Hey! Say! JUMP Winter Concert 2009-2010 6 January 4PM concert report

Okay, after writing down notes I realized I might as well do a full report for the concert today. I probably won't go too far in depth, but we'll see what happens as I write.

First off this was the final concert at Yokohama Arena, and it was the one day Yabu was not able to attend because of his musical. So there was only nine of the ten members there today.

As I was just going for cheap for a ticket I ended up at the back of the venue in the last row of the second floor (which is called the 'stands' for Yokohama Arena). Luckily the venue isn't so big I felt like I was missing out on too much by being so far from the stage, and of course there were screens around the venue that I could look at to see the boys up close. But since I was rather early and so far in the back I took a quick picture of the stage.


The Hey! Say! JUMP lights on the main stage where lifted up to the top of the stage during the concert. Also that back wall of the stage was set up to have rows of Juniors back there, akin to the KAT-TUN Break the Records Tokyo Dome concerts, though with not nearly as many Juniors.

For those interested in the Juniors there the ones acknowledged were Snow Prince Gasshoudan, B.I. Shadow, Nakayama Yuma, Hip Hop Jump (which does seem to be set as a trio of Tanaka Juri, Hagiya Keigo and Jesse Luis), Masuda Ryo, Kishi Takayoshi, Takada Sho, Kyomoto Taiga, Anderson Casey and two others that I just can't remember the names of.

Also about a half hour before as well as ten minutes before the concert began the video of Hip Hop Jump teaching the Romeo & Juliet moves for the audience was shown.

The concert began with Morimoto Shintarou going on stage to do the introduction. I'm pretty sure he was joined by at least another Junior but my mind is a bit hazy about this part right now. But by the time the introduction is done you can see all the Juniors on that back wall and then the stage gets dark and you can hear the Hey! Say! JUMP boys start the show up with Yuuki 100%. When the stage lights go up again they are at the top of the wall, each one has a mini stage that goes up and down the wall that they are on and are lowered to the main stage during the song. Each one has their own color, for the track of lights that the mini stages follow as well as the jackets they are wearing. I only remember the colors for the four members of BEST that were there, Takaki Yuya was light blue (someone from 7 had dark blue), Arioka Daiki was red, Inoo Kei was yellow and Yaotome Hikaru was green. I know Yamada Ryosuke was wearing a silver jacket but I don't think his color for the lights on the stage was the same. I want to say Nakajima Yuuto was purple, but I'm not 100% certain about that.

Hikaru had his bangs tied up like he's done for concerts before. Takaki had his hair tied up in the back. (I thought it looked good like that and hope he ties it up like that more often.) But other than that everyone's hair was pretty much the same as usual.

But back to the concert. Next song was Jounetsu JUMP followed by Your Seed. They used the large moving stage that was located at the far stage (the one closest to where I was) during Your Seed which had them over the center area of the center seating.

At the end of Your Seed they're all on the main stage again but quickly run off stage. The lights dim until all there is on stage one source of light that's coming out of an opening in the stage. Lots of smoke coming out and you can see a group of figures come out and there are loud marching sounds that the boys step in time with. It looks pretty impressive, IMHO. Eventually the lights for the stage go on and it's Hey! Say! 7 on stage with some Juniors. 7 begin their dance and eventually BEST shows up and they switch back and forth for a bit between the two groups dancing. It ends with both groups dancing together and the music launches into Mayonaka no Shadow Boy. And by this time, IIRC, they've done their first outfit change, from white suits minus jackets into black shirts and purple pants.

As Mayonaka no Shadow Boy is performed a giant triangle screen is lowered at the back of the main stage. Partway through the song the screen starts showing footage from Scrap Teacher.

Yamada then gives a quick introduction to Hitomi no Screen and for the performance there are screens from Hidarime Tantei EYE on the triangle screen. Yamada is the only one with solo lines for this song. The verses go Yamada solo -> HS7 -> HSB and then for the chorus they all sing together for it. There was a lot of fire used on the stage during this song.

Chance to Change was the next song. The two groups went down the sides of the stage and stood on what looked like individual rising stages for them. As they are raised they are singing the song a capella and all they have on them is a red light. Once the 'stages' are raised they can be recognized as huge drums. They dance on them for a bit before hopping off to play them with drum sticks. Eventually Juniors come and take over and they all get a chance to show off their dancing. For Ryutarou's bit he dances with Shintarou and they end it with a brotherly hug. And Nakajima gets to tap dance for his turn. After everyone has had their turn they finish off the song and get off the stage.

Shintarou shows up on stage then and there is a little skit/talk between him and the shortest members of HSJ, Chinen, Yamada and Arioka. You don't see the three HSJ members during the talk, but the screens around the main stage instead have silhouettes of each one of them. They end the talk by going into Ookiku na~are Boku, and when that song begins the three are lowered onto the stage from behind the screens by ropes. Shintarou sings with them, though he's almost as tall as Chinen now.

After the song ends the Juniors all get off stage leaving the HSJ trio to do another skit/talk. This time they're talking about their song Romeo & Juliet. They argue about who is Romeo, though it's agreed that the audience is Juliet. They rest of the group come out on stage and join in the argument but it gets quickly resolved by them agreeing that they all are Romeo. With that settled they then perform the song.

Then it's Tobira no Mukou, where they threw out their sign balls into the audience. They also put the gloves they were wearing for Romeo & Juliet on the sign balls and threw those into the audience. About halfway through the song Yamada, Chinen, Takaki and Arioka go off stage and up in the stands four carts are brought out.

After Tobira no Mukou finishes the boys left down on the stage start asking for where the missing members went to. Of course they one by one show up on the carts. From where I was I was closest to Takaki's cart for when he first popped up. After a quick talk they launch into the next song, School Kakumei, and the four in the stands ride the carts around. I ended up getting a good view of Yamada when he passed by (Takaki went the other direction so I didn't get a better view of him). I did notice that Chinen had saved one of his sign balls with the glove over it for the stands, which I thought was pretty awesome for him to do so, seeing as you don't get many chances to get anything like that when you're so far from the stage. But as the the song ends the boys leave the stand area to return to the main stage again to begin the MC section.

During the MC Hikaru announced that they will be having concerts in the spring. He mentioned being at Yokohama Arena for Golden Week. In the lead up to mentioning being at Yokohama Arena he pretended that the venue would be the Tokyo Dome, but of course corrected himself.

There was a lot of Takaki teasing during the MC as they had brought up Children's Day, which is one of the holidays of Golden Week, and of course the fact that Takaki really can't celebrate that anymore as he will have his Coming of Age ceremony this year. (As a bit of a cultural note, those born from April 1st, 2009 to March 31st, 2010 will have their Coming of Age ceremony this year, so only Yabu and Takaki will do it this year while Hikaru and Inoo have to wait until next year.) Of course Takaki insisted that he probably won't really change after the ceremony and got flustered after a while of the other group members teasing him about it.

They talk about filming for the Hitomi no Screen PV. If I was following the conversation as well as I thought I was they mentioned that there is no dance segment in the PV, that it's all just a film. Hikaru then asks the group about their favorite PVs that they've done for their past singles. I only remember what Takaki and Inoo voted for as they were the only ones that chose the PVs they selected. For Takaki is was Dreams come true while Inoo liked Your Seed. Hikaru then had the two do impressions, though I'm not exactly sure who they were impersonating. Though Inoo had Hikaru help him do a second impression which I believe was Bulma and Goku from Dragon Ball.

Then Nakayama Yuma and Morimoto Shintarou were called on to the stage. Yuma got to talk about guest starring in Hidarime Tantei EYE and Kouhaku, he was wearing outfit from the performance at this time. He leaves the stage once he's done and then they focus on Shintarou. Shintarou actually didn't say much, as Ryutarou used the chance he was given to talk to make up for being so quiet during the MC until then. But they eventually call the rest of Snow Prince Gasshoudan (which I'm shorting to SPG from now on in the report) on stage and after introducing them have them perform Snow Prince. HSJ stayed on stage for this (or at least all but two), for the first half of the song they were sitting in the back ground but then joined in singing and doing the hand gestures for the song during the second half.

After the song SPG and HSJ left the stage and then NYC boys came on. They do the Kouhaku medley complete with light up vests and belts. After the medley is done Yamada and Chinen left the stage and it was just Nakayama Yuma w/B.I.Shadow singing a medley of Dial Up and Aoi Kisetsu. And I have to say I was happy to see just YuBIS for these two songs as BIS weren't just stuck in the back for the songs like they are when it's NYC boys. When they finished Hip Hop Jump began the Junior medley by doing a short cover of Will be alright. Then it was the what I'm calling now MaKiTa (Masuda Ryo, Kishi Takayoshi and Takada Sho) as they have recently been doing photo shoots and performing as a trio and Masuda trio just doesn't have a good ring to it, IMHO. They sang one love and got to use raised stages at the middle stage for the performance. Then to finish off the medley it was Ai Nanda by Kyomoto, Anderson and the two Juniors I can't remember the names of. But with that the Junior corner finished up.

Once the Junior corner finished up it was time for the sub-units to each get their time alone on stage. 7 started this portion off with Utau Utau (which is an insanely easy song to remember the lyrics for as it's just the word 'utau' sung over and over again). They stood over on side of the arena seating area farthest from me. Yamada did a quick run into the crowd and quickly came back out from where he entered the seating area. Yuto and Ryutarou though were braver souls and went into the crowd and made a path through them to exit out of a different spot. Near the end of the song they all regrouped on the middle stage to begin their next song.

I've always loved Wonderland Train so I was really happy that it was their next song. Though IIRC I believe Chinen got distracted by something and forgot to sing a line in the song.

But they made their way to the main stage for the last song in their medley, which was GET!!. It's a fun song and made me realize that Yuto needs to get solo lines again. Seriously, his voice sounded good and I thought it was rather apparent, especially at this point, that he was finally getting out of his awkward phase he entered when he shot up in height and is getting more confidant with how he is now and I think it's really beginning to show.

7 then left the stage and BEST came on to begin their medley. They begin with Su Ri Ru's opening dance and they're wearing the outfits they had for this year's Johnny's Countdown concert. Instead of going into the rest of the song they sing Back in time, and Hikaru leaves the stage for this so it's just Takaki, Inoo and Arioka singing. As it's just those three they all get solo lines to sing.

Hikaru returns to the stage to sing Just wanna lovin' you. I really like the song and even though it's meant to be a duet for Hikaru and Yabu I really liked it as a Hikaru solo. And some of the members of 7 were on stage back dancing for this song.

Once that song ends the rest of BEST join Hikaru on stage and we get the rest of Su Ri Ru. But halfway through the song a Junior comes out and carries a life sized cut out standee of Yabu, in a bit of a silly pose as he has a mic in hand and mouth wide open. BEST stop a moment to comment on the standee and joke on not being able to tell if it's not actually Yabu there. Inoo looks to feel up the standee!Yabu's upper thigh but Hikaru tells him to stop. And Yabu gets a special dub by I believe Hikaru when he wants to get the standee to agree with what he's saying by letting out a Micheal Jackson-esque HeeHee! from him. I really wish I had a sound clip of it as I'm sure my description isn't really doing it justice. But after that quick talk they start up the music for Su Ri Ru again and each present member of BEST give the standee!Yabu, who is at the front middle portion of the stage, a playful fake punch to the head. Except for Inoo, who goes last gives it a series of quick jabs and I swear he ends it with a bit of a pelvic thrust. But they finish up the song finally after that and leave the stage, with Hikaru dragging the standee!Yabu with him so we get another HeeHee! as they leave.

I'm just going to take a quick break here and say that I think Johnny's is making a mistake with not doing more with all of BEST. They need to get all the members together on a TV show, as I'm sure it will be a blast to watch all five of these boys together. Of course March isn't too far away, which is when TV programs either get renewed, canceled or restructured with a new name, and Daiki graduates from high school this year in March so maybe instead of renewing YY Jumping they will change it into a new program for BEST. Or at least that is my dream.

Back to the concert. After BEST left the stage Yuto and his drum set was lifted onto the main stage. He did a drum solo for a while before being joined by Keito on guitar. They both just jammed together until Hikaru and Inoo joined them with their respective instruments. They played together for a bit before the rest of the group came on stage and sang a new song. From the Japanese blogs I've checked for the set list they're calling the song Chuu wa 2do Mesa.

They then launch into FLY as their next song, with the band members still playing their instruments. For the non-instrument members of the group they go around the stage waving to the fans for both of these songs. Also at this time they've changed outfits to the tour T-shirt with a flannel shirt over it.

At the end of FLY everyone leaves the stage again and the lights dim. Then eventually Daiki comes out on stage again in what I consider to be a red pleather (plastic/leather) cowboy outfit. He starts talking and is soon joined on stage by Takaki who is wearing the same kind of outfit. And then they are joined by the rest of the group dressed up the same way to sing Born in the Earth. They used the moving stage to go from the main stage to the far stage during the song.

They then sang the final song for the main portion of the concert, Dreams Come True. As it was the finishing song they just went around the area waving at the fans. At the end they all returned to the individual lifts they used at the very start of the concert and each said thank you before being lowered underneath the stage.

Of course there were encores so the crowd began chanting for it and the lights remained dimmed for a while as they got ready for the first encore.

The main stage was changed to have two gaps between the center and the two sides. From those gaps two large multi-layered carts came out, each designed to have five members each on one, though of course with Yabu missing it was divided five and four. Each member was on an individual platform, which could be lowered and raised. They rode these for most of the first encore.

The sang Ultra Music Power first followed by Star Time. During their next song, and the final one for the first encore, Bouken Rider, they switched carts at the far stage. The carts then made their way back to where they came from. Then when they were off the stage each of the rows of lights where the lifts were one by one scrolled a short thank you message for each member with a recording of them saying the message. I do remember Keito's was completely in English, "Thank you so much."

I don't think they bothered to turn on the lights between the first encore and the second.

As we waited for the second encore to begin the music for Romeo & Juliet began to play and a good number of the audience sang along to it. Then finally the stage lit up once more as HSJ took the stage to sing the song again.

The boys talked a bit before going into the next song, another repeat, this time Hitomi no Screen. Instead of saying 'I love you' Yamada said 'Aishiteru', which IMHO sounds much better.

After the song the boys left the stage again saying thank you's and goodbye's. Yamada didn't completely exit and ran back on stage to say 'Aishiteru' once more before running off stage again.

(This is a work in progress. Please check back later for updates, and I'll respond to comments once I'm done. Sorry for the long delay, I just haven't much time for anything outside of school and preparing to leave lately.)