Just watched it. The sound was coming and going and half the time I couldn't even hear Peco and Princess. Then she was out of breath often and couldn't hit any high notes. And what was up with the sound up to the encore? I'm not sure the audience cared though, they seemed to be having a good time.
Excellent set list (minus Energize) and a little variety to the performances. I cant wait for this to come out on DVD.

I thought the recording this year was shoddy. They need better camera/mic work. Hopefully, the DVD will be better...oh yeah...I really hate to say this but...Ayu's vocals really hit rock bottome during evolution and especially during Humming 7/4....but she made it up with a really great performance of Teddy Bear....overall though, her vocals seem much weaker compared to last year...

i totally agree with you

Her voice being too low is a recording problem

Sometimes it just sounded like someone was changing the volume, cuz her voice was lower, but she was singing on the same way

^ But that wouldn't be a recording problem, that would be a mixing problem meaning the person who was doing the live mix messed up or was intentionally lowering her vocals for some reason.

^ then it's not Ayu's vocal being so weak at the beginning, right?
i believe AYu sounded great at the opening of I am... and moments~

Sorry, but u got what I'm saying u.ú
If u play dumb with me I will kick ur ass! :eviltongu

:P

Yeah, that's easily notable during momentum, when all of sudden things get louder after the first chorus.

I'm gonna be as honest and straightforward as possible, so forgive me if I come across as being too critical (beware: it's gonna appear many times)

Okay, first off. Great CDL once again, Ayu! I really love her effort for putting a flawless show all the time... the energy was great, and she looked good. ^^

I am...: I liked the drum show; very reminiscent of CDL 04/05 and CDL 05/06. But like why the hell do the DANCERS need to be there. Like just let the damn drummers do their thing... grr.

Okay Ayu appears. I love her outfit! I was shocked at the choice of her song... I am...? Haha I was apprehensive of her performance, but I felt she was really good, as according to her singing standard these days.

Again, I feel kind of irritated by the dancers, because I feel they are redundant and an eyesore. :irked

Moments: Whoa... 4 years since she has performed...

Let's see same rehashed screens and set up as from AT 05... so I shan't comment much on that. I thought she sounded okay, not as good as I am... but still passable imo.

STEP you: I swore I did a facepalm when I first saw Gomi on stage. The whole theme here is so Kuu's TRICK, even Gomi's cloak is the same color scheme as TRICK!

First off, what the heck is with the dancers? They look gross, I've seen better-looking clowns... :no

And OMG AYU WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU WEARING. That gross dress is disgusting to the max, and it should be burned right after this concert.

EnergizE: I hate this song... ugh. But the performance was kinda cute... love how she interacted with the fans.

But man, Ayu, do you need to uglify the female dancers so much too?

About You: I love Ayu's outfit. It reminds me of Avril Lavinge... very goth rock princess kind of look. <3

And oh Ayu, just shut up with the "ad-libbing" with Peco and Princess. It happens like 3 times in this CDL, and they are all unbearable. Just stop doing that already, okay?

I thought she sounded pretty okay in the verses, then the choruses were one hot big mess. No no...

I love the song though, and love that she finally performed it again, after 4 years.

momentum: Maro = Hot. kthxbai.

She didn't sound as good here... but overall it was an okay performance.

You were...: aka the only song in the main setlist where she performed by herself. For this, the performance deserves "best performance" already.

Her vocals here were pretty solid as well, and I really love the dress she's wearing...

Pride: You know what. I thought the dancers back then in AT 06 were already kind of "meh", but this dance here brings it to the "next level". Redundant, dramatic, eew.

And oh my God... I have to say this but Ayu was very off-tune in a lot of the ending notes... the last note was so flat, I think it might have been one semitone lower than the original note?

But I love her dress... so Victorian. And you know, the choir singing, that one woman who ad-libbed with the ribbon dance. NOW THAT'S A GOOD SINGER. Peco & Princess (and Ayu), go have lessons with her.

INSPIRE: :heart this song

I love Ayu's smile at the beginning... so radiant and beautiful. The singing was okay, not too bad, and when she sang her little solo after the break... I felt there was really hope. With a vocal coach... she can really sing again. :yes

Because of You: Again, I love this song, and am surprised she performed it again.

I felt it was actually all right throughout, except the end where she struggled quite a lot, but really, I think it's quite all right.

And oh Ayu... next time you wanna get a mic stand, please get one that actually is long enough to rest on the floor, otherwise it ends up looking like some phallic symbol (like look at how she worked it in the bridge!)...

1 LOVE: Yawn. It's a rehash of AT 07, but AT 07's rendition was so much better.

until that Day...: Yawn once again. For the same reasons as 1 LOVE.

Countdown: Touching. I have more to say about this in another thread.

Humming 7/4: :no At least the energy was high.

evolution: Better than the one she did in Music Station or whatever it's called, definitely. XD

Startin': This was pretty decent actually, but it felt exactly the same as AT 06 lol.

teddy bear: I love it. Best performance of this CDL. Seriously Ayu should do more of these... simple, down-to-earth performances where it's just so touching...

When she teared up, it left me speechless, and I almost cried too. She's so vulnerable and precious then...

Sunrise ~LOVE is ALL~: omg this new mix >>>> original mix

AND SHE'S SO CUTE WHEN SHE MESSED UP IN THE BRIDGE OMG <3

Boys & Girls: usual performance, I don't think there's much to say about this lol

But Ayu was WORKING IT at the end LOL

RED LINE ~for TA~: Beautiful song. Great performance. :thumbsup

Overall, I felt this CDL was all right, it had its good moments imo, and of course the horrible ones, but the energy was good, and the encore was great, so...

Extra notes: Maro you are so hot, I want you now. Can anyone confirm if he has gotten a tattoo on his right shoulder? I saw something there during momentum, but in the encore he wore a black band around his right shoulder.

ZIN you are so hot too. Shu-ya why is your hair back to blonde? I loved the BALLAD hair so much, but never mind you're still so hot. <3

Did Subaru ... had plastic surgery? lol his eyes look so different!

Peco & Princess, please stop ruining the performances, especially you Peco.

Okay that's all.

If they intentionally lowered her voice, how did they know exactly when she was going to sound bad? Or if she was going to sound bad all throughout. If it was intentional, she probably gave them a heads up. :shrug

I mean PCDL's vocals were impressive enough they put it on a CD. Her vocals at Kouhaku this year were okay. How would they know for sure she would suck? xD;

^ Well they would have been hearing her all throughout rehearsals. I'm not even saying that's what happened though, just that it is possible.

I get what you are saying, but they are two different things. :) Its not even necessarily a problem persay, it happens all the time at live shows and sometimes it is because the mic is interfering with the overall sound or it can be intentionally done to muffle the singers vocals or the person who is doing it is just bad at what they do. Or her voice could've simply failed to come out properly as she did seem to really be squeezing to make the sound come. There are many different reasons why her voices volume would change in a live show and it is like that in most of the tv version cdls except for last year which was basically perfectly equalized - but the reason for that is for a different thread. :)

So, did everyone notice the little changes to arrangements in some songs? (I don't remember seeing discussion about it here yet, but maybe I just missed it :laugh) INSPIRE, Boys & Girls and Step You, EnergizE were the ones I noticed. Maybe Sunrise too. I really loved them all :P She should do the arrangement changing thingy more often. Or well, it wasn't really changing them, but adding violins etc. Which is great for me, I love little adds like that.

^ I Am... had added strings

I love that ayu started slightly changing the arrangements for most songs since AT09(she did it a few times before, but never nearly as much as now), but most people seem to ignore it

^ I personally didn't like I Am's new arrangement. It sounded very messy to me; like there was too much going on. But maybe it'll sound a lot better when the DVD comes out.

I love i am's added strings. it was like acoustic orchestra meets original mix. sounded so cool. I didn't notice any of the other changes though.

For me the added strings to I Am... made the song even more fantastic than it already is.

In the normal studio version I always felt something is missing, the orchetsra version was TOO full, the AT02 version messy and CDL0910 perfect!

YES! I loved it. I think my favorite was Sunrise, but I loved all of the little changes. The end of You were... was so beautiful.

Also I have a question, when they rebroadcast this on the 16th will they have different camera angles etc? I sure hope so because some of them were just a huge fail.

^ Yeah I agree about the camera angles. I thought Pride was especially distracting cause it really felt like you saw the dancers and Ayu was just somewhere in the background and then of course 1Love you can hardly see anything. In the past though I don't seem to remember the rebroadcasts changing from the original one.

I also liked Sunrise's arrangement too - it was very lively.

i remember they did not change alot.they change some scenes only.i think they do so because they want you to watch it again after you've bought the DVD.if they edit it too perfect for TV broadcast,then this might affect the sales too.

:thumbsup

I love Sunrise's new arrangement too!

Even though she has the same format for the concert theme.. But at least, there are different arrangements in some songs...
That's why I enjoy the concert :D *except for Boys and girls and evolution*

towards the end she sounded like her performance of independent at CTV countdown special 02-03 :( still kudos to her for struggling so hard...*hugs ayu*

What's with all the PECO that I hear? Whoever was mixing this for the TV version seems like they got Ayu's mic mixed up with PECO's at first because you can barely even hear Ayu over PECO's 'harmonizing'...

Overall, this concert's pretty nice, though it appears that Ayu's been using the same stage since 07-08 for CDL with similar themes in the same positions [transition from guy focus -> girl focus or vice versa on sidestage, etc.. she must really like riding that chair around Yoyogi...] but that's not really a problem imo.

So it looks like Future Classics implied that she was going to mix present material with past performances? That's how it appears anyway. The use of the intro screen in the I am... segment in AT02, awkward "cute" performances from CDL07-08/CDL08-09 with STEP you/EnergizE replacing vogue/HONEY/ANGEL'S SONG/(Ladies Night), the reinterpretation of the "final scene" in AT06 where she and Naoto were on the rings after Pride/rainy day, the music/ambiance of INSPIRE from AT05... and so on. It was all done on purpose it seems, since she did hint that the title would make sense if you saw the concert after all. Only thing I don't really get is why now? Why do this only 2-3 years after the BoCDL?

I think she needs to re-invent her concerts for her 2010 tour. Like she did with AT05/06. How I don't know.. but since 07 all her concerts have kinda followed the same formula, except for the PCDL because of its length. And she's recycling too much, a lot of stuff just feels the same as performances past.

I also thought there was something wrong with the broadcast in terms of the volume of Ayu's voice - just drowned out too many times by the music, and I've never seen that happened before with her. Ayu has a loud voice, so I doubt, unless the instrumentals were turned way up, that this is how it was at the actual concert.

Best performances - You were... and teddy bear.
Worst - Pride, Because of You (really wanted this to be good!), 1 LOVE.

I know! it's so distracting!

There was even a time during the CDL where I was like "omg PECO shut up." I can't remember when it was though...honestly...I'm getting a little tired of her parts...to me...it doesn't really do anything for the song anymore when they write parts for her that are higher than ayu's parts...but I don't know, I guess they like the harmony...

I think it was About you or Because of You...one of the rock songs' harmony I hate...

I really loved it. Like really! I was really surprised by some of the songs she chose to sing! She had her not-so-stellar-sounding moments ("Because of you" kinda... hurt, but it was still cool that she tried!), but the girl is half-deaf, so props to her for trying so hard! She really puts her heart into all she does and that's something that I really love about her. I loved this CDL and last year's the best so far. :heart Yes, I have my suspicions that "Until that day..." (which I LOVE btw) and "STARTIN'" were lip synched, but I seriously don't care. So what? She took a break for a little bit. Big deal. I still really enjoyed the concert. :)

I didn't really like it all that much. The costumes were much better in the live video than they were in the photo captures. I liked the setlist this year but for some reason I just didn't feel it. It felt...very rushed. Not nearly as badly as PCDL (I don't think you can get any worse than that)...But it just didn't hold my interest simply because everything was pretty much the same. I don't have a problem with Ayu recycling choreography but when it's the performance's storyline, the usage of the stage (STEP you/Energize=PCDL performance), AND the costume styles (Pride...-_-)

Vocally she was very good, but as far as innovation is concerned---she didn't bring it for me. Of course 2009 has been the worst Ayu-season for me.

Really?! Watch it again, cuz Startin' has some of the worst vocals of the night xD

I just want to say this to everyone who is complaining about the stage: it's ok if you don't like it but it's very very very audience friendly. Everyone can see her better because there are so many places where Ayu can sing and it allows her to be closer to fans who are sitting in the back, too. Just my two cents. :)

^
yea, that's what i think too..
because she wants to get to near to the audience to celebrate the new year, that's why she sticks to the same stage design for her recent CDLs..
she can greet the fans at the back, in the middle, at the right and left..that's cool i think~

^And stage is most likelly the most expensive aspect of the show... She is rich, but she is not made of money...

That's true, it'd be wicked expensive to get a whole new stage everytime, since she has the one, it's probably cheaper just to give it a new set of paint and a few new props rather then designing a whole new stage

If she is really going to have two different concerts a year, I'm pretty sure having a totally different stage for every one would be VERY expensive... And the actual one really works (both the AT one and the A-Museum-revived-for-CDL-one)

i like her stage...I don't really care for the side part that she uses at the CDLs, but I really love her catwalk.

After seeing her concerts, I can't ever imagine a tour without a catwalk lol The concerts seem so empty to me when they don't have it...I got spoiled.

I guess it just seems like rehashed to us because we're used to it already...but I mean, she utilizes all the parts of the stage every concert...maybe she should switch it up a bit?

Like maybe, for the ballads when she goes on that raised circle part...maybe she could do the ballads somewhere else and do like something awesome there for an upbeat song...you know?

lol I'm just rambling.

After 5-6 years she could get a new stage though... I'm hoping the 2010 tour will be something completely new, but that's almost like hoping for a world tour.

the catwalk is so cool!
guess that in the future, she needs to use the circle catwalk.. just like once she used at AT03-04 but bigger scale one that will awesome :)

The stage design itself is fine, it would just be better if she changed it up every once in a while. Really though, its more her arena tours that need to change in that regard imo. Going out into the audience with a catwalk is great and many artists do that nowadays. But there are several other designs that can achieve the same effect.

Avex pays for the concerts, not Ayu. :) Honestly, I think Avex is just a little cheap in this area. Because there are certainly other artists that change their stage or have more expensive looking shows yet they don't sell what Ayu does.

i thought it was kind of boring. the song list wasn't my cup of tea. i'm generally not a fan of her rock-ier songs. Granted, "Because of You" was refreshing.

i liked the costumes though. :)

Well... after watching the show, I also wanna tell my opinion about it.
I l ike the show. Ok.. she recyle sometimes.. but I don't really care it so much.
And yes.. her voice wasn't good in Because of you or Pide. But well... to sing so long must be hard work.
And.. for me, the instruments were quite lound. Maybee a little bit to loud. Sounds like Ayu was searching to sing lounder, because of, she wasn't good to hear.
BUt.. all in all... I really enjoyed watching the show.

I wouldn't be surprised if Avex had a fixed budget for concerts and videos, and the artist should do whatever he/she can with that...

^lol doesn't mean she has to stay in her comfort zone for the next ten years...

she can mix things up with the stage and budget she has lol

main stage
catwalk that goes out into the audience
peco, princes, max, all the usuals on stage
singing a ballad while looking sad while a backup dancer does ballet
interlude movies
cutsey act
sexy/fail act
romance with a backup dancer..
outift change every other song
boys and girls, surreal, audience, evolution, unite

next year, new outfits, new songs, same exact concept.

Maybe it's just me but I really see why is necessary to change the stage... Even cuz most pop concerts stage has this same format: Main stage, catwalk, minor stage.... it just happens to work really well!

thats not what I mean though...I like her stage and wouldnt mind if she kept it...just if she could mix up a little more where she does performances...

she hasn't done it too much...but i think that this concert should be the last time she does the whole cutesy song over in the side stage, rock song on the main stage, dance number on the main stage, ballad on the circle thing, then ballad with the male and female dancer on the circle and main stage, then back to the main stage...etc...unless she's going to do something new with it lol

It is effective...but I mean, just gets a little old the times after she's already done it once or twice...she is churning out concerts at a different rate than other people...but meh...

But most of the time, they will change the layout of said stage at least once in a while if not from one tour to the next. And then of course as Emiko said, you can always change up where the songs are performed and how they are performed. Of course keeping the stage layout the same every time makes it even more difficult to change those things.

She can only benefit from changing things up. No one that goes to the concert is going to say "ewww, why isn't she performing things the way she has everytime we've seen her the past four years?" ;)

^I have no objection on changing the way she perform songs and stuff like that... Even if i'm not really bothered by the way she is doing stuff now

But i don't see anything wrong on re-using the stage...

avex seems not really care about Ayu's stuff maybe because Ayu has the whole authorities to everything she wants to do on her own.. and if the majority of the fans there love what Ayu does, why she has to change? people still come to her concert every year, and the concerts are still full (from what i could see), why she needs a change right? be it the hardcore fans or not who won't really care about the same boring format, those fans still pay for it and she still can earn, why not~ (if it's about money, she think she still can earn money with the same old thing, ppl still love it, why not?)

well, still, let's hope that she will come up with much better idea for the live tour 2010~
i also hope something extraordinary from Ayu, like the ship from AT08, but if she decided to stick on the same way, i'll just sit back and enjoy it~

This makes me wonder what the Japanese fans thought of the show.... Any word from them anybody?

yeah agree...lol the cutesy acts... and the presentation for ballads lol... then some say she is so emotional and all... but sometimes i cant really feel it.. (off topic) like in Next Level tour, when she sang Days live.. i don't know whether she was over-doing it, like acting to be sad or something... and she had been doing such for ballads... and also in music videos ( like Rainy Days, Heaven, etc...)

I agree with you, if this year's AT she's gonna use last year's NL tour sttage or AT05-08 stage..I'll shoot her :innocent.

People...look at other artists..different year different stage settings and concepts to match their album release, which is always great. don't go on saying she's been around for 100years or she has no money. what she wants she gets from avex

If this year, from AT, a-nation, to CDL, she's gonna do all she did last year...I wanna know what you guys think...

sad but true :(

All of her tours since At05 matched the album if u ask me... And really, r u so naive to the point of believing that she can just go to Avex and ask for whatever she want and they pay it for her?

I wouldn't be surprised if she pays herself for her most expensive releases...

^If she pays for herself, there's no point she becomes no.1 avex artist anymore

and yeah since 05 her tours match her album...so much...dat everything is the same...next tour should be...AT10~Deja Vu~

I don't think she cares about being avex no.1 artist or whatever... she likes doing expensive stuff to shows power... but even the simpliest of her concerts are more expensive than her most expensive videos...

and really, if u think that all of her albums AND concerts are the same since 2005, why do u bother following it? If an artist I dislike disapointed me for 5 albums and 5 tours, I would give up on him/her

Apparently CDL09-10 was a sort of prelude to the tour next year...

I wonder in what way. The SCawaii interview translation wasn't exactly clear on that, but hopefully it doesn't mean that she's going to be using new album tracks alongside old performance numbers.

ya I hope she does not :(

^I think it was a preview of the feeling of the next tour, pretty much like every cdl since best of were....

reading Ayu's S Cawaii interview, i think she's working her best..
she said she loves what she does.. :)
she already has the concept.. i hope it's super cool!

Really? ouch.

I guess thats the difference between some people.

Maybe if she continued doing what she's done for the past 5 years, for the next 5 years, I'd be like, omg wth, and stop following.

And honestly...I doubt she pays for anything, unless she really wants it and doesn't want to bug them. Avex is still profiting, despite whatever is happening with sales, and she's continuing to do what she does...why would they have any reason to deny her something that is going to cost a little more than normal, unless it's something into the millions...I doubt it.

And "a little" in comparison to the huge sums of munny they are going to fork out anyway.

^Well, considering her sales, she is not really a very rentable artist other than her her tours... She can take more money from CMs and tie-ins, but on those case, most of it go for her account, not Avex's, so, I really doubt they would pay a 1,8million dollars video of a song that is almost a b-side (Green)

^ Even if the tour stayed the same budget, still different things can be done. And if artists paid for their own concerts and music videos, I don't think we would see very many getting made. ;)

^I never said she paied everything, just that is not impossible that Avex has a fixed budget for her and she has to pay herself for everything else...

If everything was paied by Avex, Koda Kumi big concerts would start as soon as she entered on her peak, and not on the end of it...

How have her concerts been the same for 5 years...? They all look different to me. Someone please explain? :shrug

They are not all exactly the same, but I guess because of the fact that most of her tours post-AT05 have had very similar themes/elements from that concert, people think that they are.

Ever since AT05, interlude movies and the hanamichi (flower road/runway) have been present at the tours and COUNTDOWN LIVES (after 05-06). There has also been at least a couple of the following in terms of themes repeated since then including: sexual!performance w/ female dominance [male/female dance teams switch off between two or more songs], light-hearted/super-cute performance, ballad section featuring a male dancer prominently, dancing alone while Ayu sings making dramatic motions, and a segment where she sings a new song or two with a bunch of classics near the end of the concert. She also can at times reuse performance elements (ex. Moments -> Pride -> part of Me) from AT05. Also, as of late, tissue performances have been featured at every big live since CDL07-08. (including CDL07-08, there have been five tissue performances) This is just a sample of why people might feel that the concerts have been "same-y" and why most seem to feel that AT05 has been one of her most innovative tours post-DT01 since it was the last time things felt "fresh." From what I can see, the only thing that Ayu needs to do to satisfy those who feel as though they aren't happy with her concerts nowadays is to simply try new things and explore different ways to present her music during the lives. Perhaps strip away the theming that has been so prevalent since 2005 and just perform as she did from 2000-2004? But even if she did do that, it seems likely even that would "get old" with fans. So maybe the problem isn't really with Ayu's concerts, but that some fans are just very picky about what they get from Ayu. (i.e. It would be fine to see the tissue dances at one, two, even three lives! But now it's getting old!)

^i guess the fans' taste is changing.

Upto Until that Day, the vocals are the worst they've ever been and I can't stop laughing at the dancers in their wifebeaters and baggy jeans. The INSPIRE and Because of You performances were great but it's all very Ayu on auto-pilot.

Still.. this was the best part of the show:

You are right.
Whuzz. Her vocals are very bad. And WHAT'S THAT HORRIBLE WAITRESS-OUTFIT?! SHE LOOKS 100 POUNDS BIGGER!

i think the 80's idol dress that she wore in sparkle pv looked 100x better than the pink alice in wonderland waitress dress lol

my fav part is inspire performance, she sound fine singing this, but she struggle during the last part after interlude...but despite all that, i really love the performance, the dance, the costume, the lighting and some new touch on the arrangement...

I'm so much troubled about her live voice. not the costumes & stage, but the voice...:(

Her vocals were really bad, the outfits were so-so, the choice of songs were boring, but I really liked how she performed.

Just a really short piece of what I thought.

I finally got around to watching half of CDL and........


Homegirl needs a vocal coach =/

I absolutely loved this CDL. I personally can be quite naive when I choose to be, so her vocals didn't bother me too much. Personally the track list was very close to being perfect! Favourite performances were I am..., About You and INSPIRE. The overall atmosphere she brought was amazing as always, I can't wait until they touch up her vocals for the DVD!! Then I will be in HEAVEN!

For me this concert was absolutely disappointing............. :( The choise of the songs, the order of the songs and the outfits were very insuitable for me. All the concert was like... boring!! That was the meaning of "future classics"? I don't understand nothing.

The stage setup seemed like a mash-up to me and very gothic and "dark"..
A mix of AT05 stage (those flowery designs and the two big walls with curtains on each side of the central screen), AT07 stage (the big A sign at the top of the screen) and CDL0809's circle stage in the middle of the arena.
Maybe because of that, the stage looked bigger than usual and more detailed LOL.

I like the theme of this countdown live. gothic and rock! I hope next year's countdown theme is ballad LOL.

Btw, is there any audio technical difficulty during the live recording.
It's like she's been using her backup singer's mic to sing LOLOL.

Yeah, it seemed like a mash-up, and that appears to be exactly what Ayu was going for. Unless for some reason I'm reading too much into it, but it seems to fit together too well to be simply coincidence.

After watching the concert a few times, the entire setlist seems to have been created with past concepts working together in mind, to bring the performances into the future. Or something like that.

01. I am...-intro and performance from AT02, taiko drummers from CDL05-06
02. Moments - performance was from AT05, camera trick and fan dance from AT05
-inst- - tissue dance introduced in CDL07-08 was inserted here
03. STEP you - performance from CDL07-08 + Ladies Night transition, mixed with "cute" elements from CDL08-09 and possibly the clowns from A MUSEUM
04. EnergizE - performance from AT09, mixed with "cute" elements from CDL08-09 and possibly the clowns from A MUSEUM
-inst- - jam session by Yocchan... any tour's could apply... AT06's? The ones at a-nation?
05. About You - performance kind of from AT05 without dancers, solo and was standalone
-inst- - Midomaro/Maroring ballad dance from AT09
06. momentum - performed a bit like the beginning of the AT09 ballad section, had something like rainy day's finale at AT06 with a couple being lifted into the air by the end of the song
07. You were... - performed a bit like CAROLS from AT05 on the rotating stage
-inst- - Shu-ya solo dances from a-nation and the like mixed with more elaborate version of ring performance from AT07ish
08. Pride - Shu-ya solo dance mixed with AT06-ish performance and gospel choir from CDL05-06 (and others) and rainy day AT06 finale is kind of touched upon again with a couple being hoisted up
09. INSPIRE - intro music, performance and style from AT05, walked around arena/stages however
10. Because of You - performance/vibe from AT03-04, new microphone/sword prop instead of the stand, performed on middle rotating stage instead of main stage
11. 1 LOVE - performance from AT07, not much was changed
12. until that Day... - performance from AT07, not much was changed
(countdown) - no Ayu speaking in English this time around...
13. Humming 7/4 - the usual
14. evolution - the usual
15. Startin' - performance from CDL05-06/AT06, placed at the end of main act
(encore)
16. teddy bear - performance from AT03-04, sitting on arm of the chair though
17. Sunrise ~LOVE is ALL~ - performance kind of from AT09, but more like a-nation '09 than anything
18. Boys & Girls - the usual
19. RED LINE ~for TA~ - brand new dance, replacing MY ALL

I wonder if it's just me, haha. But it appears that basically the entire show was crafted using past materials, much like BoCDL06-07, but with more creative changes in outfits and such. Quite a bit was taken from AT05 which makes me wonder if she'll try to break away from it in the coming AT10. It is a bit nice that the CDLs are becoming less and less like shows that she throws together and actually sort of feel like her tours nowadays since CDL07-08 just without any video interludes.

Big problem I have with this concert's footage so far: Why the heck does the entire main concert segment sound like Ayu was muted out!? It only got fixed during the encore singing segments...

http://i47.tinypic.com/qx5uky.png
I wonder when they shortened the Alice dress. About You's dress also appeared to be longer and without the tutu.

exacly what i thought.even though i'm not really "wow" by the Future Classic theme and i agree with truehappinness about the performances :yes

but Ayu's stage appearance is really good,i love how she interact with the audience. i love when she smile at the beginning of the Inspire and the choreography is a bit different than AT05 and that cool mic for BoY :P
thank god there's no shuya for You were...XDD

but i cant stop laughing each time i watch Step You/Energize performance,the dancers just hilarious,sometimes like a fool (ooppss) :P

Hm, is it just me or is the vibrato in this concert toned WAY down compared to say, AT09?

Hmm, I haven't seen the recorded TV version, so not really sure about what you guys are talking about when you say ayu's voice is bad. I was there at that CDL, and she sounded perfectly well live. In fact, when she started the show off with "I am...", I honestly thought her voice couldn't be better.

As for Future Classics, I think that most of the songs she chose to put into this setlist do stand up to the title of being a "classic". To me, each song defines one aspect of ayu, and the setlist covers every major era of her 11 year career.

She said in one TEAMAyu blog entry that we'll understand why she named the concert "Future Classics" while watching it, and indeed, one of my first thoughts after the show was "that really was classic!" ^^

I think that a big part of it was that the vocals were so muted, you could barely hear her at times during the TV recording. Sometimes you would hear PECO over Ayu in chorus segments where there is supposed to be harmony... and you wonder where Ayu's voice went.

It has been said before here that perhaps just being there at the concert makes things sound way better than they do. I recall SunshineSlayer mentioning that she saw a CDL live and thought it was fine, and then she watched the TV version and was like: "Wait, why does her voice sound so weird? I WAS THERE IT SOUNDED FINE." so... hm.

Maybe you could watch this Sunrise live and see if it sounds a bit different to you?

Note: I LOVE this live arrangement.

On another note: How ridiculous does Ayu look when she's introducing Yocchan? I feel like this happens every year, hahahaha.

No, it's not just you. That's why I thought her vocals here were an improvement from her last two tours and CDL's in a lot of the songs. I'm happy she toned it down because her unnecessary vibrato bugs me more than anything else.

One thing I'll say is: I'm confirmed that the TV live soundtrack was altered.

Why? Because at the start of the song, from 0:15 to 0:26 in the clip, you can distinctly hear Yo-chan on the guitar, playing the chorus of Sunrise. However, when I was there, Yo-chan's mic was turned really low. As a result, nobody could hear him, and because of the new arrangement, all of us there didn't know what song this was till ayu started to sing.

And yeah, ayu sounds different too. When I was there, her voice was the -only- voice you can hear. The backup singers were really just a very faint backup lol!! Maybe they turned up her mic or something, because the impression I got was that her voice was really strong and powerful, not like the almost breathless voice I'm hearing in this video.

But I guess it's true, what SunshineSlayer said. Lives do make everything sound better. That's why everyone should go watch her perform live at least, just to experience the power of her singing, and not judge her voice based on recorded TV performances where they do who-knows-what editting to her voice. :P

Yeah, I love this arrangement for Sunrise too!! ^^

^ As I said earlier, there's probably two seperate teams...one making the mix for the audience and one making the mix for TBS

Well, there really shouldn't have been any editing done since it was a live broadcast, there is just no time to do any serious editing. But yes, the experience of being "there" makes anything better. I believe it was CDL 06-07 where I thought her vocals sounded pretty strong but then when I saw it on tv they weren't as strong as I had remembered. :)

There is a very simple technical reason though for the differences in the sound you are describing - the live audience is hearing what is coming out of the speakers, however the tv audience is hearing it directly from the sound board. The soundboard you can much more clearly hear each individual instrument, singer, etc. With the speakers at the show though, everything just kind of gets all muddled together and it can be difficult to make out individual parts unless you are in a building with amazing accoustics. (which Yoyogi is not. it was not built as a concert venue.) Of all the venues I've been to over there I would say it probably has the worst sound.

Has the encore aired? Since I don't really...since I don't watch cdl performances, this being my first I don't know what they show and what they don't show. I feel like the encore performance is out there somewhere and I missed it.

And I'd love to see her perform live and get the full experience. that would be amazing. If only i spoke japanese and had the money. Even if I had the money, the fact that I don't speak the languge, it would prob. be really really difficult for me to get around japan, and even to the place. So the chance that I'd ever go to one of her concerts is slim to none.

it was aired.the one truehappiness posted is one of the song she sang during encore.

True.. I went for Arena Tour 2008 too (that was my first ayu live), and I was disappointed when I watched the DVD and found that her voice wasn't as perfect as I remembered it lol! :P

Yeah, Yoyogi's probably not the best place to hold a musical concert, but I can't bring myself to go anywhere else to watch her. I always have the mentality that "the last show will definitely be the best" and since Yoyogi's always the last stop, I haven't ventured to any other venue yet. :thud

After reading some stuff here, so this CDL is basically something like a Best of CDL except that it is borrowing ideas from before with new songs replacing the older songs and not just directly repeating.

I havent watched the rips because I just dun like downloading an entire show or watching them from the com. But seems to me like the REAL live and the aired version differed? Hmm...so can we trust the REAL live or what? It's so dubious now.

(And I think MissElin said Because of you was better on the first night, so I think they might use that one in the DVD...)

General comments:

It's awesome!!! But i find that ayu strained her vocals voice much from I am... to Pride such that the from INSPIRE onwards, her voice went haywire. Not good. :(

For I am..., i felt that the opening video could have been re-recorded to suit her new hairstyle and oufit.. It's kinda detached from the whole performance.

i LOVE EnergizE!!!!!!! i felt that it's the best performance!! I had goosebumps the 3 times i watched this performance. I also quite like the "circus" theme of this segment.

felt that Pride was also kinda detached from the whole concert. Pride is a solemn song and after that is INSPIRE. lol.. =x

Because of you had REALLY bad vocals and i kinda find that a pity. But who cares? DVD has perfect audio.

Ending the concert with Startin' is good. I didnt feel that this song can get audience to go high!!!

The way that the real live sounded differed. I think that what ended up happening was that as everything got mixed together for the TV broadcast, Ayu's voice got lost in the whole equation. For a lot of the TV broadcast, you could barely hear her over the band (clearest vocal of the night is teddy bear imo, which has just a piano backing her) and at times you wouldn't even be able to hear her singing (during Startin', there were quite a few moments where you'd be watching and she'd be singing, but her voice is barely there) but you'd hear PECO and Princess clear as day!

Sort of makes me wonder if the rebroadcast yesterday will be "fixed" in terms of the sound, hm...