True Life Seek

I watched Aya Matsuura’s 2007 Autumn ~Double Rainbow~ tour a few days ago. I have not watched an Aya Matsuura concert in a long time. I have had no reason to. She is no longer an artist that I greatly enjoy. In fact, whenever I watch her, I am just reminded of why I used to like her instead of why I currently like her.

Programming note: When I am going to write concerts, it will be the notes I take during the concert. I will not remember anything unless I do this and I have the feeling that I will not want to look over these notes when the concert is over, especially in the case of a bad concert.

We start off with the usual unlit pan of the crowd. For some reason, the camera stops at 3 people, presumably wota. Sadly, they did not introduce Matsuura. They play up the rainbow gimmick.

1. Egao - Out comes Aya. She’s in this pink and white dress that drops to the floor. Times have really changed for Aya as she starts off with a ballad. She’s really concentrating on her singing here. I guess this is a good song to do that with.

2. Dokki! Doki! LOVE Mail - Well this should be interesting. Still in the dress that goes to the floor… Aya was never known for her dancing but this restricts most, if not all, movement. She’s really concentrating on her singing here. This is not the song to do that with. This is a pretty bland performance of Dokki Doki. She keeps the same smile on and does the same arm movements (point to the crowd, clapping and, yes, raising the roof). As if we need any more reminder that Aya is past the Ayaya stage of her career, this was it. Towards the end, she seemed to be having some fun with it, which was nice to see.

3. MC 1 - Whatever.

4. LOVE Namida Iro - Aya tosses off the dress. I enjoyed typing that. The costume is now a white top, black/sparkly skirt and long boots. She kinda reminds me of Miki Fujimoto in Kanashimi Twilight. This was ok. Perhaps because it is vintage Aya. The best performance of this song though was by Hitomi Yoshizawa on Hello!Morning.

5. Toudai - Well I was ready for a lot of ballads. I’ve always been suspect of Aya’s singing ability. However, she is able to put emotion into her voice, which carries over well in a live performance like this.

6. Uchuu de La Ta Ta - Breaking into the Taiyo to Ciscomoon discography here. We got some backup dancers here. I guess UFA wants to get some usage out of them since Maki Goto quit. Aya’s backup dancers do in fact dance better than her. But she didn’t do awful. I wonder if this type of song would suit Aya well. It’s not exactly the most demanding song vocal-wise. And like I said, she can put emotion into her voice. She leaves the stage before the song ends. I guess it goes with the “bye bye bye” part. I dunno, kinda weird.

7. Nameless/faceless dancers performing GET UP! Rapper - Yah. I don’t know. I have no idea who these two are. I just assumed they had nothing to do since Maki quit. I wouldn’t have used these two. The wota barely cared, why should they? These two don’t even get camera closeups that are steady to see their faces. Why not get Saki Shimizu and Maimi Yajima for this? That’d be worth it! Hahaha, at the end of this after all the clapping, one wota shouts out. He booed this performance LOUDLY. This man is great.

8. 100kai no KISS - Aya is done up here. Huge white dress with a hood on it. She goes for some really high notes that seem out of place, she’s been doing it throughout the entire concert. Like I said, she’s really concentrating on her singing. Perhaps a bit too much. I know that this dress is coming off like the last one, it’s a matter of time.

9. Hikkosenai Kimochi - The hood is off. She looks a lot better with it off. She keeps extending her arm to the side with the beat. Her arm must be tired after this.

10. Onna Day by Day - Off goes the dress. She’s got some funky yellow-reddish ordeal going on here. But at last! An upbeat song! Aya has the old facial expressions working here. There is a sad fact here. The crowd is not big. However, the way she is performing is as if it is. She is usually looking way beyond the crowd. I guess it is better to do that than to underestimate the crowd size.

I have no idea.

11. Navi ga Kowareta Oujisama (Love Chance) - Ugh this is just going to remind me of the ending to 16sai no Koi Nante, which I dislike a lot. The backup dancers are with us again. Do you think they wonder how they go from Some Boys! Touch to this? (I have no idea if these are Maki’s backup dancers, but they may as well be). The crowd is way more into this than Onna Day by Day. That’s a shame. Still, this was good.

12. MC 2 - Whatever.

13. blue bird - blue bird, blue dress. I don’t really care for this song. Furthermore, this is the point where Aya’s discography catches up with her and the only difference between this performance and other ballads is the lyrics. And not much of a difference when it is “do do do” and “la la la.”

14. Ima wa Let It Be - The only difference is the lyrics being sung.

15. Suna wo Kamu You ni… NAMIDA - After the last three songs, I am baffled. Who would buy a ticket to go to this? If you put aside the biased side in you and look at this and the previous two songs/performances, WHY would anyone buy this? I guess that is why Aya’s career is currently getting no buys. And this song in particular is no buys.

16. HAPPY TO GO! - However, this song does in fact equal buys. This performance may not. The backup dancers are allowed out of their cage again. She’s been wearing the same blue dress. It doesn’t fit this song. But I guess the costume fitting the song has never really mattered for any H!P concert. The crowd was not into it as much as I’d figured they’d be, perhaps half of them were just starting to wake up. Michiyo and Kaopon are the dancers names. The rest of the band gets named. Drums: Akira Nagahori, Percussion: Masao Fukunaga, Bass: Manabu Chigasaki, Keyboard: Takao Sugiyama. They need to do this for every H!P concert. In fact, they could have dropped the previous 3 solos and just had this band jam for 3 sessions and I would have been fine with that. They finish Happy to Go and this is my favorite performance of the concert.

17. MC 3 - Whatever.

Ok the crowd was bigger than I thought. My bad!

18. Tropical Koishiteru - She’s in a plaid dress with a top hat. It may not sit well with everyone but it works. Backup dancers. This is an old Aya song so this biased crowd will get excited for it and not Happy to Go. That is disappointing. This song is fun though and it makes me miss Ayaya.

19. Momoiro Kataomoi - This is great. While Aya may want to be taken more seriously as a singer and an artist with her career, I take her more seriously when she is doing a song like this. She looks like she is genuinely having fun and the crowd loves her for it. The problem with her ballads is not that they are ballads but they are boring and generic.

20. Zettai Tokeru Mondai X＝♥ - The color is ugly but she looks good. This is another solid performance. This set is so great. I need to accept the reality that Aya will never put out singles like this again, but it is hard when, in late 2007, she is doing her old music and it is still entertaining.

21. Yeah! Meccha Holiday - Excellent.

22. Double Rainbow - It’s true that there isn’t much difference between Double Rainbow and her other ballads of late. However, this is great placement. It got corny at the end with the wings on the video, but what can you do?

23. MC 4 - Whatever.

24. I know - At least the concert ends on an upbeat note. She lets one of her backup dancers sing. A nice gesture but a failure.

This concert definitely had its highs and lows. It was a lackluster affair until Happy to Go started. Everything after that was great. Out of the 6 songs from that point on, two of them were from her post-X3 career. This is not lost on me. However, something still stands out about Aya. It’s best to compare it to Morning Musume.

When comparing Morning Musume to its older incarnations, it’s quite often that someone will do with nostalgia. This is because when the Morning Musume of today performs Love Machine, it does not have the same appeal. The reason that it does not have the same appeal is simple, at least in my situation. It’s not the same girls. It doesn’t matter if the current Musume is better at singing, dancing and crowd interaction, it is not Maki, Yaguchi, Kei, etc.

The difference there does not apply to Aya. As far as I can tell, the 21 year old performing Momoiro Kataomoi is the same person as the 16 year old. She has matured but she hasn’t changed entirely. This was apparent while watching the set after MC3. You may prefer the 16 year old but I would be shocked to hear any Ayaya fan not appreciate that set. When Aya performs an old song of her career, it is not nostalgia for the past like with Morning Musume. Instead, I wish she would release more music in the present that is similar to the past.

Granted, it would seem silly for a 21 year old to be singing about peach-colored unrequited love. I wasn’t referring to the lyrics per say. I’d like Aya a lot more today if she did more songs like Happy to Go or Onna Day by Day instead of Egao, Suna wo Kamu Yo ni…Namida, Ki ga Tsukeba Anata and, well, you get the point. I can appreciate a good ballad. I like artists like Chihiro Onitsuka and some Rie Fu songs. But with Aya Matsuura, her ballads are, as I said, generic and boring.

Posted on January 26th, 2008 by broomhead. Filed under Concerts, Reviews.
Tags: Aya Matsuura, Chihiro Onitsuka, Hello!Project, Hitomi Yoshizawa, Maki Goto, Miki Fujimoto, Morning Musume, Rie Fu, Taiyo to Ciscomoon