I went to Unchained Concert Tokyo Day1 (Apr 3, 2018). While I was lining up to enter the venue, I had a chance to talk with fellow overseas fans, one was from Canada and one from Indonesia. The guy from Canada said it was his first concert ever and he literally purchased every single tour merchandise! (@_@ mad jealous) The Indonesian girl said her brother who lived in Japan helped her get the ticket. They both have better seats than mine. Who else wouldn't? My seat is in the last row on 2F! Anyways, I was glad to find people I can talk to because I went to the concert alone.
After I got in, I had to line up again for merchandise. I was worried the whole time, afraid there wouldn't be enough time for merchandise purchase, CD purchase (need to line up again), obligatory drink (yet another line), and toilet time before the concert started. It's been 10 years after my last concert in Japan so I didn't remember much how things run. Didn't remember it to be this hectic.
Good thing I finished all those in time. Too bad I didn't win the meet&greet and those other prizes. :'(
Zepp Tokyo, the venue, is very small and so very crowded. I wanted to take good shots of all the flower wreathes but no luck. There are always people walking pass by so I couldn't take them all in a single shot. Here's what I got.
Felt relieved to see flowers from WOWOW. The live will surely be televised. ^^
When I got upstairs, audience were already mostly in their seats, except the ones with standing tickets who stood right behind the last row. (The fans right behind me kept swooning "BoA so cute" throughout the whole concert.) The couple who sat next to me was way into their fifties or sixties, I couldn't tell. The one on my left also came alone, just like me.
Soon after I was seated, fans started doing BoA call. It was already 7pm, the supposedly concert start time. But I was screaming inside "No, why would you all pressure her already? Let the girl take her time!". BoA appeared shortly and I was teary (as expected). I was a little angry at myself because at this distance, I couldn't get a clear view of BoA. No need to cloud my vision any further. Anyway, I can see the stage and BoA's movement clearly. Maybe a little better than the ones seating at the back of 1F because I don't think 1F is as sloped as 2F. I can't see BoA facial features but I have a clear view of her limbs and such. LOL Anyway, Zepp is good. I wish BoA would stop doing hall tours and do only Zepp ones forever. LOL
BoA seems relaxed and the atmosphere is really warm. She doesn't look nervous at all. I guess she knows by now that all of us love her and there's no need to be perfect all the time. We all come to have fun and not for fault-finding.
"I ate a lot it's suffocating. I ate Katsudon before the concert." This has become her fixed MC opening of some sort. LOL complaining about eating too much.
Then she went on to complain about how Where Am I Now and Arigatou Sayonara are hard to sing.
To be honest, I can't remember what she says at each MC segment so I'm gonna translated them all in one place. Sorry! And as I have terrible memory, most of these are translated based on @nitt_1105 's tweets.
"I didn't know that Unchained album would be on sale like on iTunes and such. I thought it was produced just for the concert audience." BoA felt betrayed by avex but smoothed it over with "Well I guess they want a lot of people to hear the songs."
B "Do you know what's the most troubling aspect of living in Japan?"
F "Cooking!"
B "That's not limited to Japan. That's true everywhere I go! LOL"
The answer is food ordering in restaurants. Because BoA cannot read Kanji, she had to ask the waiter each menu item one by one. "What is this? fish? what kind of fish? white fish? OK i'll get one."
Before the medley "I'm gonna warn you guys to use up all your energy now or you'll gonna be sorry when I say 'something' later. You're gonna feel like you should have pumped up more."
The 'something' she said after the medley was "This is the last song. I warned you before, didn't I? That you should've gone all out or you'd be sorry later." LOL
Umm... I'm gonna have to backtrack a little. Gotta mention that close to me, konoyo no shirushi, song with no name is out of this world. I got teary eyes again with these songs. Just felt so blessed to be a part of the concert there.
BoA also announced that Sakurai, the pianist, is already married, making many in the audience sad. LOL
There's this one person in the audience that sounded like a kid. Her voice is so high-pitched. After BoA spotted her and found out she was an adult, BoA said in a baby voice "Your voice is so cute. I wanna sound like that too."
The medley part I thought BoA wouldn't do the choreo. I remember reading fanaccount that she only swayed about and not all out dance. But she actually did the choreo!! casually but gracefully. BoA's dancing is always a sight to behold. I'm just simply happy we're getting the best of both worlds in this small venue.
After jazzclub, BoA went in and seconds after, the fans started doing BoA call right away and I was like 'Shouldn't we wait a bit?' inside once again. I don't want BoA to rush and hurt herself again. But anyways, BoA came back for encore stage in less than 5 mins!! so fast!
And the first verse of watashi konomamade iinokana blew me away! I mean it's really that good! BoA is the best at LIVE seriously. It's even better than Song with no name and close to me. *tears*
BoA explained the watashi konomamade iinokana album concept. That it's not just for 30yo female, but no matter what age and gender, she wants the listeners to get encouragement from her songs. That there are songs that understand them and what they're going through.
There are a lot of Chinese fans present in the concert and towards the end, they shouted wo ai ni loudly and BoA responsed with wo ai ni, thank you, kamsahamnida. lol
Since I sat so far behind, I couldn't get the paper streamers shot to the audience. On my way back to the train station, I spot a fan with many of those so I shamelessly asked for one.lol She's a Chinese fan and she kindly gave me one. ^^
I've just read Seguchi Kana's
fanaccount and she couldn't get the streamer either and the person in front of her gave her one without her asking! and she humorously wrote she couldn't believe the world is full of people so kind. BoA fans are kind!
Overall, if I were to sit on the 1st floor, I think I'd be able to go all out more. 2F Audience do not get to stand up and dance because it'd block the view of those with standing tickets. But I was more than content and had a lot of fun and shed a lot of tears (lol) sitting at the last row of the concert.
The day after, I didn't have the ticket so I didn't go. Instead I visited MatsuGen, a restaurant BoA frequented in Ebisu area. I was wearing the tour parka so the staff there knew I was a BoA fan. They said there were a lot of BoA fans coming in these 2 days so I told them it was because of the concert. They didn't know.
They told me yesterday there was a group of seven who came in and ordered bukkakesoba. I also ordered bukkakesoba even though I don't like soba but heck it's what BoA eats at this place. All BoA fans order bukkakesoba. LOL BoA hasn't come to MatsuGen for a long time already. (We know it's hitsumabushi for her now. not soba haha) But 4 EXO members did come recently (maybe BoA recommended the place to them?). I guess MatsuGen will get even more customers now that not only BoA fans, but EXO fans would come too.
Guess where I visited the next day? Tokyo Midtown! To see Billboard Live. I didn't go in though. A female singer I didn't know was singing there. The place was still not full so I could go in if I wanted. That's shocking to me as I thought it'd be fully booked all the time considering the place is quite small and only famous singers get to sing there.
So that's it for my short BoA trip this time.(Actually I was in Tokyo for business trip but in my heart it's a BoA trip lol) I didn't know there was SMT Tokyo (restaurant? cafe?) in Akasaka or I might have gone there too. Maybe next time.
Hope you guys have fun reading my fanaccount. Sorry for writing so late.
