OWARINAKI TABIBITO - No Make Girl’s Endless Journey

HEKIRU　SHIINA　SUMMER TOUR　2006 ～Power Of Love～ (7/1 Sendai)

Song List (Japanese)
01.届けたい想い
02.Clear Sky
03.ガンバレ！
04.旅立ちの唄
05.電撃ジャップ
～MC～
06.Phoenix
07.幻想の雪
08.ファンタジア
09.Reborn ～女は生まれ変わる～
～MC～
10.Eternal Circle(未発表曲)
11.Driving to summer(未発表曲)
～MC～
12.私の未来
～インスト(衣装替え)～
13.Power Of Love
14.Jumping Slash
15.One
16.スタンバイ！
17.Go Wake Up
18.ロックンロール・ラヴレター

＜Encore＞
19.MOTTOスイーツ
20.風が吹く丘
21.Graduater
22.抱きしめて

Song List (English)
1. Todoketai omoi
2. Clear Sky
3. Ganbare
4. Tabitachi no uta
5. Dengeki Jap
~MC~
6. Phoenix
7. Gensou no yuki
8. Fantasia
~Instrumental + Costume Change~
9. Reborn ~onna ha umarekawaru~
~MC~
10. Eternal Circle (new song)
11. Driving to Summer (new song)
~MC~
12. Watashi no mirai
~Instrumental + Costume Change~
13. Power Of Love
14. Jumping Slash
15. One
16. Standby!
17. Go Wake Up
18. Rock ‘n’ Roll Love Letter
Encore
19. Motto Sweets
20. Kaze ga fuku oka
21. Graduater
22. Dakishimete

Costumes
Hair was long, past waist, very layered, colored light brown
1) Red plaid style coat with no sleeves, going to about the knee. Under was long-sleeved white blouse. Brown pants slightly below the knee (worn a couple tours ago).
2) Fitting long-sleeved white blouse, ending at the waist right where it touches a knee-length white skirt. Still have the brown pants.
3) Loose yellow satin-type blouse, boat-neck style, long sleeves which are collected but white lace just below the elbow but then flare out. Blouse ended at waist, tied to one side with ribbons that collect the waist. Short blue skirt below, made up overlapping layers. Brown pants underneath.
Encore) White Power of Love T-shirt, loose pink satin-like pants that looked like jogging pants with a stripe down the slide, loosely buckled decorative belt.
Shoes where her thick-heel whitish sneakers which she has worn many times before.

Report
It’s been 4 years since I’ve been back to Sendai. Took the 9:22 Shinkansen up, the 21:26 back to Tokyo, so I was there slightly more than half a day, heh.

The concert was at Zepp Tokyo, which is right next to Sendai Station. It started at 17:35 and ended at 19:55, so slightly under two and a half hours.

The concert opened with nobody on stage, heavy pulsing music and green lights overhead (which is a new effect). Then the band members came out, and finally Hekiru. The music ended and the band started up on Todoketai omoi, a big surprise. The song was slighly rearranged, but warm and soft. Hekiru seemed a bit nervous, but that was probably a combination of exhaustion (apparently she and the band had been rehearsal for 5 days, and even before that she was so busy she had no time to sleep) and nerves about whether the band would be up to speed. The song ended with a slight rearranged ending, moving into Clear Sky which got the audience together waving and Hekiru looking a bit more relax, then Ganbare which kept the feel good mood. Hekiru had the audience sing parts of the chorus.

Then suddenly it was Tabitachi no uta, a fast-paced song which demands you to punch the air and whatnot. Honestly, I don’t like this song, and it was a big shift in pacing from Ganbare, so it was quite jarring. Going into Dengeki Jap was another shock, because this is one of the superfast songs I love, and I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to go ballistic like I normally do. Felt it was a bit of a waste to have these two here. Hekiru did her best by moving around during Dengeki, but the audience was rather subdued.

During the MC, she introduced herself, then said she would ask two band members to speak. She picked Jake first, calling him Saito-san as a running joke from the last tour, and asked him what memories he had of Sendai. He said he had fresh hoya, a food which is quite difficult to obtain. Hekiru didn’t know what hoya was (most people don’t, it’s weird sea creature served as a drinking accompaniment) and time was taken to explain how it looked like a knobbly tetrapod. Hekiru said she would never eat it, it sounded too weird. Then she said, oh no, we spent too much time talking about tetrapods! And moved on to Kimura Ken, whom she called Kimura-san. Ken, who grew up near Sendai, said his memories are of skipping school and hanging out in a cafe from 8am till 4pm on one cup of coffee every day, having no clue for six months that the owner was pissed and trying to get rid of him.

The MC ended and the band started up. This is where I got my massive shock and delight for the night… Phoenix! Oh my god, the only time Hekiru sang this was in summer of 97, it’s a great song and Hekiru loves it too, but somehow it’s never been sung since and after 8 years of after for it each tour questionnaire, I’d given up. So when the intro started, it was all I could do to stop from running up and down the aisles singing hallelujah. Instead I settled for a massive shit-eating grin plastered on my face and singing like there was no tomorrow. The people around seemed to feel the same, as this was the part of the concert when they actually vocalized some calls and whistles of appreciation. The arrangement of the song wasn’t that different, but different fuller and more edged due to the twin guitars. Hekiru’s moves were quite jerky, and the part in ‘97 when she puts her palm on her midriff and moves her hips, became just the palm on the midriff and then some random movements. I think she was pretty uncertain here too.

Phoenix rolled into Gensou no yuki, and suddenly I was like, shit I love this song too! And it was frustrating because suddenly I didn’t know whether to listen or to headbang or to shout or what… I was just too adrenalized! Anyway, I discovered that I couldn’t headbang to it - the pace was too fast and I had sprained one side of my neck at Dengeki Jap, pathetic I know. Next was Fantasia, and this was good. I didn’t like it before on CD, and not at last year’s winter tour either, but my iTunes had the Power of Love single running into Reverence, so… one gets used to it. I just don’t like the uppity chorus.

Then Hekiru left the stage as the band continued to play the ending of Fantasia. When she returned she was in white, and the keyboards played a slow intro, to which Hekiru soon added the opening vocals of Reborn. Then the band struck up in full, and here again I was pleasantly surprised at how good it sounded. I like Reborn better than Power of Love, because of its minor key, and on the CD it’s got a pretty good oomph. But live, it’s a different order of magnitude. The sound blew me away, it was really really intense, especially on the chorus. I loved the stage and atmosphere too. The lighting was red, and Hekiru had a serious look on her face, such that I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to Kaze no yukue. I think I may like this song live almost as much. Which means that it’ll probably never be sung again, as it’s not one of those jumping shouting genki songs. I think it was at the end of this song that she bowed deeply, which is surprising because she usually does it only at ballads or when she leaves the stage. I wonder if it meant something…?

Then the lights came on and Hekiru had a few words for the MC. “Hello, Reborn from my new single got it’s first live performance in Sendai.”

People shouted that it was good, then she seemed a bit flustered, before saying, “Sorry, my songs are all fast.”

“That’s okay! We keeping up!”

“No it’s not, because I’m the one dying!” shot back Hekiru.

Hmm, I think I like this Hekiru who speaks her mind, but it’s also cause for concern as she’s been mentioning the physical strain more and more.

Anyway, she continued and said, “Well, I sang a mix of old songs and new. I was a bit nervous wondering if people would recognize them, but it looks like you guys did.” Then she said she had more new songs. Two songs in fact, which she had been recording just before the rehearsals. She hoped that people would like the songs, because the release depended on their reaction. “Anyway, listen to this: Eternal Circle.”

Then Hekiru sang the two new songs in a row. The first was an uppity Hekiru song. I wasn’t impressed. Halfway through, Hekiru forgot the lyrics and she looks so cute when she winced and put her head in her hand in embarassment, before soldiering on. The second was a bit funky… I dunno how to describe it but it was good! I reallly liked this song a lot. Hekiru had nice moves, and she seemed to be trying very hard. I wonder if she wrote the lyrics to this one, it seems Hekiru’ish. During the chorus, the band started gathering around the drums and doing some really whacked out dance steps. I couldn’t help laughing. It wasn’t a genki song or anything, more serious, but for some reason the whole setup felt good.

After the song ended, Hekiru reintroduced them. The second one was called Driving to Summer and in fact the band had been practicing while she was still working on the recording itself. It hadn’t gone to trackdown yet, so she added that she had no idea if it would still sound the same when it got released. If it got released at all. (Yes, this line did come off as bleak as it looks.) To everyone’s reaction, Hekiru did add that at the earliest it would be at the end of the year, and at the latest, “A long time away”.

She also chatted a bit about how she was working during Japan’s match with Brazil, saying that she did wear the uniform in support. Kine Naoto had bought blue uniforms for the Hidamari team, and gave Hekiru a child-sized 130cm shirt, which fit perfectly.

Then she said she would sing another old song, a sad song, and began Watashi no mirai. This began as an acoustic but the entire band joined in full. I like this song a lot, but to be honest, it was really quite depressing after the conversation about professional troubles and stuff. Hekiru also made a mistake with the lyrics at the first verse, which also broke the mood of the song. I was pretty blue at this point.

Anyway, she left the stage at the end of the song while the band continued to play. She then reappeared to Power of Love, in a new outfit and one of the best in recent years, IMHO. It was tasteful, elegant, and looked wonderful on Hekiru. Well, the gorgeous satin blouse and perfectly matching shade of blue skirt anyway. The brown pants really have to go. They were terrible for the second outfit, completely detracting from the otherwise serene image of Hekiru in demure white. Here, they were just out of place. Perhaps long black pants would have been better. The song itself I honestly don’t remember much, I was too busy admiring the view ^_^ . However, this time it was a good way to kick off the final arc of the concert, as opposed to using invisible after Zutto… I guess the staff took to heart the complaints from fans about launching into harsh metal after a solemn ballad.

I’m skipping the next few songs because they are pretty much the same as before. The only thing that surprised me was how much I’m coming to enjoy Standby, which I seriously despised when it was first released. There’s something to be said for a song that has the whole hall bonded together, something which gets rarer with each passing year. Case in point, Go Wake Up!!, for which I was estatic, was horribly scattered. Not the peformance, but the reaction. I remember all the hands fisting the air like no tomorrow, the roar of voices and flying sweat and being drunk on the oneness of it all. This time, the crowd was quiet, a smattering of people jumped, and the rest flat. I was one of the jumpers, but without the heat, power and joy from the crowd, even I felt foolish for displaying enthusiasm. It was saddening, and perhaps sobering. That time is gone, replaced by other songs and other fans and other ways.

As can be seen from the difference when RnRLL came on, or the encore songs. Suddenly everyone knew what to do (I say this with some irony) and Hekiru looks more confident, less hesitant and lost. You could tell she was trying her best to get the crowd going, but with the first day, new songs, uncertain old ones, small Sendai crowd, it was perhaps too much to expect of even Hekiru’s best efforts. It was, but for a few fan favourites, a lacklustre response. And even more frustrating, several songs such as RnRLL had rearranged endings to help draw out the crowd, but the actual effect was the opposite as suddenly even one just stopped and didn’t quite know how to react when the expected sounds didn’t come.

All this was all the more painful, knowing that it was nobody’s fault, that the songs were good and Hekiru tried and the crowd wasn’t negative per se. It was just an inablity for the two to meet.

Anyway, I’ve gone off track. I didn’t intend to write the report this way, but the more I think about it, the more frustrated I feel. I thought that this was a much more balanced production than the previous tour, yet the audience reacts so much better to just straightforward slam-bang songs. Not that I hate those songs - I honestly had great fun during the encore just listening and singing (well, except for Motto Sweets which I feel should have been retired three tours ago). I’m just sad that it seems these are the only songs that matter. I enjoyed other, more serious, songs so much more, but I can’t help but wonder how Hekiru feels looking at an audience which doesn’t really react. I know there is no need to jump and move for each and every song - in fact for the songs I really like I don’t even headbang, I listen and watch and feel the music wash through me - but when other people do it, I can’t help but wonder if they are bored. And if I wonder, then probably so would those on stage.

All this makes it seem as if I had a horrible time. That’s not true. I enjoyed the live very much, and I can’t wait for the next, and I really want there to be 20 next’s… It’s not like I wanted to taste the concerts of old, or anything. Perhaps I’m simply too anxious for Hekiru’s situation, which I feel powerless to make a difference, and Hekiru feels quite the same too.

Power of Love - but not quite enough, not when business gets involved.