.The chronicles of Dr. Shades's incredible PERFUME experiences, Part II of IV:THE CONCERTOr, further revelations regarding Perfume's popularityOnce my ticket was scanned, I
sprinted to the front of the stage, as did everyone else. Alas, there was a chest-high solid-metal fence in front of it so that technical crew could walk back and forth unimpeded, so it was impossible for anyone to be directly adjacent to the stage. The floor was true general admission--standing room only--and although I wasn't in the first row, I was fortunately in the second row,
i.e. one person away from the fence.
For the first time ever, they had an opening act. Apparently a member of OK GO!, an American group
with whom Perfume collaborated on a song, sponsors or created a side group called Xia Xia Technique and called in a favor, asking Perfume to give them some exposure. So they played from 7:15 to 7:45 or so. Perfume wasn't due to get on stage until 8:00 anyway, so it was okay. Xia Xia Technique's two members reminded me of the old band Devo and had a minimalistic, primarily bass style. I'll probably look them up and listen again.
Once they were done, I took a photo of the people behind me:
People here have complained that Perfume's music must only appeal to pre-teen girls, but as you can see from the photo there's not a minor in sight. It's a regular cross-section of humanity. Take
that, haters! You can also clearly see that the venue is sold out (no suprise there).
I then started talking to the guy standing to my immediate left, a guy named James (now a Facebook friend) who'd flown in from Oklahoma, beginning by saying something like, "Oh man, my heart is beating out of my chest! I can hardly believe this!" He told me that he's seen multiple Perfume concerts, but even
he still feels the adrenaline start flowing prior to each concert. Over the ensuing conversation he taught me two surprising things:
First, many Japanese fans consider the much, much smaller concerts overseas to be actually
superior to the enormous productions inside Japan itself. This is (again) for two reasons: First, among those fans in Japan who win the fan club lottery, it's nearly impossible to get the best seats, no matter how much money one is willing to pony up. This is because the very second that tickets become available, tens of thousands of people are at their computers, clicking like mad to be among the first to buy them. So, by the time you finally get in--however many seconds later--all the best spots are already gone. In America, however, anyone can get a ticket--no fan club or lottery necessary--and if you're willing to get in line early enough you have a good chance of getting respectably close to the stage. Second, in Japan, with so many concert-goers to please there are typically three sub-stages branching out from the main stage--you can see this clearly in many of their YouTube videos--so each girl can get closer to more audience members, and they switch off at intervals. So even if you're lucky enough to be close to one of them, the other two are still way off in the distance. In the United States, on the other hand, since they play at far, far smaller venues, they must by necessity scale down quite a bit and therefore perform on a single stage. Thus you can conceivably be close to all three of them at once or otherwise have all of them in your field of vision at the same time.
The other thing James taught me is that most of the people in the front all know each other, if not by name, then at least by face. How is this possible? It's because
many people buy tickets to literally EVERY NORTH AMERICAN SHOW and follow Perfume all around the country--and around the continent, if you count Canada--attending every single one. So they all get to know each other to some extent or other.
Now, referring back to the information contained two paragraphs before this one--that of smaller overseas concerts being superior to larger domestic ones--a good deal of Japanese people "put their money where their mouth is" by flying all the way in from
Japan itself to attend the concerts here. Not only that, but plenty of people outside of Japan have also noticed this "smaller is better" phenomenon, and similarly fly in from
all over the world. I was already aware that some people had come in from Mexico. James pointed out a guy in front of him and to the left and informed me that he had flown in all the way from
Singapore to attend this concert. (That guy heard us talking and jokingly added, "And also to eat Chipotle!") Remember the guy to whom I referred in the original post who was giving out face cards so we could prove our places in line? He was a couple of people to the left of the dude from Singapore. James pointed him out and informed me that he had flown in from
Switzerland and was attending every North American show.
So, yeah, you all may think I'm a Perfumaniac, but hopefully you can now see that among Perfume fans, I'm actually quite a lightweight, barely deserving of notice.
Then the lights went down and the cheering erupted. To create a 3-D effect, there was a cloth screen at the front of the stage, and the prelude "movie" was played on it, while another set of accompanying graphics were played on the back wall behind the stage. Three mobile screens were placed mid-stage, and near the end of the prelude you could see, through the cloth screen, A-chan, Kashiyuka, and Nocchi walking in and taking their positions. I was in a state of near-disbelief, 'cause after discovering this band sometime in August 2016, and loving both them and their music so dearly and deeply throughout the intervening two-and-a-half-plus years, I was
finally seeing them, in person, with my own two eyes!
Then the concert started in earnest. To get a very good idea of what it was like,
click here and skip ahead to the 10:32 mark. Yes, it's the Coachella live feed recording, but that's the part at which they begin performing the same song that they opened with at my concert. The rest of it is quite similar to what we all experienced in San Jose.
Just as Res Ipsa described, the bass was PUMPIN'. One could easily feel it into one's chest and lungs. I guess I was close enough to the stage that it didn't drown out the music itself, so that was nice. I'm a fan of bass, and it doesn't really come across in YouTube videos, so this was an enormous bonus for me.
After a number of songs, they started talking to the audience, just like they do at every concert. When they reached the limits of their English ability, they asked for a volunteer to translate. If you've been following my updates, you'll know that I really, REALLY wanted to be the one chosen to translate for them, so much so that I bought that long-sleeved flourescent yellow shirt that you saw in the opening post specifically to stand out from the crowd and hopefully be noticed by them more easily. Kashiyuka and Nocchi did the choosing, and although they scanned over me a couple of times, I don't think they made eye contact with me. All the while I was screaming, in Japanese, things like "I can translate!" and "I can speak Japanese!" Others around me heard this and kindly started pointing me out.
Alas, however, I wasn't the one chosen. Although they try to pick native-born people, they went with an obviously Asian woman for whom English wasn't her native language. Remember the two guys flanking me in the photo opening post? Well, they were directly on either side of the woman translating.
Perfume talked about purposefully avoiding shopping on this tour up until then so that they wouldn't have so much stuff to haul home. But the day before, the dam burst and they couldn't restrain themselves anymore. A-chan was debating whether to buy a certain lipstick, but then Nocchi walked up with about six tubes of it. A-chan said, "Her lips aren't that big, are they? Why so much make-up for such a small face?"
After that fun segment, the concert continued in earnest. Most likely as a courtesy to the people behind us, we had all been heavily instructed/encouraged to not use our phones, especially not to record or live stream on pain of being ejected. Although most people complied, I knew I had to take at least a couple of photos surreptitiously for memory's sake or else I'd regret it forever. Here's the first one, taken from just over chest height so as not to be in the way of anyone behind me:
From left to right we have Kashiyuka, A-chan, and Nocchi. They're in the same order in this next photo, too:
So, which specific songs did they perform? Their setlist, in its proper order and along with the corresponding clickable music videos, is up at
this website. I was very fortunate in that they performed "Secret Secret," probably my second favorite of theirs. They also performed "Butterfly," another one that's among my personal top five or thereabouts.
Knowing how much of a fan I am, you can probably imagine how much I enjoyed the whole show. Let me tell you, seeing them live is a very, very far cry from seeing them in a YouTube video. All the tightly-choreographed dance moves being performed with laser-like precision was far more impressive in person. From beginning to end, seeing them live, and not on YouTube, was more than just a dream come true, it was like being in a dream itself. Even though I was actively seeing it, I was only barely believing it.
After about an hour and a half, just like all other things it came to an end.
END OF PART II (What's this? A cherry on top is still on the way?)
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"
--Louis Midgley