A Year of Concerts Part 4:Concert and a Venue Near Namba
Venue: Orix Theatre
Location: Near Honmachi and Shinsaibashi Station on the Midosuji Subway Line
Since this venue is sandwiched between two subway stations, it is pretty conveniently located. However, if you’re planning on driving there, be sure to look at the parking options on their website and call a week in advance to reserve a spot. It’ll be cheaper too. ;) This venue is pretty straight forward, sizable with a few tiers of floors, and the usual foldy seats. It’s hard to get a bad seat and you probably won’t have issues with viewing the concert. In the building, there is a pretty nifty cafe with floor to wall windows on one side where you can sit and watch all the fans gather in the park out front. The view is nice all around at this venue.
Event: Sakamoto Maaya Follow Me Up! January 9 (土) 2016
This concert was a schooling in lighting. If you didn’t enjoy the music (which of course I did), you’d definitely enjoy the light show. Each song had a completely different lighting set-up that matched well with the beat of the music in addition to the song’s theme.
Event: LiSA Hi! Five! May 7 (土) 2016
I was introduced to LiSA through her work on the Sword Art Online animation theme songs. The genre of her music style tends toward rock, but on occasion she does have slower songs. For this concert, she took center stage and had a guitarist on each side of her and drums right behind. There was also a giant hand-shaped balloon waving at the back right that would periodically change into a peace sign very stealthily. At the top of the stage was a pretty star lamp post and a park bench in the center. For her slow songs she went up to the bench at the top and sang from there. It was beautiful with galaxy themed lighting. LiSA has incredible stage presence and is very good at getting her audience amped up. For this concert everyone had a seat, but unlike the Sakamoto Maaya concert, LiSA fans stood up for everything but the slow songs. It was nice that she had mini platforms on each side of the stage and in the center so that she was visible the whole time. She definitely rocked the stage.
Venue: Zepp Namba
Location: near Namba Station & Namba Parks Shopping Mall
Additional costs: ï¿¥500 for a drink coin
As a venue, Zepp Namba brings an interesting balance as far as seating and concert style goes. If you are fond of standing, (possibly) being close to the performers, and rocking out, Zepp Namba’s first floor is perfect for you. However, if you like a more laid back concert and just want to enjoy the show with a decent view, you can have that too, just make sure you get 2nd floor seats.
Event: ClariS 1st concert March 12 (土) 2016
Having gotten 2nd floor seats for the ClariS concert, the view was great!. They had a raised stage for their performance, so I’m sure the people on the 1st floor appreciated being able to see the performers.
At the beginning of the concert, they opened with an animated projection of a book that had an Alice in Wonderland feel to it. Throughout the show, they would sing and dance on stage as the projections played in the back or other stage dancers would perform while they did costume changes. I was pretty distracted by the light sticks, since it was my first concert where everyone was super into cheering and nearly everyone had bought a light stick to wave to the beat. It was a job well done for their first concert tour. :)
Event: Hatsune Miku concert March 29 (ç«) 2016
We didn’t have nice 2nd floor seats so this was my first time experiencing a standing concert. Immediate conclusion? I don’t really fancy them. Once the concert started, it was really interesting to see all of the hyped up Hatsune Miku fans. My friend and I spend most of the concert craning our necks and standing on our tippytoes to try to catch longer glimpses of Hatsune Miku. It was pretty cool when she materialized on stage, but not too shortly after, I got pretty tired of trying to see past everyone’s heads and thought ‘Really? She’s a hologram. why not use this as an opportunity to project her a bit higher than the stage, so that everyone can actually see her?’ I was not too happy about the set-up. Her band, made of live musicians, really rocked out and were excellent though. The costume changes were pretty nifty as well and there was one part where Hatsune Miku sprouted wings that was pretty epic. Overall, the experience of seeing Vocaloids and the technology of their projections was worth it, despite the atrocious viewing conditions. If you ever plan on going to a Vocaloid concert, do yourself a favor and get the nice seats where you can actually see the Vocaloids perform.
Mandy Wong
