Because I am in the middle of mid-terms I've had to dedicate most of today to study so I just haven't had the time to write a full report. But I feel bad about making people wait (I know I need to respond to comments as well, but I have read them all and appreciate every one of them) so I've decided to do what I've done in the past and write a report in parts, updating the one post every time I finish the next piece of it. Hopefully I'll finish before I go to bed tonight.
As I ended up with standing tickets I didn't get into the venue until about 20-15 minutes before the concert began. But I did find a good spot behind all the seats on the 1st floor of seats (the arena section for Yokohama Arena) that gave me a view of the stage with the big stage area for the band the farthest away from me being on the direct other side of where I was. And as this was right next to the cameras at the arena there was no hope of taking a quick photo of the stage with my cell phone.
I think I did a pretty job with describing the stage with the highlights report, but as there are a couple things I want to add I'm going to copy and paste it and just add those things in to it.
First off, the staging for the concert had the arena full all 360 degrees in the arena (1st floor) and 2nd floor levels and then the center area around the actual stage had seats in four sections with stage tracks dividing them. So the stage was more or less cross shaped, with a big circle stage area in the middle and one of the sides had an another stage where the band (FiVe) and back singers were. On the ceiling there were four large disco balls with some kind of cone-ish looking decoration piece above them and around the rope/chord the balls were hanging from. Each was above a section of the center seating area. There was a huge piece that sat on the middle stage section that could be moved up and down. It had a large screen on each of its four sides, though at one point you could see into it, as the center was hollow. Lots of other moving set pieces on the stage, usually a floor panel that went up or down. And then there were two carts, one for each side, that were used to go around and through the crowd in the center area. Also there were four big screens near the ceiling that for the most part were reserved for the live footage of the concert for those, like me, who couldn't see Yamapi close up. And of course those also has the song lyrics as well.
When the concert started up there was an intro music piece and pretty much a mini laser light show. That center piece that was sitting in the center stage was raised up and so did a ring of the middle stage. Out from that ring came Yamapi going up on the center floor piece that was risen. Then Yamapi began his first number, Gomen ne, Juliet, and I believe the Juniors back dancing for him came out for this song as they were there for the first few songs. During the song he rode the carts in the center area once each. The song was followed by Yubiwa which I actually don't remember much about other than I began to recognize that it was Mis Snow Man back dancing for him at this point.
For MOLA the Juniors went off stage as the non-Johnny's dancers came on. On the screens of the center piece the PV from the NEWS DVD for the song played on it and the performance on stage pretty much mirrored the dance moves of the PV. It also kicked off the run of dance songs that didn't stop until his short MC.
The next song was I love you baby, which I didn't recognize and it didn't help that it was the only song that did not have subtitles on the screen for it. But at least I could tell he was singing in English for the song, though I couldn't understand all of the words.
Run From You had a part where he was dancing on the middle stage and what looked like colored flames (green for the most part) came out from around the stage. I say looked like because I didn't feel any heat, though later when it was definitely fire coming out around the stage I could feel the heat from those. So I'm not sure if it was a different kind of flame or some other effect but it looked great.
Also by this song I began to notice he was sweating, which wasn't too surprising as it was a surprisingly warm day that day compared to the colder weather it has been. (It was about 16C that day but most days recently it's been 8C.) I also happened to glance up on the screens with the lyric subtitles (different songs had different colored subtitles, BTW) and noticed a misspelling with 'finding' as 'fiending' so I payed a bit more attention and of course noticed the 'Its the way you still infect' and couldn't help but think the one writing the subtitles must have messed up the words. But I checked the lyric booklet when I got home and those mistakes are in there, which makes this song rather unintentionally humorous for me to think that Yamapi is singing a song about being obsessed with a girl that is giving him diseases. Though it definitely gives him a good reason to be running from her. XD
He also decided to skip a couple lines of the song, and since there was no voice when he did so I believe it's safe to assume he wasn't lip synching this song at least.
Crush on you rounded out the final dance heavy songs for this part of the concert. I don't think much about it stood out from the other songs he performed though it came off as another solid performance from him like all the songs had been so far. Though I want to say that a couple members of FiVe walked down to the center stage for this song, though it could have been Run From You instead, but either case it happened during either one of these songs.
After he finished with Crush on you he took a quick MC break. Didn't say much but sounded winded as he made his way to the stage with the band. He introduced his next song, Aoi, and all the lights turned blue as he sung the song. Honestly I think he should have taken a bit more time with the MC as I thought he didn't sound so good vocally on this song. It wasn't horrid but it felt like he was struggling a bit through it, which I blame on being short of breath from all the dancing before.
I can't believe I didn't recognize Love Song, though I knew it was a familiar song, but I just don't like how it sounds on the Touch album so I don't listen to it much. That being said, even though he was still struggling a bit vocally (there was a high note he tried to slid up to but it didn't sound like he made it at one point) I enjoyed the live, solo version of the song better. Durning this song he went from one side of the band stage to the other, walking on the sides of the seating area there.
After that he introduced FiVe and left the stage as they sang their song. I used to have mp3s of a few of their songs from when they performed still on Shounen Club and the song was defintiely one of those songs, so while I don't know the name myself I believe I can safely say it was one of their older songs. But I thought it was really nice that they got to be featured a bit at the concert and even got some lighting effects for their number. The four screen center piece even had special visuals for them with the lyrics being shown and special font.
After the performance there is a long introduction for the next song SNOW EXPRESS, with the screens showing graphics of snowflakes. Those disco balls I was talking about were moving up and down during this intro and what looked like one huge disco ball (the lights weren't on the stage yet) descended. Then as the song started up the spotlight lit up that ball and Yamapi was seen standing in it. It kinda looked like a cage ball, but there was a camera inside that gave us shots of Yamapi in it from a top angle. During the song the outside of the ball began spinning, about the same time rainbow colored lights shown around it, and then a bit later the middle part Yamapi was descended on its own. All through this there was fake snow that fell from the ceiling onto the stage and at the end of the number Yamapi was back on the stage.
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