Ayumi Hamasaki Concert

One of my Japanese friends is a huge fan of Ayumi Hamasaki. Or rather, AYU-CHAN. He loves her to pieces (vaguely scary, but hey, who am I to talk? *cough*DoctorWho*cough*) and me and two other friends ended up splitting the cost of a ticket (along with her own) and took him to the concert. Ugh, getting anywhere in Japan can be such a hassle. We ended up driving down, but what with express tolls and the horrendous cost of gas, it didn't up all that much cheaper than trains would have.

HOWEVER.

Ayumi's stageshow? Effing awesome! She has a way different speaking voice from her singing voice and it was interesting to listen to her sing old songs with her current voice. When you compare vocals from her new singles against her old ones (circa 2000ish), you can hear a distinct different.

Also, hee, Ayumi was the first Japanese artist I actually really listened to, so it's pretty kickass for me to finish up my three years in Japan with a nice Ayumi concert. ;)

Boy, does she know how to put on a show!

Highlights!

- Gorgeous costumes. Except for the corset. I guess corsets in stage shows are so usual that they're banana. But not really. Gah.

- Hee, a bevy of male dances. I hear they're interchangeable, but she definitely favored one or two above the others.

- I'm assuming she was actually singing rather than lip-syncing. If so, quite good!

- She played Evolution! That, alone, was worth the price of the ticket and travel!

- Found some lovely new songs I hadn't listened to before, including Mirrocle World.

- OMG, AYU FANS ARE HARDCORE. Imagine hundreds of little blue lights turning on at the exact same second and doing the exact same movements.

- I think me and my friends were the only people in the crowd to actually sit back down in our seats for part of the two hour show. Ha.

- Ayumi merchandise is mind-bogglingly expensive. Who pays 3500 yen for a cheap towel?

- The crowd was mostly female, which is a marked difference from the Morning Musume concerts, apparently!

- Seeing it with my friend probably made it a much better experience than it might have been. I like Ayumi Hamasaki a lot, but I'm not a concert person. Like, at all.

And there you have it! I still like Otsuka Ai better, but that's just personal preferences rather than anything else. ;)

*sad*

I suppose the guy makes a bit of sense - the Doctor isn't one for subtlety, but dude. Just because Eccleston didn't have the same big-eyed wonder Tennant does, DOESN'T MEAN HE'S THE WORSE DOCTOR.

Who was the best Who?

Well. I guess I'm a bit guilty of that myself. It took me a bit of time to get over Tennant taking Eccleston's role and I still sometimes have the occasional guilty thought creep in about how Nine would have done it this way or Oh, Nine wouldn't have said that. But they're both their own Doctors! One isn't certainly better than the other! They can only be better to you.

Nine and Ten war in my head once in a while, but most of the time now, they're in a peaceful co-existence. Eccelston's Doctor is always going to be my first Doctor and from that alone, he'll probably always be the one I think of when I think of 'Doctor Who'. But seriously. I got into Tennant's Doctor eventually and I love him to bits now. LOVE HIM TO BITS.

Okay.

Obviously, I'm going a bit mad here.