Are you serious?? JP audience is one of the most 'excited' audience in the world. Many artists who have gone to JP have said this.

I think she needs to drop the choreography and be more interactive with the audience. Run around, make eye contact, etc.

Yeah, it goes back to what I was saying that she should have used the stage more and not keep herself so distanced from the audience. The crowd did get into some of the other artists more. In general though, I just don't think she has the appeal to casual audience anymore like she used to.

Ayu did really good job in MW, she managed to hit most of the notes, her voice was powerful. The only bad part was the end of "wooh yeah, yeah, YEAH" in last chorus. Surreal was good, much better than AT07 (I mean before DVD editing), of course except "ah yubi kiri..." and so on and "la-la-lah". This part was almost completely off-key. It`s obvious that she can`t sing this song in original pitch anymore. So why does she force herself to do it?! Is it so hard to lower pitch to make both Ayu and us feel comfortable with her singing? Anyway overall it was a great perfomance, the best MW TV live we`ve ever heard. I just can`t wait to watch upcoming MW lives )))) LOVE this song )

Funny, since I constantly hear the Japanese audience reputation as being very "proper" and "in line". There's a huge difference between an ayu audience at her concerts and a Madonna audience when she plays in the west. The Japanese audience looks downright dead in comparison.

hmm. It's a little bit of both I think. Japanese audience do get very excited for their favorite artists, but in a proper way. haha :) No one gets into any fights or anything like that. However, going to say a Morning Musume concert is more crazy than any concert I've been to in America. lol.

Speaking of the audience, why are they mostly female? At least they were clapping. A really bored audience would probably not do anything.

Well I finally saw the performance! I think she tried her best! That's all I can ask for. I mean it didn't sound intolerable, just a bit pitchy. But I do notice the shortness of breath, I think that's the biggest thing she needs to work on and chill on the vibrato.

And the crowd looks like a bunch of clapping zombies <_<....;

-edit-

I also noticed her holding her ear and looking like she was in pain for a moment! I hope she's alright!!! D:

Yep, I noticed too ;_;... Actually, since I've watched most of her concerts after the announcement, I've noticed she does it a LOT. She fidgets with her ear piece a lot more than any other artist I've ever seen, poor dear's been dealing with it for a long time...

Most of the acts that were there have primarily female audiences except for Mr. Children and Southern who's audiences I would say are 50/50. Also, I think that women in general are just more likely to want to go to events like these than men are.

It looked like maybe she was plugging her ear in order to hear herself better. It's a little strange, but you can actually hear yourself better with ear plugs in than without.

Oh no, my poor Ayu D: !!!!!!

I listened to both performances three times, and I feel it's not her voice that's the problem; it's her technique! I think she needs to take some time to re-evaluate how she wants to deliver her performances.

But all in all, I think she did really well... This is one of my first "unedited" Ayu performance, so I noticed the difference right away D: But I don't think this performance was as bad as other say, but then again I'm not familiar with ANY of her performances pre-2005. So if she did better, I wouldn't know hahaha.

Did someone mention she was sick during this performance? I think I could hear it! Like she had trouble clearing her throat and such.

That's pretty much what I've been saying lately. But I think it's a combo of factors - poor technique compounded by the ear problem as well as possibly a throat problem. But really its hard to say the real cause. Her tone is fine, just her technique in singing the past 2 years has been poor imo. It is possible to still sing well even with the ear problem, but it requires more work on her part to relearn what the best way for her to sing is.

Well maybe this is just a temporary thing, maybe she's going through a phase haha

I mean I hate what she's doing only because I know she can do better, but I hope she finds a singing technique she is comfortable with!

Yea her technique plus MW is so hard for her to sing, I thought she had trouble with T2M but MW is even worse. It's like she doesn't have enough lung power to pull it off.

I agree. Nothing can compare to H!P concerts..the audience is crazyyyy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOZQy...eature=related
:thud

annd I liked the performance. Her vocals weren't good but it was still enjoyable to watch.

When I watched this performance on TV the other night, I just cringed when Surreal started. After CDL 07-08, I've decided it's a song better left to the recorded version, unless she figures out a new way to sing it that's good. Honestly, she sounded sooo choppy and so out of tune during the song that I'm not surprised that they audience wasn't happy.

As her die hard fans, it's easy to say "oh, I thought she sounded good even though she had problems," but for casual listeners, I think it must have been very disappointing.

Ah yes, I agree with you guys she's not vocalizing anymore; like in SURREAL is almost like she's talking to you, and she seems short of breath like she forgot how to breath, I've notice this before, she just needs a new approach to singing.

Reading this thread I was expecting some horrible performance, but turns out a lot of people were just being drama queens. The performance was miles above CDL and the April MW performances. The MW world vocals were decent, couldn't have asked for more. The vocals weren't perfect in SURREAL, but she was having a good time and I'm glad to see her doing TV performances now.

LMAO! So far I've only seen Ayu's and Ku's perfs and the crowd didn't seem "wild" at all XD Anyways, as I said, MW was decent enough, even good, I guess the thing that it was more of a Mirror performance and it seemed kinda rushed was prolly what annoyed me the most.

I've heard the exact opposite. o.O When Avril Lavigne, Within Temptation, etc. and even André Rieu (did I spell that properly?) went to Japan and backstage, etc. they were all "woow the audience is really excited! o_o". Like, with Andre Rieu, the audience was taking the falling balloons and dancing with it, which all western audiences didn't do. you shouldn't compare an Ayu audience in the east with a Madonna audience in the west though, that kinda strays away from what I said. :3 Now if you compared a Madonna concert in the west and a Madonna concert in the east, that'd be better.. Though I wouldn't take Madonna for the comparison, because she's kind of eh different.

Because JP audiences tend to be so interactive, it was actually one of the main things I'd worry about if Ayu were to perform in the west (a boring audience).

Yea. ^^ Like she was standing all the way ooooover there on the stage with the effects. During SURREAL or something she could have run down to the audience, I dunno. XD

Funnily enough, I really like the way she sings SURREAL recently. AT07 is my favorite SURREAL performance vocal-wise.. I really like it how she 'quickly sings' or w/e the first part of the song. XD

Drama queen is one thing but people have reasons and explanations to why they feel the way they did. Maybe an out of tune performance is fine with you, that's perfectly ok. Just that some are not comfortable listening to it. I'm very happy to finally see her on tv and she looks as beautiful as she ever did. I think the pictures that made her look heavier were just taken at unfortunate angles or she lost weight in a short period of time.