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himitsuruFor White I had made an uchiwa but wasn't lucky enough to get spotted. For Quartetto in Fukuoka I only managed to bring along the one I made for the Arashi Japonism tour. With work and all
I had a bunch of uchiwa ideas swirling in my head days before, but they all ended up forgotten the moment I decided to make an uchiwa for real ("Massu, you have a character though!" being one of them inspired from Hen Rabo's fourth episode). All I remember was a friend's uchiwa from last year about NEWS as strawberries... so I kind of stole that idea and started drawing a huge strawberry. And so this happened.
It was raining in Hiroshima, so as you can imagine it was quite a bit of a burden trying to bring an umbrella along with the luggage. Didn't help that the coin lockers were all full thanks to tourists + fangirls. Even with the rain, most of the fans still managed to put effort into their concert attire! And reasoning out that we were supposed to be really quite close, my friend handed me two more uchiwas with マ and ス on them (they were part of a four-uchiwa message that spelt out テゴマス), plus a pair of sunglasses with the same kana letters.
We got into the venue around 20 or so minutes before the concert started, and to our amazement we were only four rows from the main stage! Armed with now four uchiwas held back-to-back マス pair, my strawberry one, and Massu's Quartetto uchiwa), we awaited the show.
The setlist is still the same as the one for Fukuoka. I won't be giving a lot of detail here, as most of them were already in my Fukuoka concert report. Most of the new details are found in this show's MC. Please take this report with a grain of salt, as always.
Opening spiel
They started a little late, so we were all wondering what happened... But I guess the delay wasn't really that bad.
I was able to see the juniors more clearly this time! It was quite moving to see them doing the clapping / stomping sequences right in front of you - and for some reason, I found myself wondering what would have happened if one of them messed up the rhythm. Yes, I'm bad, I know. XD
01 QUARTETTO
The robe-like costumes had some prints spelling out "Quartetto" on them! Loved how I was able to see the little details this time.
Still found myself a little bit worried over the live rendition of this song, especially Koyashige's part (and Massu, occasionally). They're not cringe-level, but I reckon the dance parts and those costumes were making it worse for them.
02 ANTHEM
03 Chankapaana
04 Kibou ~Yell~
05 Chumu Chumu
06 KAGUYA
07 Taiyou no Namida
08 Happy Birthday
I can't exactly remember how it was for Fukuoka, but I was a little surprised they cut this song short and moved on to Cherish.
09 Cherish
On his way back to the stage (in order to prepare for his solo), Shige walked by us during this song. Everyone in our area went crazy. XD
10 Hoshi no Oujisama
Lmao, the more I watch this solo, the more I found myself thinking that Shige was so smug in doing this solo, to the point of agreeing with my other friend's "he was so pretentious" reaction.
Don't take my word for it though. I kid. Shige's an adorable brat. XD
11 LIS'N
Massu silhouette dancing. I live for it.
12 Touch
13 NEWSKOOL
This song will never fail to make me hyped up. A New Era Will Start, ready or not! No End No Way to Stop Us!
14 Weeeek
Tegoshi messed up his lyrics and substituted them with random hums. XD
15 Departure
Departure had always been my favorite song from the album and the concerts so far, but I never seemed to remember what happened during this song.
Funny thing was, the whole screen seemed like one of those Japanese videos that had netizens' reactions flying swiftly from right to left, except that those "reactions" were actually the lyrics to the song. Not only that, during interludes, NEWS (particularly Koyama) would always chant the "Tiger! Fire! Cyber!" mix. AKB x NEWS combined, lmao.
After Departure, Massu still continued singing the first stanza in acapella, with NEWS looking on exasperatedly, until he came up face-to-face with Koyama, who then sang in return (to the tune of the pre-hook stanza): 終わってない～ (needs clarification)
MC
I had the feeling they put a lot of effort into the MC because of the cameras around.
As usual, my incompetent Japanese got in the way and I couldn't really pick up precisely what they were talking about, so my apologies for this part. As usual, the order of tidbits here is random.
- The first thing Shige did was to berate Tegoshi for forgetting the words to Weeeek, even though it was their last arena show.
- NEWS pointed out that there were a lot of cameras in the venue, and said that perhaps, this show would be made into a DVD since it was the final arena show (depending on how loud we were, probably). Arenas, after all, have a different vibe from dome shows, which, in retrospect, might have also influenced the way they interacted in the MC. This show's MC was quite DVD quality in content. :D
- All four of them at first stood closely together in the middle of the stage, and then Koyashige snuck away quietly and left Tegomasu alone XD ("Tegomasu magnets" they said.)
- On member introductions:
Koyama: Massu deeeesu!
Massu: Masuda Takahisa desu!
Koyama: Shige-chan deeeesu!
Shige: Shige-chan da yo!
Koyama: Keichan deeeesu!
Everyone: Kei-chaaaaan!
Koyama: Soshite, Kinpatsu Tegoshi desu!
Tegoshi: Kin (gold), Gin (silver), Dou (copper) yeah! Kin Tegoshi okay!"
- So all of them (or was it Massu?) got us to cheer out loud, only to be slightly confused on the word "arena". Normally, arena pertains to the large, flat area of the concert venue (mostly the one nearest to the stage), and the area that had seats slowly sloping upwards towards the roof are called the stands. With this definition in mind, it was no wonder that when they called "arena" out, only us in the arena area cheered. Massu was taken back by this.
"Wait, aren't you guys (gesturing at the stands) arena too? I mean, this venue is an area right?"
We all nodded, but...
"Wait, what? You aren't arena? So what are you called?"
Rest of NEWS and us: "Stands."
"Huh? That's confusing."
Yeah, Massu.
"But then again, yeah? This area is an arena (gesturing to the arena), but you guys up there (on the stands) are also considered arena, right? Since it's Hiroshima Green Arena, after all. Oh well."
- There were chants using the members' names! It's the typical "when I say x you say y" kind, but they had to decide what to substitue for x and y. The first volunteer was Shige.
"When I say 'Kato' you say 'Shige'! Kato!"
"Shige!"
"Kato!"
"Shige!"
Next up was Tegoshi, with a really interesting pattern as suggested by Koyashige.
"When I say 'Yu' you say 'Ya'! 'Yu'!"
"Ya!"
"Yu!"
"Ya!"
They poked fun at Koyama, who kept complaining that his name was too long to fit in.
"What the hell do you want me to say? When I say 'Koyama', you say 'Keiichiro'?! It's too long!"
They got him to do at least once, after which we all laughed.
And Massu?? He was happily growling and making random noises instead of making a chant. XD
There were still a lot of other scenes, but it's already beyond me to try recall them all. ><
16 Aikotoba
As usual, NEWS started making their way to the center stage, where the large orgel was already set up, all ready for Ai Kotoba. Small talk here and there, until Tegoshi asked all of us "Minna, Aikotoba ga suki?" (Everyone, do you love Aikotoba?).
We all replied with a loud resounding "Yesssss!"
And then he proceeded talking about Aikotoba, while Koyama got the orgel wound up and ready. He then asked us to sing the next time the orgel starts up the chorus.
Except that, they (mostly Tegoshi) continued fooling around with a lot of chatting and talking that we missed the timing.
Koyama: Aren't we going to start yet? We missed the timing already!
Tegoshi: Haha! Minna, Aikotoba ga suki?
Everyone: Yessss!
This whole routine was repeated for about 3 times, and Koyama (and I as well) got so exasperated that he took the little orgel (the concert good) with him, and walked away from the the other three and the huge orgel.
Just as we thought we were going to start singing for real, Massu burst out:
"WAIT WHAT?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! Why did you-! But it's here- OIIIIII! Even though we made such a huge orgel for this concert's Aikotoba! And now we find out you're using the little one all along!"
With this outburst, NEWS collapsed into fits of laughter and - yup, you guessed it - once again we missed the timing. So Tegoshi had to repeat the whole dialogue sequence, after which we FINALLY got to sing Aikotoba.
-------
Forgot this in the last report, but at the end of Aikotoba they made us do a penlight wave (starting from the stands, ending with arena), told us to turn off our penlights, and then turn it back on, as the orgel made its last faint strains of the song. Tegoshi then rotated the orgel key as fast as he could (kinda like a DJ) and Aikotoba distorts, transitioning to Theme of Quartetto.
17 Theme of "QUARTETTO"
18 Yonjuushi
19 Hoshi wo Mezashite
They sat on the main stage stairs for this song.
20 Ai no Elegy
21 Encore
Tegoshi looked in our direction before this song started!
22 I・ZA・NA・I・ZU・KI
23 Wonder
Wonder! This song was the Byakuya of this tour. :D
NEWS came out dressed in brown costumes (I had the feeling this concert had the most costume changes ever XD), and with effects and fire shooting everywhere, proceeded to perform the song. I personally liked the choreography!
24 Sirius
Hoverboards are so cool :D It extremely pleased me to see them in perfect control from up close!
25 NEWS Nippon
In the Fukuoka shows, NEWS went up to the stands for NEWS Nippon and got on the carts, but not for Hiroshima.
26 Sayaendou
27 Koi no ABO
Not too sure about this part, but I'm pretty sure NEWS were still at the main stage for Koi no ABO since I was waiting for them to mess with Koyama again (to make him miss his usual "You-tachi, nani gata?" introduction). NEWS went up the stands either during Sayaendou, or Teppen.
28 TEPPEN
29 NYARO
30 Hikari no Shizuku
I can't remember exactly which song, but pretty much around the last sections of the main concert, I got a surprise.
Every time a NEWS member walked by, I would show different uchiwas. When Massu walked by, I would show him the マス uchiwa pair. There was one time he looked in my direction (or maybe at me, but I am forever in denial) and I got somehow elated, only to find out that the マ and ス were interchanged and the whole thing read スマ instead. Way to go, me. ._.
When Tegoshi, Shige and Koyama walked by, I showed them my strawberry uchiwa. With the flood of uchiwas, even if they were looking in my direction, I still couldn't say with confidence that they saw my message.
That is, until Koyama walked to the front of the stage and stayed a bit.
Everyone around me were split facing different directions, depending on where their favorite member is, or whoever is the nearest. I decided to appeal to Keichan who was nearest.
So there I was, holding my strawberry uchiwa, trying to smile full blast, and calling "Keichan, Keichan" reaaaaaaaally softly (I had lost most of my voice by this time and fatigue was slowly creeping up on me), but gradually I blanked out and my thoughts were somewhere. I didn't realize I was still holding, smiling, and calling on automatic mode - until, by some divine force, I got dragged back to reality and I found Koyama looking at me.
He was looking at me in a half-solemn kind of way, smiling with one of his gentle smiles, and waved.
Obviously I was taken aback, and still stunned, turned to look at my friend, mouthing, ".... Me?"
And she said, "Yes you, lucky you, he looked at you!"
I am still in denial, but I hope I wasn't hallucinating. XD
Encore
31 ONE -for the win-
When the curtains pulled up again for the encore, on the screen there was a four-line staff with the Quartetto clef on the left.
A music note began making its way from the right side of the screen, and made a huge clapping beat / sound as it aligned with the Quartetto clef. Gradually more and more music notes began appearing, eliciting successive claps from us in four distinct rhythms.
As the encore intro finished, out came NEWS wearing the concert tshirts, bandanas, and in Massu's case, the concert towel.
32 Sakura Girl
広い心のシマシマまっすー (Hiroi kokoro no shima shima Massu) was written on Massu's palm.
33 Koi Matsuri
As usual they ended the concert with speeches, but most notable was Koyama giving us all strength to face work the next day, and in the days to come, until we see them again in the same place (concerts).
Streamers again! I was only able to get two, but on the way out we were able to snag a couple more. Planned to give them to my friends in Tokyo, since we had really bad seats and we don't think we'll be able to snag streamers there.
The concert closed with the NEWS Quartetto tour logo on a music staff, and with the word "Fin" in the bottom right.
Same with the other prior shows, NEWS didn't have a double encore for Hiroshima as well. It made me think how it would go for the dome, and if there is a slim chance the dome would have a bigger surprise in store. Unlike White which had the exclusive preview of their then-to-be-released Chumu Chumu single, Quartetto doesn't have a single announcement (yet) that would increase the chances of a double encore. Still, them filming the final arena show gives me hope that perhaps, they will do things differently in the dome (kind of like Arashi's Dome vs Kokuritsu for the Scene tour). I know I shouldn't expect, but I want to believe! We'll see how it goes next week! :D
