As promised, here is a short report of my visit to Connichi 2014.
Saturday, September 13th:
I arrived in Kassel on Saturday morning, so I missed Kaori's first signing session on Friday. Her concert was set for Saturday evening in the main festival hall, which (according to what I have read) has a capacity of 1800 people with all seating arrangement. For the concert, the chairs in front of the stage had been removed, so I guess around 2000 people would have fit in there. Alas, since most of the audience preferred the seats, this left a sizable gap between the few standing rows in front of the stage and the seats at the back of the hall.
The concert started some minutes late, with an audience of about 1500 people. The sound quality was fine with almost no audible distortion, but a bit too loud for my taste. The event staff even warned about the sound levels before the concert started and offered free earplugs to the audience. This was the main reason I did not join the standing rows in the front and instead settled for a seat in the lower area near the center of the hall. Note: I did not watch the recording (yet) - if the sound is really that bad, it must have been some technical problem not affecting the live sound.
I didn't recognize several of her songs, so I will trust the track list published earlier. It seems the encore was not streamed, which is really sad - for me this was the best part of the concert, especially the last song. Just for completeness, I will repeat the complete track list here, including the encore:
- true colors
- Brilliant World
- Hi no Ataru Basho he (日の当たる場所へ)
- Sekai no Hate de (世界の果てで)
- My Destiny
- Shiro, Hitohira (白、ひとひら)
- Honki no Uso (本気の嘘)
- Addicted
- Akatsuki no Butterfly (暁のバタフライ)
- GRASPS
- PLACE
- Promise
- Reverberation
- Calling
- Encore -
- Hana wa Utsutsu ni (花はうつつに)
- Hanamori no Oka (花守の丘)
- Yume no Tsubasa (ユメノツバサ)
Next up was Saturday's signing session (and merchandise sale, as it turned out), which started shortly after the concert. When I arrived at the signing room, there were about 80 people already waiting and I joined the end of the queue. The queue proceeded very slowly and the organization felt a bit strange: The staff apparently only allowed small groups of three to four people into the signing room each time and they had no information outside the room on what was on sale. It turned out that browsing the available merchandise and deciding what to buy took much longer than the actual signing, so Kaori seemed to be idle for most of the time. After a while, the convention staff offered people in the queue outside the room to "skip the line" if they had brought items for signing (to speed up the process). I think It would have worked better if they had two separate lines to begin with or had sold the merchandise outside the room before the signing started.
After having waited for about 30 minutes, I decided to take the offer and skipped the merchandise sale for this day, which - in hindsight - was probably a mistake, since on Sunday some items were already sold out. The following items were offered for sale, as far as I could see:
- concert T-shirts (6 different designs) - 15€ each (quite a bargain!)
- tote bag with logo
- scrunchie (I had to look this one up, is this the correct word?)
- "PLACE" and "Colors" CDs (although "Colors" was sold out on Sunday)
When I entered the signing room with my "Colors" CD in hand, Kaori made some remark about me that I could not understand, and I didn't have the courage to ask her translator about it - and I was asked to leave quickly. I can only guess that it was directed at the Kalafina T-shirt I was wearing for the whole event (the "Consolation Special Live" one I had picked up at Japan Expo back in July).
Sunday, September 14th:
The first event on Sunday morning was the Q&A panel with Kaori. I had not expected a big turnout, but at the start of the panel there were only about 12 people there (excluding a few staff and press people), which is really sad. It was obvious from the mood of the translator that she felt a bit disappointed, too. Kaori did not seem to mind, really, and instead used the occasion to answer in more detail and trying to ask questions herself - the audience remained mostly silent, however. I did not take notes during the panel, but I saw at least one press person doing so, so with a bit of luck, a transcript might appear somewhere. From what I remember:
- This has been her first visit to Europe, and this is the first event outside Japan she visits as a solo artist (she had been to Asia and the US with FictionJunction before).
- She likes the weather in Germany, compared to the often hot, humid weather in Japan. She even said that this has been the first place she visited - outside Japan - where she could imagine living.
- She started singing at childhood age and grew up with J-Pop around her due to her parent's shop, where it always played in the background. She likes male voices more (she said something like "more pleasant"), and was especially impressed by the Gospellers, a Japanese a capella group.
- She mentioned that she watched Cartoon Network as a child and nowadays feels nostalgic if she stays at a hotel somewhere where it is available.
- She prefers to work as a solo artist over singing in a group and wants to primarily advance her solo career. However, she will continue to work in groups like FictionJunction if she is asked to participate.
- A solo concert in Europe is not realistic - she was really impressed by the number of people attending Saturday's concert, but a concert not tied to a big anime event is a different thing altogether. She would like to return however, if she was invited again.
- She is well aware of the fact that most of the audience in a foreign country is not able to understand what she is singing, which can lead to awkward reactions. But she feels that it is indeed possible to transport the feelings of the song to some degree.
- There are no releases of solo concerts planned, but including some tracks (as a live CD or on a bonus DVD) in one of her upcoming CDs is a possibility.
- Near the end, she asked the audience what other Japanese artists they like, but received little response.
The next stop for me was Sunday's signing session, which started almost directly after the panel ended. The atmosphere felt completely different this day - there was a very short queue and everyone was relaxed, with Kaori walking around the signing room and talking to people. The fans were offered to take photos with her, buy merchandise (from what was left) and/or have items signed. Sadly, most of the T-shirts were already sold out in my size - I eventually picked the one from her 5th solo live "Colors", even though she recommended taking a different one (and I felt bad for not following her recommendation). While I was standing at the merchandise desk, her translator suddenly told me: "Kaori would like to know where you got you T-shirt." I was stunned for a moment. When I said "Japan Expo", everyone seemed really surprised. During the signing, I had a short chat with Kaori and her translator - Kaori even asked where I bought the CDs I had brought with me. This was quite an interesting experience for me. The signing closed early this day after just about 30 minutes.
My overall impression - especially from the low attendance during the Q&A and signing sessions - was that Kaori seems to have been little known to most visitors. Saturday's evening concert is a big event at Connichi every year, so I guess many people will turn up even without knowing the artists. It looked like Kaori really enjoyed her stay here, commenting on the friendly people she met all around, the nice weather and food on numerous occasions during her talks.
Something's gone really wrong there, hasn't it? Blimey, you guys weren't kidding. As I said in my rambling-boring post above, that sort of microphone is pretty tough - she could shout into it and it shouldn't distort like that.
