Dreams Come True: Vancouver Tour Comments

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edleylamar
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Dreams Come True: Vancouver Tour Comments

Post by edleylamar » Tue Oct 22, 2002 1:46 am

Hi everyone. This is my first post to this forum.

I might was well add my comments to make this a full review of DCT's West Coast tour.

============================================

The Vancouver stop was the last stop of a short West Coast tour for Japanese super group Dreams Come True (DCT).

Here are my comments.

I arrived at the Orpheum theatre with my wife, and two friends about 40 mins before the 9pm show start. My wife and one of my friends was a willing attendees but I kinda dragged along my other friend by offering to pay for his ticket. There were two long lines pointing in two different directions to each of the two main theatre entrances. One line was for people with backpacks that had to be checked in, while the other lineup was for those who were unencumbered. They also searched bags and checked anyone wearing long and bukly clothing. It certainly looks like they were pretty serious about not letting any recorders or cameras into the theatre although I did see the occasional flash go off during the concert.

The line moved pretty quickly and we got in and sat down on the lower orchestra row 21, The Orpheum Theatre is divied into three main sections: lower orchestra, dress circle and balcony. The theatre itself seats over 2700 people, and I would say that this concert was around 95% sold out. I said hi to a couple of friends I spotted a few rows away during our wait for the start of the concernt. Looking at the audience composition, it looks like there were a large number of English Language exchange students, many of them female. A rough guess for the audience age range would be 80% was under the age of 30. I was probably one of the oldest guys there :oops: (I'm in my late 30's btw).

The lights dimmed at 8:00, the audience clapped and cheered. Out into the spotlight walked...huh? It was the opening act named Bob Kallin, a local folk rocker. He joked about his reception by the audience and sang a couple of songs. I wasn't too interested in his act, and both of friends were bored stiff. It seems like a lot of the audience was too because they talked through out his performance.

Finally, he finished at around 8:30. But the concert still hasn't started yet. The lights went up and the roadies continued to set up and test equipment. Finally at 9:00, the lights dimmed again and finally Miwa and Massa walked on the stage. The excitement and applause was pretty loud. Miwa and Masa made some funny comments about their tour and their English skills, with Miwa calling us here "Vancouver Babies" :lol: . Masa also commented that this was their biggest audience yet on their West Coast tour. I'd say the Vancouver stop had a pretty good turn out considering that DCT sells out stadium size venues in Japan.

I'm not that familiar with the DCT reprotoire but it looks like it followed the playlist from another review in this forum.

There was lead singer Miwa, bassist Masa, a lead guitarest, keyboards and drums. I have to say that Miwa certainly has a pretty good vocal range and was a lot of fun to watch on stage. She certainly did a lot of moving around and dancing with the music along with waving and blowing kisses to the audience. I thoroughy enjoyed the songs although there were some sound balancing problems that made hearing some of the vocals a bit difficult. Some of DCT's tunes must of been signature songs because when Miwa pointed her mike towards the audience, most of them were able to sing along. When they did the Encore 1 song (Ai Suru Kororo), the cheers and clapping was absolutely deafening. I would have to say the level of energy and enthusiasm of the concert was incredible because "WE STOOD UP THE ENTIRE TIME"!!!!!. That's right; for 1 hour and 45 minutes, the entire audience in the theatre was standing, swaying, humming and clapping to the music. As far as I can tell, no one wanted to sit down. I dunno if this is typical with Japanese audiences standing like this for a long time because my knees certainly didn't quite agree with it <ouch>. At the end of the concert, a number of audience members gave her bouquets of sunflowers. I assume it must be her favorite flower.

Overall, my a wife and I along with one of my friends thoroughly enjoyed the concert. The friend I dragged to concert didn't agree with us, calling the performance rather artificial.

As a side note, they were also filming at this concert, On the way into the theatre, I spotted a notice taped to a door saying that they are filming a concert video called "DCT - West Coast Mix 2002" and that audience members will be filmed. Cool!! I guess I should keep an eye out on the CD Japan web page (www.cdjapan.co.jp) for an upcoming an DCT concert DVD.

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tachikaze
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Post by tachikaze » Tue Oct 22, 2002 2:08 pm

Sunflowers first appeared on their 1993 Magic CD cover. Doing a quick search for himawari & Yoshida Miwa on google.co.jp indicates they are her favorite flower, too.

Miwa's act on stage is a lot different from her normal speaking voice (for that, you can catch DCT's short DORIRA segment on the dctgarden.com site (it's off the DCT RADIO link). I did wish she had spoken just a bit more in English at the show, that would have been much more natural. I think the more 'nervous' she gets the more 'artificial' (like the old Cyndi Lauper) she becomes; seeing her interviewed briefly on a Japanese music TV show last year was pretty annoying, actually, with her cloying innocent voicing.

One thing that is somewhat counterintuitive, the further the audience is back the less stage-nervous you get. At the Fillmore there were no bouncers in front, so the audience standing in front could almost read the setlists taped on the floor... now *that's* close...

edleylamar
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Post by edleylamar » Wed Oct 23, 2002 2:04 am

<Miwa's act on stage is a lot different from her normal speaking voice (for that, you can catch DCT's short DORIRA segment on the dctgarden.com site (it's off the DCT RADIO link). I did wish she had spoken just a bit more in English at the show, that would have been much more natural.>

I guess Miwa isn't as comfortable speaking in English as much as Masa was. Which is too bad.

< think the more 'nervous' she gets the more 'artificial' (like the old Cyndi Lauper) she becomes; seeing her interviewed briefly on a Japanese music TV show last year was pretty annoying, actually, with her cloying innocent voicing.>

I wonder if it a cultural tendancy to do a 'boke' voice in these kind of situations. I've seen the show "Music Station" where they had Alanis Morrisette on. Even though she was a little nervous, she didn't switch her voice pitch didn't go up :wink:

<One thing that is somewhat counterintuitive, the further the audience is back the less stage-nervous you get. At the Fillmore there were no bouncers in front, so the audience standing in front could almost read the setlists taped on the floor... now *that's* close...>

Heh heh. Here in Vancouver, she was up on stage (which is about 3 1/2 feet high) and about 6-7 feet away from the audience, with security walking up and down the aisles. She didn't seem that nervous to me.

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tachikaze
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Post by tachikaze » Wed Oct 23, 2002 3:09 pm

Heh heh. Here in Vancouver, she was up on stage (which is about 3 1/2 feet high) and about 6-7 feet away from the audience, with security walking up and down the aisles. She didn't seem that nervous to me.

'bout the same in SF, with no security -- the Fillmore is a club w/ stage.

http://www.thefillmore.com/images/view/view1.jpg

This is like their 400th show not counting TV appearances so I expect it'd be hard to tell if she really was a bit 'kincho' or not. She didn't go into her really silly voice so she probably wasn't that nervous.

A Japanese attendee whipped out a videocam about halfway thru and started taping right in front of Miwa. I thought this was pretty rude so I tapped her on the back and made the 'dame' sign. Gotta protect our Miwa!

ricekid
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Post by ricekid » Mon Jan 27, 2003 7:46 am

Wow...it was at the Orpheum? I remember going on a school trip there a few years ago...much larger venue than most of them on the US mix tour...
Hara hara...

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sdankoehler
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Nervous?

Post by sdankoehler » Mon Feb 17, 2003 7:28 am

You think she was nervous at the Fillmore? I hope not. There were some of us joking around about how if anyone did anything stupid we'd be on them..."on Miwa's secret service" so-to-speak. :lol: But seriously, I hope we didn't make her nervous in SF. We want them to come back. That place was PACKED! I think the Fillmore is the most fan friendly concert venue on the west coast.

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