I had quite a lot to say, really. Had. Keiko's "daisuki" basically erased everything else and I blanked out for a moment. Ok. Maybe not entirely but it's going to be very out of order and random since there blue day tomorrow and I want to rest soon.
I'll be honest and say I'm not that into ring your bell yet (there was that brain melt earlier). It's not the heavenly blue / believe style but it's the mirai / misterioso kind of song, as bevan already mentioned. It's a bright song, though I'm not sure I can say the same about the lyrics since I wasn't listening properly. I do recall "ring your bell" being sung a few times with a bit more engrish. There was a lot of harmonising going on. I think the lead in the chorus was wakana? I'll listen again tomorrow if they sing it. I'm praying for keiko to send more love to us though so if it happens again... Sorry. Lol
Performance wise, keiko was great. She was sometimes kind of loud, but that may be because the others were too soft. Wakana started out a little shaky but eventually eased into it. No complaints here. Hikaru though...
Now, I'm not sure if it was the mic or if it was her. That it persisted almost throughout the live made me think it was her. She lacked any sort of volume. She just couldn't get her voice out. According to a friend of mine, something similar happened once at one of the acoustic lives. You can sometimes hear her clearly for a while, but her voice would just disappear. In and out, in and out. ARIA is a song I like very much, but Hikaru's lack of power totally ruined it. Keiko overpowered her all the way. It's upsetting because everyone was reporting for the past few lives (7th, lisani), that she was in top condition. It's as if she burned out after that, even though the budokan was supposed to be what they were working for. =( I want to believe that she will do much better tomorrow. I really do. Please rest plenty tonight!
There was a lot more choreography than before. I personally preferred that they didn't do this as I'm of the opinion that this would distract them from their singing. Although, I must say that the fairytale one was very fun. Very cute. It was just after a costume change. They had just come back. It was really dark and since I was sitting very far back, I couldn't see them moving in the dark very well. Fairytale started playing. As you might recall, the live version has a very long intro. This time, everytime Sakurada played a few keys, a spotlight will come on. Just for a short while. It would then shine on one or two of the girls, and they would already have a pose, one that was very doll like, unmoving. After a short while, it was back to darkness. The next time it came back on, they would be in a different pose. Sometimes in a different location. Sitting on the stairs, etc. The spotlight jumped all over the centre area of the stage, shining on each of them one at a time. I couldn't tell if they were extras or the girls themselves at first. But they eventually started singing so it was definitely them. I thought that was fun. It's unfortunate that I was sitting very far away and couldn't see exactly what kind of expression they had on. The screens didn't help but I'll get back to that later on. I think this is something that would be quite difficult to present on BD. I hope they do it well but if they cut to the girls up close everytime, it'd be quite different. The fun was in seeing the light bounce all over and the girls changing so much.
The instrumental was a KnK bgm. The same one they did at Kajifes iirc. When the fairytale ends according to Hikaru on the blog. This time though, they had 8 strings accompanying. Oh. My. God. It was amazing. It basically convinced me to go for Yk live in July because it's held in Orchard Hall and you can't let any chance that she might invite a quartet go, no matter how small. What can I do to convince kajiura to do a live with an orchestra? I'll compromise. The 8 today will do just fine. I wanttttt! The other song I thought the strings really shone in was te to te to me.
When alleluia ended, the empty area behind the stage lit up like stars. It was really pretty. It's a sports stadium so there are seats all around the stage. They used that and made it seem like there was a sea of stars right behind them. Couple that with wakana's (serious mode) mc right before and... ;_; they're really cheating.
As I've said, I sat on the second floor and was very far away from the hall. I could see the girls but they were tiny. There was no way I could see their faces. They had screens set up. One HUGE one in the centre, two tiny ones on the side. And when I say tiny, I really mean tiny. Now, there's no problem with that. There's that huge screen right? Nope. They mostly used it to put various images on for the songs instead of showing the camera footage. I think they eventually caught on as the second half of the live saw the centre screen being put to more use. Although, WHERE IS MY VIEW OF KEIKO DURING THE MC? WHEN SHE SAID DAISUKI TO US?! Wakana spoke a lot less than usual. Instead it was Hikaru who was talking and she's a little more high than usual. Often, both Hikaru and Wakana would say something silly. Usually keiko would be the straight man and correct them but today was a little too out there even for her. She didn't know how to react most of the time and just laughed. Anyway, they were really cute today. Hikaru was exceptionally cute today. Today's sales pitch was once again for the pamphlet. She... Really remembers the pamphlet very well. Lol.
Oh. And our usual friends sent flowers on cpm's behalf. I'll upload it and credit them properly tomorrow after I speak to them once more. I would hate to get their names wrong. Red flowers for red day. Blue flowers for blue day! Apparently the blue flowers were very hard to arrange for, haha.
Looking at twitter, lots of artists went for the live. Haruna luna, kotoko, etc.
Sorry for the messy post. Pardon the typos. Auto correct and fat fingers means a lot of weird words in my post.
It means a lot to us who couldn't be there in person 
and string quartet! Tetotetometome have must sound amazing!
I miss her powerfull and dark voice. What happened to her? In Consolation Live her voice sounded really weak.
Every live in Budokan has a video release (Shoko Nagawa, May'n, Nana Mizuki, Minori Chihara, Babymetal, Scandal, etc.), isn't it?