fields of maiZe in the morning

I woke up the morning of AX Day 2 aboslutely stoked! In just a few hours, I would be watching Morning Musume live for the first time, for their first concert (non-Fan Club) in the US, which would later be followed by Hello! Party. johpan and I arrived at the convention centre at around 10:30am. Doors were opening to start seating for the concert at 12:30pm. Today was going to be an epic day. There was no doubt about it.

Pretty soon after we arrived, johpan got a tweet from CFB saying that he had found the siblings and was at pre-registration. So, johpan and I made our way there. We were about to mee fellow International Wota staffer Amy of Merry Go Round and her brother Rocky of DO THE ROCK.

We spotted them on their way out of pre-registration and I ran over and just threw my arm over Rocky’s shoulder. He looked at me with a surprised look… Then stepped away cautiously… XD Lovely first impression, don’t you think? XD

The group of us then headed over to the AX ticketing booth so that Rocky and Amy can pick up their concert tickets. As we’re heading over, CK of CK’s H!P Blog” and Chuo Dori found us and sneaked up on us. The attending staff of IW were finally gathered together! It was a momentous occasion! (sorta… except not XD)

We were all quite excited for the concert, but as we still had over an hour, we decided to head up to the tabletop gaming room to meet up with a fellow wotachatter, mp122984 (the guy who set up the live feed of Hello! Party, for those of you who watched that).

It seems that right next door to the tabletop gaming room was an arcade which had 2 of my favourite arcade games – DrumMania and ParaParaParadise. Unfortunately the line for PPP was a little long, but I did get a game of DM in. However, I found the red tom a little bit unresponsive. But still, I didn’t fail any of my songs, so it was all good.

After a little bit of playing at the arcade, johpan, CFB, CK and I headed over to the exhibiton hall. I wanted to see if I could get the Morning Musume Platinum 9 Disco Tour Visual Book… Unfortunately they were sold out.

So, after a short look at the Morning Musume/H&A merchandise we decided to head over to the concert hall and line up.

The concert started promptly at 2:30pm, even though some people were still streaming into the room. The lights dimmed and the opening video started and the wota got into it right away. Of course, I cheered especially loud when Risa and Ai-chan came up on the big screen…

And when Morning Musume finally got on stage, the crowd (well the wota) went nuts. johpan and I were actually sitting next to this guy who hadn’t heard of Morning Musume before AX and we were happy to fill him in on bits and pieces of their history (and pimp IW at the same time ^_^).

Unfortunately, there were 3 tall guys in front of me (why the heck am I so short?), so my view of the stage was obscured. However, I had a perfect view of the big screen.

Note: Every concert photo here can be found in better quality at International Wota.

They opened the concert with “Mikan”, and though I was never a huge fan of the song before, it really is a great song to start a concert off with. It’s happy and energetic, and so hopeful. I have this thing where when I see something performed live, even if I’m not a huge fan of the song initially, I suddenly love the song afer seeing it live (if performed well). Basically, that is what happened to me with every song performed by Morning Musume at this concert.

Though, half the setlist was older stuff that I already loved, so it was all good. And, I love “Shouganai Yume Oibito” as well as the c/w “3, 2, 1 Breakin’ Out!” (the official AX theme song).

Following “Mikan” was “3, 2, 1 Breakin’ Out!” and that was another energetic number. Not to say that the crowd didn’t get into “Mikan” but the “Oh yeah! Oh yeah!”s in 3, 2, 1 are just so much fun. The glowsticks were out and forming the O and Y’s together.

I have to say that glowsticking is freaking tiring. After the first 2 songs, my arms were already so sore. I had 4 orange (lol, would you have guessed?) glowsticks – 2 per hand.

The intros were cute. Each girl said a little something in English, and I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of hearing them speak English. We need more English lessons to watch!

After the intros, we head into “Shouganai Yume Oibito”, and I don’t think I can stress how much I love this song. Just check out my review on it… Hearing it live just made me love it more.

The song was immediately followed by “How Do You Like Japan?” In Tsunku’s Q&A panel the next day, he mentioned that he saw people leaving the concert just as this song began, thinking they knew exactly the kind of songs Morning Musume would be singing at this concert, but when they heard it, they turned back. You gotta love the variety of styles and genres that Morning Musume sing. I can’t remember which concert it was where I first saw the girls perform this live, but I love this song. I also love Risa’s intro to it… Give me a little bit of Risa spotlight and I’m a happy camper.

“Resonant Blue” came on next, and I have to admit I’ve never been a huge fan of the song. I think the feature of just 3 girls, Koharu being one of them irked me. However, watching it live is another thing entirely, so I like it a lot more now… Then again, seeing all the girls live is an amazing experience, and now I can’t even find myself getting irked with Koharu and Sayumi…. We’ll see how long that lasts. XD

Up next was a short MC to introduce the next set of songs, which just so happened to be a medley of oldies but goodies. As the intro to “I WISH” came on, I was extremely excited. It was amazing that my favourite Morning Musume song of all time (excluding the Gumi’s) was performed at this concert, even if it wasn’t the full version. “Happy Summer Wedding” came next and man, this was just a dream come true for me. “Happy Summer Wedding” is actually the first Morning Musume song that I memorized the lyrics to, so you can imagine how obsessed I was with this song at one point in time. This was also 4th generation’s first single, so it holds a special place in my heart.

Following that was “Koi no Dance Site” and what’s so great about this song is the punching.. “Oooh! Aaah!!” I just can never get enough of that. It’s easy for new listeners to pick up and it really gets the fans excited. They also switched costumes at the beginning of the song (aka. shedded their top layer of costume).

Now we come to what was the best part of this entire concert for me. The next song they sang in this medley was “Souda! We’re Alive”, and just before they switched into the next song, they chose to sing the bridge (is it the bridge?) with the line that made me fall in love with Ai-chan in the first place. Here’s the performance that began my Ai-chan adoration (and began my short lived Risa un-adoration XD).

johpan and I ended up manning the welcome/sign-in table for most of the night (with Rocky and Amy helping us for most of the time as well until they had to leave), and that was definitely an interesting and fun experience. We weren’t able to join in on the games, or even watch much of the games, but meeting all the fans as they entered was great. After a hearty hello, we asked each attendee for their favourite member so they could fill out their name tag (with name, internet handle and any forums that they go on or sites they’re affiliated with). It was funny watching peoples tortured expressions as they had to choose between the 9 members.

For me, it was a huge issue to choose between Ai-chan and Risa, but in the end I chose Risa because I heard that Ai-chan was the most requested member in the Hello! Party RSVPs. I know some people who switched from their usual favourite member because of the events of the weekend. 2 people in particular were Paul from Hello! Blog and CFB, both of whom chose LinLin for the night. Paul was especially funny because he was wearing a Sayumi T-shirt with a LinLin name tag.

I met so many people at the table, it was amazing. Hi to anyone reading this who hung out with us at the table for a little while. ^_^ We had a number of Japanese speakers come to the party, which wasn’t too bad, seeing as we could communicate how to fill out the name cards with simple words: “Koko ni namae wo kaite kudasai.” Then pointing to the other things, “Niku nemu.” “Webu saito.” (Those would look better in katakana, but I know not everyone can read katakana. So romaji it stays). However, we had a few fans who came in speaking Spanish (sorry, but johpan and I are Canadian – we took French in school XD) and Chinese.. The only thing I can say in Cantonese is “Please do not eat me.” I used to be able to say the phrase “I am a small cake. Please do not eat me.” (irrelevant story) but I forgot how the first sentence goes. Either way, that’s not very helpful when trying to direct people to fill out a name tag. XD

The final approximate count for number of Hello! Party attendees was about 350 people, which is amazing. In addition to that number, mp122984 was streaming Hello! Party live from ustream, and at some point there were about 250 people watching the party online. That’s a total of 600+ fans gathered “together” in the same place. Without any members of Hello! Project coming soon or having just left the vicinity. That’s just astounding. ^_^

johpan and I stayed at the party until about midnight when our cousin was supposed to come pick us up. Since Hello! Party was in the basement of the hotel and we couldn’t get reception on our phones, we just set a time for him to come get us. When we got upstairs, I found a voicemail on my phone, called up my cousin, and his girlfriend told us he got sick and felt like throwing up, so he went to bed and hoped we’d be okay to find a ride home. If no one was going in our direction, she had the number for a taxi ready for us… In the end, johpan and I took a $30 cab ride to our cousin’s place (a different one from the one who was driving us) in Beverly Hills.

And that ended our very full Morning Musume filled Day 2 at Anime Expo.

Coming up will be Day 3… And AUTOGRAPH STORIES!! ^_^ Stay tuned.