgy song,
"鏡面の彗星" was cool. Her voice is always stable and her low range is cool to hear.
- Her second song,
"アイヲウタエ" was energetic with her cheering the fans at the beginning, which was cute. She usually sings mid-tempo songs so it's nice to see her sing fairly fast songs. She hit a nice
A5 
or thereabouts in head voice at a couple of points! She's just so cute overall!
-
LINO LEIA sang her
"sanctuary" and it was really cool to hear her bring hip-pop to HighwayStar in lieu of the usual rock/ballads, anison styles. It's all in English too! Bold move for a showcase concert, girl! She's confident about her music.
-
Masaaki Endoh's acoustic-guitar-led, sing-along song was head-bopping. It was a cool song.
-
rito was more comfortable and engaging in this live compared to the 2023 version. Getting seasoned, bit by bit. Her charm came through in the first song,
"Wonderland", as a mid-tempo, vibe-y song.
There was a cute little run to the center of the stage at point that was just so cute! I wasn't sure if she was correcting a position mistake, or just spontaneous expressing delight. In her second song,
"スズラン" it was a happy, positive vibe. There was an acoustic bridge where she was switching from heady-mix to falsetto and it was cute. rito is coming through!
-
Hironobu Kageyama x
Masaaki Endoh x
Hiroshi Kitadani! Those guys are a force of nature together! Nice strong, male harmonies having tenor and baritone vocals together.
-
"ゆずれない願い" by
shuri was cool. She looked lovely and cool in her costume.
-
"革命デュアリズム" by
Hiroshi Kitadani and
shuri was also epic. Two powerhouse vocalists! This is the first time I think I've seen a duet with just a male and female, for a power rock song in Highway Star just looking at 2023-2024 though I may be wrong (I was wondering about Kaori singing this song instead, just because of her strong voice and lead energy!)
****** YK x FictionJunction (full covers of Kajiura included) ******
-
"Kimi no Gin no Niwa" cover by Haruna and co. was sweet. The soprano (
Yoko Ishida) was cool! She hit those high notes in a heady-mix rather than falsetto so I felt it from the first verse.
Haruna Luna made a great effort with the alto voice. I'm sure the ladies enjoyed the harmony and part-switching and got a glimpse of how challenging it can be to sing Kajiura's vocal arrangements, especially over the course of years.
Shiho Terada was also lovely on the keys!
- It was great to hear the
SAO theme intro! I felt proud / patriotic when it came in!
And a loud cheer for
Kajiura (respect, man!). Good start!
-
"Luminous Sword" was epic! Not least because the audience was really into it: without any prompting from the girls they were pumping/shouting to the beat throughout the strings interlude. Probably the greatest cheers of the night (with no prompting from the stage, just reacting to the music). People must really love SAO (and the Konno-led string work was doing its job - it's indispensable for this song)!
- Kaori's energy and heavier voice was definitely missed for
"In the Land of Twilight Under the Moon".
You could feel the vocal and stage energy slightly lessened from when she's there. Even
Keiko+
rito's unison counterpoint during the first part of the bridge was lighter. Everything was just
lighter!
And
rito+
LINO's "lalala" (replacing Kaori's solo take in the normal arrangement) wasn't up to Kaorí's power. Hmmm, I am sure that
Joelle missed/changed some pitches at some points, which was surprising from her (was she feeling a bit pressured for this song or just overly "creative"?).
-
"nowhere" was led by
rito which was perfect as a cover! She has the youthful, light and clear voice and it was comfortable for her chest range. Solid performance indeed. For comparison, ASCA's KajiFes voice is more muffled/darker for a FJ Yuuka cover (though she was able to rile the crowd). rito was also able to give lead singer expression for the song. The guitarist's solo was
so cool and worthy of the song. He was on point throughout.
-
YK x Hironobu Kageyama x Masaaki Endoh x Hiroshi Kitadani doing
"Magia" was totally unexpected and interesting indeed, as a unique experience. They are such tension/belt-oriented singers for hard rock that the smooth harmonies and dynamics required for the song just weren't there. (
I mean Kajiura was looking worried/confused at a point during the chanted section before the first verse
!)
The dudes were just belting every line!
General thoughts:
1. Thinking about how drilled our FJ ladies have been to sing Kajiura's music, I would have liked them to be able to come as their solo selves under this HS Party banner and be on this same stage supported by the excellent backing musicians, so their strengths/skill can shine among the rest of the artists.
2. The backing band are (again) excellent and made the songs shine, all of them including Kajiura's. They are definitely a tight unit so that professionalism will always be showcased irrespective of any artist they support!
3. I was proud of our YK
mini-utahimes for shining forth strongly, yet with delicacy and poise.
4. I like how Kajiura uses these lives (hers and others) to show she can cover any of her own music
proficiently with just the FictionJunction vocalists, no external help required (or even the original vocalist to be honest). rito gives additional options for leads in this case, with her bright/light/youthful voice type.
5. Kajiura's music should probably just be sung by the ladies forever, no male-only pairings,
including for covers (
unless you can get male vocalists of the caliber of Forestella to cover them).
