Oversaturation of the century. Even HanaKimi and HachiKuro did not feel as overly done as this. What is next? A Bollywood version perhaps. Maybe Indonesian or Filipino twist. I am sure no one has gotten bored with the storyline being retold over and over again regardless of the added small changes here and there. I might even audition to be the next "Makino Tsukushi"!
Credit: K Bites for the picture.
At 5.30am, kia had to leave for the airport. She woke me up and asked "Would you send me off?" in such a tearful voice. She decided on taking the taxi since she was so obviously tired so we walked over to the other hotel and there was one just there. I sent her off, told her to sms me once she reached and went back to sleep. Woke up at about 10am and received a call from mummy asking if we wanted to go to one of the halal beef noodles shop that I wanted, got ready and went out towards Sun Yat Sen Temple MRT for lunch.
After lunch, we visited Taipei 101 but the inside was as similar as KLCC and then went to Ximending. It was rather crowded (we saw lots of Jun and Ohmiya signs) and there was JAY CHOU having an autograph-signing for his new album. When we reached there, it seems he had been signing for the last two hours yet the queue remained very long.
We only got back to our hotel around 5.30pm and planned to meet up to take the bus at 6.30pm. I totally forgot about the plan to meet the other girls at 5.30pm at the arena (sorry ladies) and they were calling to see if I can make it by 7pm for the surprise birthday celebration... orz. Got there in time, got CAKE and then, it was time to go in.
HELLO KITTY cakes
But things were not as simple as it was on day 1. As I was reaching my gate, I got a call from dear telling me...
"There are people in our seats. They have the same exact seating as us."
It was one of the last thing anyone would want to hear especially when the concert was going to start in 15-20 minutes time. Immediately, I called jess to inform her about the problem (because the staff could not speak english) and we were ushered outside to search for another staff who was in charge of the seats arrangement.
Due to a bloody technical glitch, our row and the row in front of us were double-issued: one to those who bought at the counter, one to those who bought online. So you have a whole group of people who had no seats with barely less than 5 minutes to go. The staff was on the phone and she gave us new numbers (which was in the area we sat at the night before) so we rushed to the gate...
Only to realise that the seats were filled too.
As the staff tried to resolve the problem (they were trying to get those girls to move but of course, they refused since they were there first and they wanted to watch too), we ended up standing at the back where the lights were and then, that was when the concert started. So we did what any fan would do - take out our penlight, uchiwa and decided to just enjoy the concert because we were already there, already in and did not really need to sit except for the MC. Two other fans who were affected joined us but sometime along, the staff took them out to give them seats while we were still told to wait.
So we continued with the concert (and jess almost crashed into the lights) when the staff came back during "Take Me Faraway" and said, "After this song, we will move you to your seats." The moment Ohno's solo ended, we grabbed our bags and ran halfway around the arena to get to our new seats (while la tormenta started). We came in during Nino's introduction for Aiba and what seats did we get this time?
Original seating: Purple 2C, Row 12, Seat 14 & 15
2nd seating: Red 2B, Row 12, Seat 14 & 15
Final seating: Blue 2D, Row 01, Seat 06 & 07
Yes. We are just by the corner of the main stage. The rest of the report will be in the same style as the first day.
Concert Tracklist (same as day 1 other than extra encores)
01. Love So Sweet
02. Oh Yeah!
03. Kotoba Yori Taisetsu Na Mono
04. Life Goes On : The Kaze group was the closest to us and today, I can really see them dancing closely and shaking their booty during the "Owaranai~" part.
05. Step And Go
06. Welcome Introduction
07. Hip Pop Boogie
08. Jidai
09. Yes? No?
10. Carnival Night Part 2
11. Niji
12. Take Me Faraway : We were told to prepare to get to our seats after this.
13. La Tormenta : As SJ were doing the introduction, dear, jess and I were running after the staff across half the arena and got in around the time of Nino introducing Aibachan. The next view I saw was having Shochi putting his hands on his hips and shaking his booty. And then, Nino came up on the top of the main staage and while they were dancing facing to the side, suddenly he glanced up and *eye contact*.
14. Lucky Man
15. Hadashi No Mirai : Shochi and Nino did their otaku dance.
16. Happiness
MC
- Aibachan saw the same rainbow
- Today's victim is back to Shochi and his Yes?No? dance
- With Ohchan's face while doing Yes?No?
- 300 xiaolongbaos not enough
- Sit down prease, xiao long bao, Ying Jing Xiang
As they were walking back to the main stage, Aibachan and Jun walked on the other side while we get Ohmiya and Shochi walking on our side. They all had their arms around each other's shoulder except Shochi who then had his imaginary friend. Ohmiya was of course whispering to each other - well more of Nino. And I am pretty sure he saw us/my uchiwa.
17. Kaze No Mukou E
18. Kimi No Tame Ni Boku Ga Iru
19. Re(mark)able
20. Truth
21. A Day In Our Life
22. Yabai-Yabai-Yabai : This was really yabai! For the first drop, they dropped him a little too low and he held his hands out to push away at the stage. We can see he was shocked because we were too. And then there was the second drop immediately after.
23. Ichioku No Hoshi
24. Sirius : So close to see them singing this on top of the main stage.
25. Hello Goodbye
26. Theme Of Dream-A-Live
27. Introduction Of Jrs
28. Introduction Of Members : Ohchan did his eyes. Hime did a cartwheel. Aibachan did a cartwheel followed by 3 flips but failed on the last one and just lied on his tummy for the final one and then he got up and did his "Hello Goodbye" wave. Shochi's introduction was really adorable. He was rapping the "Hip Hop~" and did this side-to-side shuffle dance and the other members all just lined up beside him and started dancing in the same manner. I remember now the BOLT was during La Tormenta instead.
Nino getting his cards ready
29. A.Ra.Shi
30. Pikanchi Double : Hime was late getting to the raised platform. Everyone else was already up but he was still strutting down.
31. Asu Ni Mukatte Hoero
32. Members' speeches in Chinese
33. One Love
Encore 1
34. We Can Make It!
35. Kansha Kangeki Ame Arashi In Chinese and Japanese
36. Sakura Sake
Encore 2
37. Beautiful Days
38. Gori Muchuu : YamaTaro shaking their booty and snapping their fingers at the top of the main stage.
Encore 3
39. Hero
Because of where we were seated, I am quite sure that the boys saw us especially since I was in red tudung. I am really pleasantly surprised too because I feel that the previous day, they did not really stand at the corner back areas for long but when I was there, we got them a lot. The next few things are what jess and I experienced but I cannot remember when exactly.
Aibachan : He peaced at jess when he was standing at the top of the main stage. He was singing and facing us and at the particular moment, jess peaced at him and he peaced back and that girl kept asking me "Did he peace at me?" *nods* "Did he peace at me?" *nods*
Hime : He walked by a lot of times too incline and top of main stage but once another member comes by, we turn our attention.
Nino : Eye contact with him from "La Tormenta" and even later on, lots and lots of cheeky grins because he stood in front of us at the incline plenty of times. Also when they walked back towards the main stage for the MC while whispering to Ohchan, he was definitely facing in our direction and saw my "Gu~" uchiwa along with that my last minute-bought "Ohno Satoshi" uchiwa. AND I am thankful to him for what happened later.
Shochi : Bambi Bambi Bambi! Other than Nino, I felt that he paid a lot of attention to those on 3F and to us by the back of the main stage. I think since he became a caster and especially after Beijing, Shochi excels in social interaction. He was glowing, he looked people in the eye, he waved and grinned to everyone regardless of whose fan and he definitely looked good. During "One Love" as the moving stage was coming back towards the main stage, Shochi stood at the corner facing us. At the time, jess and I had our arms around each other and leaning our heads together. Shochi saw us, grinned and waved! We were like "AH~~~"
Ohchan : Ohchan is really, really quite blur. He did a lot of waving and peacing but I could not get eye contact but jess keeps reassuring me "I am sure he saw us. And even if he did not, Nino would definitely tell him." So I waited and waited and I was getting really *tiaw* because he was there in front of us but "kochi mite" he did not. Then as they were singing "Kansha" high above all of us from the cart at 3F, we suddenly saw a huge THUMBS-UP flashing over the screen and I could only turn and ask jess "Was that my GU~?" Whether it really was or not but later during dinner, leen told me what two of her friends (one is a dai-ohno fan, one is a dai-nino fan) who were on the 3F saw. During "Kansha", they said Ohmiya suddenly turned from facing the 3F back to the main stage and did the thumbs-up. Ohchan... Can't you do that when you stood 5 metres in front of me instead of 500 metres above me? Jess also translated what he said in the pamphlet that it has been a long time since they performed in an arena so he felt shy. If he does not look you in the eye, that is because you are too close and he is shy so please forgive him. I want to throw my gold shoe at him XD
グ～
Once again, we went to dinner after the concert and then returned to hotel. At 5.30am, my other bedmate, shu left for the airport and I woke up at 8.30am to do any final packing. We visited their hotel once more to have a walk around before setting off for the airport around 12pm where we got a taxi driver uncle who is an expert idol-chaser who shared some interesting tales with us.
My seating area on the first day was in between the main and middle stage so we had a great view all the way to those on the 3F (check back the previous post for where exactly). There was a 4-paneled screen box hanging over the main stage, a screen on our side, a screen on the other side (though the image from the back is flipped) and one more screen located high at the 3F.
Our view
Like some have mentioned, I felt that the crowd was made up of quite a lot of non-Taiwanese fans so it feels like United Nations or something. On jess' left were fangirls from Hong Kong. On my right was a group of Korean fangirls and the closest to me, whom later on for the duration of the concert, we end up coordinating all the furitsuke together. I am very glad to be around such girls especially for my first concert. To my front was a fanboy. And did I mention I was surrounded by the lovely fans of Aiba Masaki.
As the time approaches 7.30pm, the chanting started. The only other concert I have gone to was Rain when he came to Singapore and while it was scheduled to start at 8pm, it did not. I remember waiting and waiting and waiting... So going to Arashi's concert which starts more or less promptly was very refreshing. When the lights went out and the first strains of "Love So Sweet" started, everyone just got up and started screaming madly, mostly asking "WHERE? WHERE? WHERE?" because we could not see the boys. We finally realised they were coming down from between the 4-paneled screen box from the ceiling.
I have decided to give up writing a blow-by-blow concert report because no matter how much I want to, I can barely remember what goes on because your focus gets shot and thrown out the window. My eyes were to whoever stood in front of me so I would definitely miss anything that happened on the other side so I will mention things I DO remember.
Concert Tracklist (gacked from everywhere)
01. Love So Sweet
02. Oh Yeah!
03. Kotoba Yori Taisetsu Na Mono
04. Life Goes On
05. Step And Go : They danced on the middle stage and faced both front and back. Was it the first or second day when Hime faced Ohchan during the part where they stood in a line and moved in and out? That was really cute.
06. Welcome Introduction
07. Hip Pop Boogie : HOT! Shochi can really dance.
08. Jidai
09. Yes? No? : Ohmiya!!!
10. Carnival Night Part 2
11. Niji : He sounded amazing. The close-up of his hands made me scream "Hamburger Hands" which made the Korean girls laugh and then I went "Umai deshou~"
12. Take Me Faraway : I totally did not expect this song to come out so fast. I wanted to record it for memory's sake so it was a rush to get my camera out.
13. La Tormenta
14. Lucky Man : I wanted to hear this live so much!
15. Hadashi No Mirai : I mentioned before that I thought where we stood was not as good as by the stairs... that was until "Hadashi no Mirai" when Shochi came, took the mic stand and rose up DIRECTLY IN FRONT of us. No words can describe how much I was grinning the whole time watching him. And when the time came where he and Nino usually do their otaku dance, he looked over at Nino. But Nino was so busy fanservicing the 3F and did not even look back, Shochi just turned back to the front and snickered away. MAJOR BAMBI CUTENESS!
Sho came up in front of us
16. Happiness
MC
- Asked if we all learned Japanese : HAI!
- Asked if we all watched their tv shows (because they saw an uchiwa on something as recent as Ohnoman) : HAI!
- How did we watch their tv shows : ... abunai! Do not ask!
I think Nino mentioned something about how we should be careful lol moving along...
- Said something about Maou : I screamed "TOMA!"
- Asked if we watched HYD : HAI!
I think HYD is aired in all the countries in Asia and if not, the movie was definitely brought over.
- F4 Taiwan should meet F4 Japan
Tsukasa picked his Tsukushi <333
Did I miss anything?
17. Kaze No Mukou E
18. Kimi No Tame Ni Boku Ga Iru - Support the Jrs!
19. Re(mark)able : Seeing this live is really, REALLY remarkable. Especially the part where they stood in the row and did the hand movements all over each other's heads. I did not expect this since Kokuritsu was them coming down from the cauldron. Ohchan sat cross-legged and scootched backwards into Nino. For those SJ fans, Shochi was standing behind, slightly apart when suddenly, he went *POW* and moved closer to Hime - crotch first lol.
20. Truth : YES YES YES SHINJITSU
21. A Day In Our Life : DOUBLE YES YES YES Ohchan stood a long time in front of us for this.
22. Yabai-Yabai-Yabai : Another thing I wanted to watch live! I am so, SO thankful he did not choose to do "Naked" haha.
23. Ichioku No Hoshi : I am surprised they chose to do this song from "Wish" single considering that it is not a high-profile song but it is a song that I really do like. The closest dancing to me was Nino and I have to say the boys dancing for this concert made me very happy. Nino was not doing his usual "I'm tired-lazy-flail hands" dance but he was doing it very properly, I wanted to go and hug him. Shochi's hair was hilarious for this like he ran his hand through and they decided to stick up in all directions.
24. Sirius : I thought my ears were deceiving me but the part where Hime sang his solo - KAN. PE. KI.
25. Hello Goodbye : Aibachan almost fell off the small cart during his solo because the staff suddenly stopped at the middle stage and he was not prepared for it.
26. Theme Of Dream-A-Live
27. Introduction Of Jrs
28. Introduction Of Members : Did Sho do BOLT here or was that in La Tormenta? Ohchan did his fishing and reeling action. Nino did his magic. I cannot remember what Aibachan or Hime did but with each member's introduction, they played their solo as the background music.
29. A.Ra.Shi : OH YES! Finally to be able to hear this live is a dream.
30. Pikanchi Double : For this, we got Hime as the small stage rises.
31. Asu Ni Mukatte Hoero : A lot of newer fans do not know this song because this is actually a song from Arashi's very early years but it is definitely an upbeat dance song that the boys love to sing.
32. Members' speeches in Chinese
33. One Love : They were standing on the moving stage as it comes back to the main stage. They bowed and thanked the 3F and then bowed and thanked the back stage and I was saying "What about us?" XD
Encore 1
34. We Can Make It!
35. Kansha Kangeki Ame Arashi In Chinese and Japanese : They rose to the 3F on this steel cart and sang there.
36. Sakura Sake
Encore 2
37. Beautiful Days : Jess teared up for this when I told her "I think they will sing Nino's new drama's theme song" and she was telling me "Don't get my hopes up!" and the moment Nino said "Hajimete..." - WE ARE THE FIRST BATCH TO GET TO LISTEN TO THIS SONG LIVE!!!
Firstly, all the outfits were pretty. And that actually made it harder to remember because you do not have that "WOW-ECK" factor to remember a song by. No frills, no feathers, no cough syrup pink suits. But lots of sequins and shines. Aibachan had a little wardrobe malfunction for the suit ala El Matador one (not the pastel ones for ichioku/sirius). From our view, we thought he was playing around with the staff because he kept moving forward, backward 3 times but apparently, he could not get the jacket off and the staff had to pull it by the sleeve haha.
Secondly, someone please just shoot the translator because I can barely concentrate on what the boys are talking. It is a waste of time: ours and theirs and we can barely get a nice, long, crack-filled MC. We got a lot of Shochi, Aibachan, Ohchan and Hime for day 1. We also talked a little more with the Korean girls before we went out and told them that it was our first concert and they was really surprised because we could do all the dance along with them. When we met up with the other girls, I was complaining how I did not get enough of Nino and how we also wanted more fanservice for day 2. We went for dinner after (which in itself is a crazy affair) and end up returning 6 people in a taxi LOL.
When we got back to our hotel, I was asking my bedmates if they wanted to go visit the boys' hotel (it was about 1am) and how can we say no. We dumped any evidence of being an Arashi fan in our rooms and made our way over. Someone told us to go there for information so we were all ready. As we approached the doors, we did get a little nervous but the moment I pushed the door and held it open for them, we all went into "Lost Tourist Act" mode. We went up to the reception and shu immediately went "Excuse me! We would like to enquire about the bus to the airport." ... LOL! We talked to the receptionist for quite a long while until she asked us "May I know your room number?" In our minds, all of us were tempted to say "19th floor" but we decided to go with the truth "Actually we are not guests of this hotel. We were told to come here to get information because truly, our hotel cannot speak English." and the receptionist laughed and nodded in agreement. We left soon after but decided to hang out in front of their hotel until 2am before returning home to sleep.
Their hotel at night
There were also some cute moments between JunxOhno, JunxNino - they high-fived as they walked pass each other on the middle stage for one of the earlier songs, ShoxOhno - this was an interesting moment for us because we had Aibachan and Ohchan in front of us and then Shochi was walking over too and we were like *hold breath* and as Shochi passed Ohchan, he placed a hand on Ohchan and we kind of squeeled "YAMA".
Day 2 started unexpectedly at 5.30am. My bedmates (kia and shu) and I woke up and while we planned to get some more rest, somehow, we all went to prepare for the day ahead instead. At about 7.30am, everyone was making their way to the arena. The plan to take the bus was axed in favour of taxi since it was too early for us to make sense of direction. Taxis were of course abundant around the boys' hotel so we made our way there (heck! we take any reason to go there as you can read later on). Important lesson: Pronunciation, pronunciation, pronunciation. Or better yet, always have someone who reads and speaks Mandarin around. While we did get to the arena safely, the uncle had to call someone who spoke English to ask us where we were heading to. Anyway, Taipei Arena and our hotel was just a straight road down. I have to say seeing the roads of Taipei and how everything is on the opposite of what I am used to take some time to adjust. Mostly, it was due to the traffic and width especially when crossing the roads. And the bus stops being in the middle. Other than that, Taipei reminds me a lot of KL actually.
The meeting place
We arrived at about 8.10am to the sight of a long queue (which was only getting longer as the day goes by) and decided to stagger ourselves around since some arrived earlier than others. The selling time was set for 10am so it was a matter of waiting. Of course when you have lots of friends around, time flies by rather fast. Breakfast was provided (naturally) by 7-11 and MacDonald's (do you see a pattern here?) and there was time to find all the ladies I wish to meet in the line. At 10am, the queue started moving. I can say that it was rather fast-moving and we were not as far back as we thought initially because by the time, the line has actually done a U-turn beside ours. Getting the concert goods was relatively simple and fuss-free. They gave us an order list to fill up and just pass that to the staff at the counter so you had plenty of time to debate on what to buy. By about 11am, we have reached the zig-zag queue.
You take my life forever
What I wanted to buy was simple: Things I can use outside. But I got sidetracked when lyn pulled me towards the concert goods line-up and I saw the live photos, clear files and uchiwas. So in goes pictures of Satoshi and Shochi, a clear file of Arashi but I refused to agree to the uchiwa. Then, richi came and told us the pamphlet is a must-buy (i was already going to) because of the extra pictures they added to the front of it. Somehow, my pamphlet count went up to "2". As we got closer to the front, I keep seeing one after another, people buying Satoshi's uchiwa. I still resisted. That is until shu (who kept pushing me to buy) ended up buying one too. At the counter itself, I marked off "1" for an Ohno Satoshi uchiwa. It was clearly a "I have no self-resistance" against the Dai-Maou and the staff even had to confirm with me whether the mark was not a random squiggle because I forgot to write in the price.
Price list
After goods, it was (of course) time for lunch and finally, it was not going to be at some 7-11 or MacDonald's. Some of the girls decided to go to Din Tai Fung for the xiao long bao (no surprise there) while we went to a nearby halal Thai restaurant which was down the road from dear's hotel. The food was not bad but we should have bought the set for 6 instead of 8. After that, we kepo-ed our way to dear's hotel room... for the toilet XD Then back to our hotel it was. As we were walking towards the bus stop (we were across the road from the arena), we saw how long the queue have gotten. Where we first queued, we were facing the perpendicular road (just outside MacDonald's) but now the queue was parallel to the road in front of dear's hotel.
O' what a tangled web we weave
We took the bus (missed a stop because no one pressed the bell), dropped off the goods and started preparing for the 1st night concert. At this moment in time, I was in a state of disbelief that in a few hours I was going to see them live (heck! i am still in disbelief that i am home already). The plan was to meet at 5.30pm in the lobby, break off into small groups and take a cab to go. Since I am sitting with jess (and she was holding onto the tickets), we went together along with raine.
The second (smaller) adventure: Our tension was getting up-up and we started talking about our uchiwas when suddenly, raine realised, "I forgot my concert ticket!" Yes people, the most important thing was left back in her hotel room. We promptly told the uncle to stop while she confirmed it and then, we turned back. Thankfully, we were just setting off so it was not an issue. We waited in the taxi as she rushed inside to retrieve the poor, forgotten piece of important paper and still made it to the arena by 6pm with plenty of time to spare. It was drizzling by then and the place were packed so everyone just end up promising to meet up by the hand after the concert for supper. Jess, joe and I queued up for the toilet (girls, why were we so baka to queue for that men's toilet when the toilets inside were empty?) which passed the time away til 7pm. There was a group of girls in front of us all dressed in Satoshi's Freestyle red t-shirt and one of them (who was a jun-fan) took out her homemade uchiwa which I cannot help but comment to joe, "Her 'Jun' is crooked." Good thing she does not understand us! After which, we said goodbye to joe at the gate and looked for our seats.
First night seating: Red 2B, Row 11, Seat 11
It was not really our fault. It was mostly due to excitement which short-circuited our brains but we made a little mistake. We sat down at seat 01 and 02 for a good 5 minutes, chatted up with the girls beside us and even took pictures before we realised our seats were in the middle orz so we quickly took our things and moved in. At first, I felt a little unhappy by our real seats since we were in between a lot of people instead of by the stairs but later during the concert, it had one of the best view.
Concert report next. But for now, it is time for me to sleep.
