What a busy day. The time between the two lives was a lot shorter than I thought it would be and honestly I'm really very tired right now.
Soundtrack day
My seat today for sound track day was a lot better than yesterday. Row 8! And right smack in the middle of the hall. Due to this, I got an amazing view of all the musicians. The turnout today was good too. I would say at least 80-90% filled? Just a handful of empty seats here and there.
The set list was almost the exact same as yesterday, but the live never got boring. There was a lot to see and a lot to listen to. I got a very clear view of Satou kyouichi on the bells today. Lol. He messed up his entry and started ringing just a bit too early. Oops! But it's all apart of the live experience and nothing was ruined.
I'm going to just jump into anything different/new since the setlist is more or less the same.
The topic today was a trivia of sorts about each of their instruments. Satou, for example, he said that for Kajiura's songs, there's a particular drum that is used very often. She mentioned the name but I can't remember. She even introduced the various drums. Well apparently, there's a position he could place that particular drum so that he could hit it a lot easier. But he doesn't. He leaves it on the right where he has to turn his body to hit it. Well. Why does he leave it there? Because it looks cooler that way. Lol. He wants us to know the pains he goes through to have everything look cooler.
Kajiura also said that the reason why she hasn't invited the percussionist until now, despite having so many percussions in her songs all the time, was because she knew that once she did invite one, there would be no turning back. She's probably going to want the percussions live all the time if she did. And yup. After Friday, she did feel that way.
During numquam vincar, they tried a little harder with the lights today, flashing it a little when Satou struck the drums but it was never pitch dark so it still wasn't as impactful as budokan.
Skipping right to the encore, Yoshiaki appeared on the left of the stage again for his solo. But this time, he took a little stroll. He got down, and walked across the front, where the audience was, all the while playing his accordion. The staff rushed in to put the stairs in place so that he could get back on stage immediately after his solo. Again, there was someone on at the top of the stairs. It was hard to tell who it was from the silhouette alone. When the intro music started to play, it was apparent that it was
not my dear feather, which was played yesterday. So when moonflower's melody started playing and the lights cane on to reveal that it was kasahara yuri, I gasped. Finally. Moonflower live by the original artist. I definitely preferred kasahara over eri for this song. Moreover, we had live accordion too. The live flute was of course heavenly too. The flute wasn't overpowering, and never threatened to drown out kasahara's voice (is that even possible? Lol).
Kajiura asked kasahara the same question actually. Trivia about singing. That's when I heard her speak for the first time. She has such a cute voice! Well, she said that when singing, she doesn't sing from her stomach. She sings from the back. There was a bit of explanation about why one should sing from the back instead.
Kajiura then talked about the next song, red rose. She said that red rose is a song that would make people want to dance, and asked the audience not to judge anyone beside them who stands up to dance. In fact, she said she would probably be moved to tears if someone actually stood up. It's soundtrack day after all and people tend to remain seated, which they did yesterday. But now that she told us such a thing, there's no way we won't stand now, is there? So everyone stood up as red rose started to play. Kajiura got the crowd clapping along to the song and unlike yesterday, the clapping never stopped until the end (it faded when itou eri started singing yesterday). Everyone clapped and generally had a lot of fun. The performers seemed to be having fun too. Kasahara yuri was dancing at the top of the stairs, and Akagi Rie, like yesterday, was dancing along too. Almost everyone had their own solo, to which the crowd cheered to. Loads of fun. :)
However, I think itou eri's voice was better suited for the song. She pronounces her words (kajiurago) much more clearly than kasahara does.
We then ended the day on a farewell song. Again, I couldn't really tell what kasahara was singing, but it was beautiful so who cares? It was a really good live. :)
And.. The autographed towel... I never stood a chance. She couldn't toss it all the way to row 8. It landed around 3 rows in front of me. :<
Japanese only live
Just as I had the my best yk12 seats in the morning, I also had my worst yk12 seats that evening. I was on the third floor, at the second last row and at the extreme left. Strangely though, perhaps we were sitting much farther back, I thought the sound was a little easier on the ears. The band was softer and I never needed to use my ear plugs. In turn, the vocals were a lot clearer above the softer band. I couldn't really see them very well but I guess it was an acceptable tradeoff.
I noticed that both storytelling and elemental have grown on me. Lives tend to do that to me. The same happened for some of the kalafina songs too.
Now, the interesting thing for today was Tasogare no umi. I distinctly recall that it was kaori who led the song most of the time in day 1. My friend said the same too. It was mostly kaori and wakana singing for the song. I posted my impressions a few days back, and said that keiko would suit the song more. So imagine my surprise when it was keiko who led this time in kaori's place. Wow. Kaori only did the harmonisation while wakana kept her part. The song was now Keiko's and wakana's, but mostly Keiko's. All three new covers were hers! Lol. I thought that perhaps I misremembered day 1, but one of my friends remembered that it was kaori too so it couldn't have been wrong (probably). They switched singers. It makes me wonder why they swapped it though. Who suggested the change? What brought about the change? I hope kaori doesn't feel down because of the change. I enjoyed both versions, but I have a keiko bias so... I thought keiko did the enka-ish parts pretty well.
Kajiura mentioned in the mc before Tasogare that there was a very long period of time where she was not very open to the idea of a self cover. The reason was because her songs are often written with that one person's voice in mind. What would suit that voice? What kind of lyrics would suit her (she put warukunai in either elemental or storytelling because she wanted kaori to sing it, for example)? What is that person good at? She then said that she has now reached a point where she would be able to accept that having someone else cover it could be interesting, hence the cover boom.
In the mc after, Kajiura said that she wasn't actually aiming to do all the hack songs. It was a coincidence really. One that she didn't notice until it was pointed out to her. By then it was too late to try and aim for all the hack songs deliberately. Lol. Damn. We could have gotten senya too.
The topic for today was "what makes you glad to be a Japanese?" wakana talked about how when she travels overseas as a part of kalafina, there would be foreign fans who would show her how much love they had for Japan and it's culture. It made her very proud to be Japanese. She also said that it was amazing how the trains would stop at the exact spot where the doors are supposed to be. Lol. Several others talked about the food. They really love their food.
Overall, I just really want to hear the see saw covers again and hope they perform it in July (and release it on BD!). I miss it already!!
What a short week. We're already down to the last and final live. I'm going to be so sad when it ends tomorrow.
@ritardando
Sorry I missed your message. It should be apparent by now but yes, I went. Lol. I didn't have the time to check cpm since I was rushing to get some food in between the lives. I'll be going tomorrow too. I won't be going for osaka however. After that I'll be going for July.
but I really liked the sax in Hitorigoto. it's actually kind of funny how Kajiura said that she initially didn't want to use flute for that song because she thought that flute's sound pitch is higher than what she thought would suit the song, hence the alto sax. But then she uses flute in Hitorigoto lives. Yeah for saxophone! That's one of the sexiest instrumental ever. This makes me really really want a jazz song with saxophone for Keiko. And that's one of another nearly impossible thing to happen because Kajiura doesnt like jazz. 
