February 23, Nagoya Concert

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jlick
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February 23, Nagoya Concert

Post by jlick » Mon Jan 10, 2005 11:32 am

I'm going to the DCT concert in Nagoya on February 23. Anyone else want to go?

(Date corrected now that I have my ticket.)
Last edited by jlick on Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:05 am, edited 2 times in total.

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tachikaze
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Post by tachikaze » Mon Jan 10, 2005 8:02 pm

yeah, I want to go but Feb is right out...

Like many people here I can give you touristy advice if you'd like.

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Post by jlick » Tue Jan 11, 2005 10:18 am

I might not have a lot of time for tourism. I'm going to a conference in Kyoto that week and it just works out that I have time to go up to Nagoya for the day on the 22nd for the concert. Last time I saw DCT it was pretty lucky too, just happened to be coming to San Francisco the day before. Jetlagged like hell though. ^_^

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Post by tachikaze » Wed Jan 12, 2005 7:22 pm

... feb is frickin' cold in Kyoto but the shinkansen to Nagoya is always a fun ride.

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Post by jlick » Thu Jan 27, 2005 10:47 am

Oops, turns out that my friend in Tokyo could only get a ticket for February 23, so for everyone planning to go with me, change your plans to the 23rd.

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Post by jlick » Fri Feb 11, 2005 9:28 am

Anyone know how long the concerts in the current tour last? For the one I'm going to it shows opening time at 5:15pm and starting time at 6:30pm (at least if the Chinese meaning for those characters is the same). There's also an opening act by Naomi Yoshimura. The reason I ask is because the latest I can leave to get back to Kyoto that night is at about 10:20pm, so if it's gonna last longer I'll have to find a place to stay in Nagoya that night.

By the way, some useful links for the Nagoya Rainbow Hall concerts in case I can convince any of you to go:

Rainbow Hall area map: Japanese or English
Train schedule/fare search: English (Destination is Kasadera)

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Post by jlick » Sun Feb 27, 2005 7:35 pm

From: http://www.livejournal.com/users/jlick/15555.html

Dreams Come True in Nagoya
(February 23)

You may have already figured out that my favorite Japanese band is Dreams Come True, so when I heard they would be on tour the same time I would be in Japan for APRICOT 2005, I knew I had to try to go see them. Fortunately they were playing two nights in Nagoya, just one stop down on the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) from where I'd be in Kyoto. I asked a friend of my sister-in-law who has a restaurant in Tokyo to buy a ticket for me, and he was happy to help me out.

I left Kyoto WAY early in case I had any trouble, but getting there actually worked out not too bad. I took the subway from the hotel to Kyoto Station, managed to buy a Shinkansen ticket to Nagoya even though the machine I used was Japanese only, walked out to the platform and was on my way to Nagoya minutes later.

This was my first Shinkansen experience, so it was quite something. The ride is very smooth, but you literally see the buildings blur as you go by, it's so fast. Kyoto to Nagoya is about the same as Kyoto to Kansai Airport, but whereas the latter traditional train takes almost two hours, the Shinkansen takes only 36 minutes. And they run trains every 15 minutes from dawn until midnight. Quite impressive.

At Nagoya station I asked how to get to Kasadera station and was pointed the right way and about 15 minutes later had arrived just a short walk from the Rainbow Hall where the concert would play. I had only bought a ticket through to Nagoya, so I stopped by the Fare Adjustment machine to pay for my trip to Kasadera too. If you're ever unsure how much to pay for a subway or local train in Japan, just buy the minimum ticket and when you get to your destination look for the Fare Adjustment machine, stick in your ticket and it'll tell you how much more you need to pay. (You have to get special tickets for Express trains and Shinkansen though.)

Unfortunately I had arrived WAY early because I didn't have any trouble on the way. And doubly unfortunate, there's hardly anything in the area. I walked around the side where the Rainbow Hall is and there was just that, a sports complex, and a school, and not much else. Eventually looping around to the other side of the train station I found a few small restaurants, but they all opened around 5:30 or so, after the concert opening time. I found a small CD store and browsed around a while and also picked up a copy of the new Dreams Come True single, "Nanda Demo".

Then I found a small coffee shop and decided to get some snack there and hang out until the concert. But first I went back into the train station to buy my return ticket to Nagoya station. If you ever go to a big event in Japan, always get your return ticket in advance, because the ticket machines are often mobbed as everyone leaves at once.

Back at the coffee shop, I bought my quarterly cup of coffee (I don't drink coffee very much, but I didn't really feel like drinking tea) and a slice of cake. Since doors opened at 5:15, I got up at about 5:00 to pay my bill and noticed that two other tables also got up and left right about the same time. Sure enough, they also headed to the concert too.

Outside the hall they had a souvenir stand set up. I bought a CD of the opening act, Naomi Yoshimura, her new one called Aphrodite. I figured I'd give her a listen. Also long time backup vocalist for DCT, Rinko Urashima also had a CD for sale so picked up that too.

Queued up just a few minutes before doors opened and walked into the arena to find my seat. I was so intent on finding the seat that I hadn't taken a look around until I sat down and realized how good a seat it was. It was in the balcony section just above and to the right of the stage. About the only better seat would have been a few rows further down.

Still, it was a pretty big difference from the last time I saw Dreams Come True. That time was in the Fillmore in San Francisco in October 2002. The Fillmore only holds maybe a couple of hundred people, and that time I was maybe 6 feet from the stage. In Nagoya they were playing to several thousand people and my seat would have been further back than being at the back of the hall at the Fillmore. Still, in relative terms it was a great seat.

Next the the seat was a set of flyers for Dreams Come True, Naomi Yoshimura and some other stuff. Also included was a Dreams Come True tour postcard. Before the concert they played short videos advertising JAL trips to Hokkaido, the new Nando Demo single, and the new Ameretto movie made by Dreams Come True.

At around 6pm Naomi Yoshimura came out and did a three song 15 minute opening act. She was pretty good, but I haven't listened to her stuff so don't really know her. After this they played the new video for Nanda Demo.

Then at about 6:45 (15 minutes late -- gasp!), the lights went down and the band begins to play. backup singer Rinko Urashima was there, but I wasn't really familiar with the other band players this time. No David T. Walker, unfortunately.

Masa wore a mariachi type outfit with ruffles on his shirt and purple pants with black stripes down the side. Miwa's first outfit was a pink blouse with pink ruffled skirt and knee-high leg warmers. Later she changed to a puffy pink blouse and long grey pants with a sash. Final outfit a long knee-length yellow-gold silk jacket over white tank top with some kind of jeweled design on it and a ribboned skirt and white hat. The hat and jacket went off pretty soon though.

The stage was designed to look like the top part of a standard brilliant cut diamond with lighted lines to represent the facets. Above the stage were a set of pinkish diamonds hanging above. The stage had a walkway coming up from the rear with part of the band on one side and part on the other, and a raised section above the rear of the stage with stairways up to it from both sides. Band consisted of, Sax, Horn, Drums, Sequencer, Keyboards, Guitar, Rap backing vocalist and female backing vocalist (Rinko), plus there were two dancers. Miwa or Masa introduced each of them at least twice, but I wasn't taking notes, and I really don't remember.

I don't remember the whole playlist, and frankly I suck at remembering song titles. Still, most of the songs were from Diamond 15 until the later part of the performance when they added in some older songs. The ones with best crowd reaction were Hajimari No La, Olá! Vitória!, Winter Song, and Nanda Demo. During one song one of the diamonds above the stage descended and Miwa hopped aboard and it rose up and she sang the song from atop the diamond.

During a break for Miwa, Masa and Rinko and the two dancers played some audience participation games. The first one was where the audience was divided in half and the dancers made up these complicated dances that each side of the audience had to do to see which was better. Then they had a singing contest singing a little song "Hi no ji. Hi hi no ji. Hi hi no ji. Hi no hi no ji." where they had the contest between the women and men. Since there wasn't that many men, the women won that one quite easily.

When Miwa came back out she rose up on a platform to the rear elevated part of the stage with the two dancers carrying Dreams Come True flags. In front of here were three large Japanese style drums and she started out playing the drums for the next song. Unfortunately the mike on the center drum got loose and fell down on top of the drum making a horrible sound. Miwa calmly paused and fixed the mike back onto the mike stand while a stagehand ran up only to find that she'd already fixed it herself. Then she waved the flag wavers back and then mimed coming up the raised platform again and started over. Quite a bit more strength under fire than say... Ashlee Simpson.

After a somewhat long intermission, they played another segment from Ameretto and the segued to the real Dreams Come True walking back onto the stage, except this time they popped out on the floor in the back of the arena and walked to a small stage in the rear part and played one song just Miwa and Masa. When down they walked around and through the arena floor back to the main stage. While they did have a few security guys, it's still pretty impressive that they trust the fans enough to do this.

Then they played Mirai O Tabisuru Harmony with a local Nagoya girls school choir as backup. And finally the closed with the new single Nando Demo, ending at just about 9:30. Overall, a very impressive show, and I'm only disappointed they didn't do Mirai Yosozu II.

Since my seat also happened to be right by the exit, and the exit happened to be the one closest to the exit, I was able to get out right at the end and was with the head of the crowd rushing to get to the train station. I was originally planning to stop by the BellMart convenience store next to the train station for a bento to eat on the Shinkansen back to Nagoya, but since I was near the front of the crowd I figured it would be better to just get on the train and buy something at Nagoya station when transferring.

Unfortunately that was mistake number one of the journey home. When I got to Nagoya station, all the shops were locked up tight for the evening. Second mistake was buying my return ticket. The ticket machine had English capability, and for some reason it was more confusing than the Japanese machine in Kyoto (probably because I triple checked everything I did when I was doing it in Japanese), so I ended up getting just a fare ticket instead of a fare seat ticket, so I had to go up to the ticket window and get the correct ticket. And once on the train even the food cart didn't have any more bentos, so I just had some Ice Cream.

Once back in Kyoto Station, I found a shop open and bought a pork chop bento, mandarin orange jello (mmm, my favorite), and an old fashion donut. After that I headed for the Subway and realized my third mistake. The Shinkansen has special tickets, so you need to exit the Shinkansen part of the station and then exit again through the regular Japan Rail gates. For some reason I had completely spaced out and forgot to collect my tickets again after leaving the Shinkansen gates. I went up to the gate attendants and tried explaining it, and he just waved me through the special gate. I guess dumb foreigners make that mistake a lot.

The rest of the trip back went smoothly, though it was really quite remarkable to make the trip there with no problems only to have all the problems on the way back. Curiously as I got closer to the hotel, a stray cat ran across the road to greet me and then followed me almost back to the hotel door. I guess he smelled pork chop or something. Finally got in at around 11pm and was finally able to eat dinner.

All in all a great trip and great concert. I hope to do it again someday.

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Post by Jei » Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:48 am

Thanks so much for the review, Jim!
Sounds like it was a blast :)
(brought back some memories of my trip to the Shiga concerts....^^)
jlick wrote: If you're ever unsure how much to pay for a subway or local train in Japan, just buy the minimum ticket and when you get to your destination look for the Fare Adjustment machine, stick in your ticket and it'll tell you how much more you need to pay.
And if don't worry...if you forget, the automated doors will come up and wont let you out of the station...big reminder ^^
Outside the hall they had a souvenir stand set up. I bought a CD of the opening act, Naomi Yoshimura, her new one called Aphrodite. I figured I'd give her a listen. Also long time backup vocalist for DCT, Rinko Urashima also had a CD for sale so picked up that too.
Naomi used to be a backup vocalist for DCT too. She's actually been getting some decent play on some charts. Good to finally see a DCT records product getting out there.

How's Rin's CD? ^^
the new Ameretto movie made by Dreams Come True.
How was that? ^^
Band consisted of, Sax, Horn, Drums, Sequencer, Keyboards, Guitar, Rap backing vocalist and female backing vocalist (Rinko), plus there were two dancers.
Yes! The brass is back! :)
Then they played Mirai O Tabisuru Harmony with a local Nagoya girls school choir as backup.
That's pretty cool ^^
I heard in the other Nagoya concert, the popular hip-hip band, NobodyKnows+ (who are from Nagoya) performed with them ^^
For some reason I had completely spaced out and forgot to collect my tickets again after leaving the Shinkansen gates. I went up to the gate attendants and tried explaining it, and he just waved me through the special gate. I guess dumb foreigners make that mistake a lot.
Had the same experience when I was heading from the Shinkansen station in Tokyo to the train that takes you to the Narita airport. Couldn't find both of my tickets and was severly sweating it...they just waved me on by ^^

Thanks again for the report!
-Jay
DCTJoy.Com - The Joy that is Dreams Come True
http://www.dctjoy.com/

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Post by tachikaze » Tue Mar 01, 2005 10:53 am

GREAT SUMMARY!

That's the thing, after the fillmore show I'm afraid nothing short of a backstage pass is going to compare...

Surprised that you could get good tickets.

Sigh on the m/f ratio...

Toldja the shinkansen was cool -- they don't call it the 'new trunk line' for nothing. And these days all the anti-terrorist kabuki BS at US airports makes trains a lot more time efficient.

I think I miss real Japanese fast food here in the states more than I missed real American fast food in Japan.

As for Miwa being more composed than Ashleigh, I should hope so -- DCT did a LOT of touring in the early days, huge number of shows, not to mention making their own breaks, of course.

Here's the Diamond15 Tour Setlist:

http://oshiete1.goo.ne.jp/kotaeru.php3?q=1224692

Nice little winter them in there:

15.LAT.43°N
16.SNOW DANCE
17.WINTER SONG

Winter Song was my first exposure to the band in late 1993, seeing their english-language video for the song in the theater prior to Sleepless in Seattle... that was the same time their Magic promo billboards went up in Shibuya, making them look like escapees from an ashram.

Nice that they played Kessen I guess, that's their one biggie hit from their breakout period, would like to see them play it. I was FOB in Japan when the song hit #1, too busy getting established to follow pop music or watch TV...

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Post by sdankoehler » Wed Mar 02, 2005 7:05 pm

Yeah, the fillmore was cool, but they've changed a few things at the Fillmore since that show. When I saw Puffy there they had a 3 foot metal barricade between the front row and the stage with a row of security guards to keep people from touching the performers. They got quite annoyed with Puffy reaching their hands out to us. So unless that was just a Puffy thing, I'm guessing the Fillmore isn't even the same experience anymore. Sounds like your seats were awesome!

I have a friend in Kochi, and I thought of going to visit her and seeing their Kochi concert if I had the money. I'm glad I didn't do it! Miwa got sick and the show was postponed to April.

As for me, I was first exposed to DCT through my girlfriend in high school. She had a tape with some songs from Japan on it for me to listen to, and one of them was "Signs of Love" by DCT. Not long after that Sing or Die came out, and after watching the Children of the Sun concert on video I was hooked.

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Post by jlick » Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:28 pm

Despite being incomparable to the Fillmore show, it was still a great concert, and in some ways a big audience can bring up the excitement a lot more.

As for Rinko's CD, I've been travelling a lot, so haven't had a whole lot of time to listen to music. But I think so far I like it better than Naomi Yoshimura's Aphrodite. Rinko's CD is a slower jazzy kind of album, but I think that suits her voice more. I'll have to listen to it a bit more, but I think it's pretty decent.

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Post by jlick » Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:29 pm

Forgot to answer a couple of things. As for Ameretto, I only understand a bit of Japanese, so it was way over my head. It looked like a drama with Miwa pouting or giving tearful exposition, and Masa looking serious and concerned. That's about what I got out of it. :oops:

And tachikaze, what the heck are you complaining about the m/f ratio for. Gave me plenty to look at and there wasn't a line for the men's restrooms. :D

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Post by jlick » Fri Mar 18, 2005 6:01 am

I've had a lot more of a chance to listen to both the Rinko Urashima and Naomi Yoshimura CDs I bought. My initial impression is pretty much been confirmed by repeated listenings.

Naomi Yoshimura - Aphrodite
Pretty run of the mill jpop fare. Vocals are a bit weak at points. I would recommend it only for those that need to buy everything DCT related.

Rinko Urashima - 抱擁
Amazing vocals, and pretty good to very good music. On the slow jazzy side, a couple with a bit of carribean flavor, but probably not suited to those expecting pop. A couple of songs kinda remind me of Akina Nakamori. Overall, a very nice album, highly recommended.

Buy From: Amazon Japan, Amazon US or DCTstore.
(Though available through Amazon US, it is often cheaper to order direct from Amazon Japan, especially if you order multiple items.)

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