thanks for the photos

The newer costumes don't look too bad. I guess, they have to grow on me. Still...none of them compare to the INSPIRE-costume from AT 05. ^_^

Judging from the skirt length of this years costumes though, I guess it'll be next years tour when we get to see Ayu's entire ass. Her skirts have been getting shorter and shorter every tour....

OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!
it looks soooooooo awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!
those lighting effects are just screaming NEXT LEVEL!!!!!!!!!!!

i can't wait to see this on the DVD or the TV version!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, how good does rule sound in the arena?

I can't wait to see this concert, gonna be epic. The lights are fantastic.

Oh.... WOW....

The screens are amazing!! O.o

JAAAAW-DROOOOP!!

For those who are saying her voice sounds bad... this is probably a cell phone recording. If you record something with a cell phone at a concert, EVERYTHING either sounds too fuzzy and you can't understand a thing or it's all off-sounding.

But... wow! Those lights, the stage... it was all AWESOME! And how there would be flashes of light and how she'd "disappear" for a few moments... that was sooo cool! I can't wait to really see this!! =D

I didn't think she sounded too horrible, maybe not as great as we know she can be.

THATS SO AMAZING!!! Her streak of horrible opening is over!!!(t2m AT08, evolution AT07 were BORING) it might even beat AT06s or AT02s opening(the best in my opinion^^)

Hahaha... I hate at02, at03-04, at05 and at06 openings... xD And I really like the Asia Tour ones xD
I hate the entire at02 by the way, to me is her worst concert ever! Low budget Drowned World Tour ><

yeah... it was pretty much like it... except for the NEVER EVER "cell" performance and evolution

thanks God she changed her outfit for Never Ever when sang it again for Best of CDL btw! The performace was good, but she doesn't just copied the outfit at at02, she used a bad copy IMO xD

Well, I think AT07 was bad because it was playback, but even live it wouldnt be one of my favourites and AT08...just tell me WHAT was so special about it? xD it was her standing in fog singing two lines of t2m acapella sounding weird with an ugly costume and not enough fire, also, the costumes from cdl0708 were better...

I don't care about playback :P
and it was interesting to see she starting a tour singing that "creation comes after destruction" in the tour that was meant to be the marking point between her second era and her third era

The new outfits look way better! yay Ayu!!
But that Rule preview... ugh what happened to your vocals x_X

the fact that she used that line really was great, but the rest...it sounded boring xDDD she sang it so much better already, t2m is one of the songs where i prefer the studio version most time, maybe the only one(except in the verses, what the hell did they do to the verses?) and the use of fire really was ridicuolous, opening a tour with acapella+fire is a very nice idea, but that was like...almost no fire there xD the flower(so big! xD) and the screens usage in at06, amazing singing in at05 and the whole atmosphere in at02 were better to me^^

I really hate that flower xD It's the only thing I hate on at06, other than that, is my favorite concert of hers...

xDDD I hate the cutesy part in it, its just SOOO boring and ayu has an ugly costume in it

Honestly I thought she sounded about the same as she has all year - which still means she didn't really sound too good anyways though. Otherwise, the opening looked pretty cool.

OMFG THE LIGHTS.They will definately be the tour highlight,ahhhhhh*_*

AT07 was not playback. i went it to listen her to sing LIVE.

i do agree that AT06 was her GRANDEST and MOST EXTRAVAGANT concert ever. AT07 and AT08 were just toned down by A LOT.

then the audio was replaced, its no difference on the dvd anymore/for the people not listening to it live...

and what was extravagant about AT06? it mostly reused things from AT05 xD sure, the screens were great, but aside that there was not much improvement from AT05, they even used the same screen effect in Pride which they used in Moments the year before xD(and in Part of Me AT07 xD) the rain was like the water from At05 and so on...but i really like AT06, even though these things, its her second most favourite tour of mine(AT05 is my favourite^^)

I don't know why some people find her vocals here a bad ones. I agree that when she started she didn't hit it properly, but very soon after i wasn't distracted by vocals at all trully Oo. What is more I liked them, very powerfull...

Time to stick it in the first post!

If her voice is bad, it might be when she was sick or whatever. Awesome opening though.

I just can't see why everyone finds it reused... asides from the flower... the cute performace wasn't reused (not only about the screen use, but the outfits, the choreography, the theme, the magic trick... nothing with at05)... alterna wasn't reused either... the rock seguiment wasn't anything new, but at05 has nothing like it... Pride... Pride wasn't about the main screen, was about the pillars and the dancers (all the choreography was based on the lyrics)... rainy day is somewhat refreshing 'cause theu finally stay together in the end, but besides that, was a very simple yet cute performace... the end of the main concert wasn't reciclyed too... and at06 has the accoustic part on the encore...
So... Can't see in wich aspect it was equal to at05 (that I really loved when first came out and now think it's a bit boring)

About at07... ALL the performaces where improved old ones... there were nothing new... it was kind of a "best of arena tour"

I believe it is from one of the Saitama dates (so the opening of the tour.) Correct me if I'm wrong though.

About these eras... Who counts them and how?
Is it like:
1998 to A BEST = first era,
A BEST to A BEST2 -b&w- = seccond era and
Secret, GUILTY and maybe NEXT LEVEL = third era? Or is NL a new era, a fourth?
Then I have to say... if the third have ended, it was a pretty small era. :P

I always wonder about this eras as well, I think you can't really make them, maybe you make a era until her peak(A BEST?) and one til now? Or eras for musical styles? lyrical themes? You can't give her eras everybody would appreciate

Hmmm, eras for Ayu are decided in terms of... musical style, the context to which Ayu writes her lyrics, and probably to a certain extent her sales.

It was quite clear that since I am..., Ayu's lyric-writing style changed from during Duty, so I suppose the first era's ending can be marked with the release of A BEST.

Personally, I would count I am..., RAINBOW and A BALLADS as its own era simply because in Memorial Address we saw Ayu really start to get into the rock genre. :P I wouldn't count her previous ventures because they were still highly themed (like the 'rock' tunes on RAINBOW, or say, something like NEVER EVER.)

Memorial Address - A BEST II can be its own era. XD This time it's more to do with sales and also Ayu vocal-wise.

Secret - A COMPLETE. How does that sound? A little longer than Secret - GUILTY. This era is the "Ayu has deeper vocals but doesn't venture into NEXT LEVEL yet" era. I wouldn't group NEXT LEVEL in with the Secret era. :D

Honestly, the era thing is really subjective. You can count Ayu's "foray into Asia" as its own era.

^ I think those "eras" are completely irrevelant for concerts. The only thing that's obvious is that Ayu's concerts since 2005 have started following a similar pattern that usually consists of 1) Ayu standing and singing rock songs, 2) a sexy outfit with half naked male dancers and girls with whips, 3) a lovers theme with Shuya with the two always being separated, 4) cheesy pink costumes for cute upbeat songs. Of course every concert had a different order of these and every now and then a new theme would pop up.

^
Don't forget the prisoner theme from last years and this years tour ;)

wow that cheerleading outfit is....oh gawwwd.

the opening is cool

but is it good to use flash light at such a close distance? I mean, it hurt ayu's eyes
and the way of tour is really really long to ayu (and us)

yeah I guess that was used a number of times too.

cool video update!

The opening is freakishly impressive D:

I meant AT06. AT06 has the gigantic red rose, red ball and birthday cake stage.

Since when Pride has similar effect as AT05?

i am so glad that she modified her outfits ^^ Ayu realli do care abt her fans opinion doesn't she. love the new sliver outfit.. my fav of this tour. the altered white ballad dress is really lovely too. i hope she change her in the corner and sparkle outfit as well =P *finger crossed*

Pride uses the same screen effect moments uses after the guitar solo, but you only see it for a very short time because theres no good shot of the screen in that moment, it shows a dancer with the screen in the background i think, but you see that its the same "tunnel" effect

^ the Moments effect reminds more of the one that was used for part of Me.

OMG I jsut saw the Rule performance and I had goosebumps and an orgasm.

oops.

Actually the whole ballad section was pretty much recycled for three concerts. AT05 had Moments on a square platform with the screen effect, AT06 had Pride on a square platform with the screen effect and AT07 had part of Me with the screen effect.

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/4061/64moments1107.jpghttp://img12.imageshack.us/img12/5843/screen1qxz.jpghttp://img25.imageshack.us/img25/950...tofme0217k.jpg

sorry noidea i didnt understand what u were talking about until i see this. :P

ah! then this is really recycled. But seriously, it's gonna get boring if ayu just stand there and sing, there need to be some visual effects. and they need to think of new effects NOW!

other than this visual effect and the water for rainy day, i dont see any resemblance to any other concert?

^well..it worked for the different styls hahha...but part of Me seemed the most recycled rather than Pride

at07 was a recycled concert...^^

Yeah appears in AT 07 is like an upgrade of appears in A Museum.

Yes I'm agree with you ~~
Nothing new in this concert and Ayu abuse of playback (especially UNITE!, evolution (exept accoustic moment), 1LOVE and until that day and more (M? Appears?))

Can't wait to see another fan vidéo of NEXT LEVEL tour!

Wow that video is awesome!! The lighting is brilliant!!

oooh, tnx for the video uploading!!

I found a new clip from the tour where she sings EnergizE. It's a short cliip like the other one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjRWaG8-7Q0

^ Thank you!!! Seems a very cute performance!! But it's such a short clip, I want more!!! lol

lol It's probably because it was filmed with a cell phone, but the clip is quiet! But it's very cute! You can tell she's singing and using her super high pitched voice lol I absolutely looooove the stage!

omg EnergizE sounds kinda too good to be true. o.O

it sounds nice...and its BRIGHT! so colorful!

wooow
thanks for sharing ^__^
I want a fancam of LOVE 'n' HATE *-*

aww she looks so cute! i love that outfit :luv2

WOAAA THE STAGE LOOKS AWESOME!!!!! cant wait for the full tour :luv2

Stage is very awesome *____*
About EnergizE's perf, Hum I think it will be a playback -______-

WOW! amazing, soo colorful and different to a usual Ayumi concert!
:D

the stage looks awesome LOL she's so cute. lol her voice sounds like a 3 year old

very nice stage!!

I'm loving the stage! it's so colorful and bright! I don't even care if it's lipsynched or not!

The sound is awful but for the moment I don't think it's playback XD
This kind of "kawaii" performance makes me think of previous performances like HONEY or ANGEL'S SONG *_*

I really doubt its playback, does sound very live to me + cutesy songs playback are mostly performed with headmic(ANGEL'S SONG PCDL0809 for example, or the AT06 cutesy part, it was completely playback, but AT08 cutesy part was probably live and used a normal mic)

thanks for sharing~

omg the stage & screens. so awesome. i'm speechless.

Some people seem to under-estimate Ayu's intelligence, I believe that there is no way she would actually lip sync and made the recording sound worse than a studio version - she isn't stupid. And well all I can say is that EnergizE did sound more chipmunk-ish than the album version.

^ some people seem to underestimate ayus intelligence really strongly.
ANGEL'S SONG PCDL0809 sounded worse than the studio version and was synched, theme of a-nation '03 on CDL0506 sounded worse than the studio recording and was synched, these two are 100% proven because she made a mistake miming the words, she is smart to make them worse than the studio recordings, because people like you would believe everything worse than the studio recording is live xD

I love the stage & screens, she looks so cute... i wanna see the full show now >_<
thank youuu

OH NO please!!! ... again lip-sync discusion starts...-___-

oh well, by the way i'm lovin how this AT is tourning out! I love the stage is so amazing and colorfull!! and she is so cuute!

I don't think it's playback. After ANGEL'S SONG you would think that she wouldn't be stupid enough to sing a song on playback and have the screen zoomed on her face. ;)
Therefore I think it's live. Plus it SOUNDS live from what I can tell. :)

^ Well, they HAVE to show her face sometimes xD

Well only the ppl who saw it will actually know about the lipsync. I will give that discussion a rest until I see it for myself and later when the DVD comes out.

However, OMG the stage is AMAZING!!! O.o Love it!

Very muted, but it sounds like she's singing to me.



I swear, a lot of you are going conspiracy-theorist on Ayu for no real reason whatsoever. It's rather sad that people always think of "playback/lipsynching" when she sounds okay. Gone are the days when people just enjoyed a concert without thinking: "Oh, maybe she isn't really singing this..". It's a sad day in the world of an Ayu fan.

i totally agree. and i don't know why the lip-synching thing matters so much to people. it's especially weird when people spend a large amount of their time 'investigating' each and every performance to see if it has been lipsynched. that complete playback thread is CREEPY. :no

i'm just happy she's there doing her thing. bad voice or not, lipsynching or not. lol

Also, concerning the whole ticketing situation, I wonder if the economy really does have something to do with it. That plus the fact that she's probably going around to arenas closer to people's hometowns, it's possible that they knew some arenas weren't gonna sell out (like the largest two she usually performs in, Yokohama and Saitama). It just doesn't add up that Ayu / avex would add so many more dates to the tour and have it last for so long only to have it "fail". And another thing, considering that NEXT LEVEL came out less than two weeks before the tour, I feel as though people might have needed time to digest the album, since they usually get 3-5 months to do so since her albums tend to be released in the fourth quarter of the year. Eh, we can speculate endlessly about why things happen and why Ayu wanted things the way they are, but.. in the end all we can do is enjoy (or.. not enjoy?) what's being shown to us. -sigh-

The screening looks awesome!!
ayu sounds so good in there, and makes even cuter voice lol.

I don't understand why people try so hard to prove she's lip-syncing when she does that and they try to find it. Is it so important to "prove" she is "crap"?
The lip-sync subject is shoved too much, yeah she does that (and luckily it's not most of the time) it's ok to say oh she lip-synced that song but there is no need to exaggerate more than what it is like it's a sin and she murdered the japanese prime minister. Specially when she is just using a playback and singing live and play back discussions become serious (not the lip-syncing).

As long as she sings live almost all of the time and give good performances who cares.

It's starting to be a paranoia or something....

OMG the screens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Turns out it is true that costumes aren't the main thing of this tour!

Yeah the screening and effects alone got me really drew me around it, they should be one of the bests yet.
I want to watch the DVD already, so long time...

About the EnergizE perf....I thought the people who went to it live here said that she actually did sing it...

but she sang it in the cutesy voice because she was being safe or something?

So yey her outfits still suck...but everything else is total greatness<3

I don't think I'll like the energize thing lol but the screens and the stage is wonderful.

thanks for posting guys :)

^ Yeah, I hope people don't shoot me, but that doesn't sound live AT ALL to me. Hopefully it is only this song.

You'd think she would have learned that from CDL 04/05 then. :)

That's totally not the reason why. I mean for one, I don't even think she sounds that great. :) But no, the main reason is that she is wearing a head set mic, yet you hear nothing other than her voice. Not to mention that she is moving quite a bit yet there isn't really any effect on her voice. For comparison, look how much her voice was effected by doing the cutesy movements in Depend on You at AT08. It at least to me, does not look or sound live.

I at least like the stage - how bright and colorful it is.

I love the stage for EnergizE and the flashy stars!! I can't wait for the DVD!! ahhhh

we've got a long wait for the DVD :( i really hope some longer fancams show up soon!

Haha. I never saw 04/05. :)
Actually, to be totally honest, I don't care if she lip-syncs. Because I agree, she doesn't do it all the time like a lot of artists. Plus when she DOES screw it up it's fun to hear people getting all bent out of shape about it. :D

everything is lipsync to you.. -_-)

The depend on you on the dvd was affected by the cold, that's why it affected her voice.
Those movements in Energize should not affect her voice at all..
And really, this is a fancam video, with poor audio.
How can you tell if there is anything else other than her voice? -_-);;;

I dont think this is lipsync at all..
She is able to do this song easily, I think.. ahahaha.

I really love this stage.
whoever said this stage is recycled is crazy~~~ ahahaha.
I love all the colours *-*
I cant wait for the dvd.

yeah i know right :yes
at first i was disappointed because she uses the same songs from pcdl. and her outfits are not that great either.
but the stage and screens totally make up for it <3

Umm no. :) Rule didn't seem like it at all. This does. If you can hear her voice in the recording, you should be able to hear the mic sounds as well - mic sounds on headset mics are super clear in an actual live setting. No one is asking you to agree with me. And her voice sounded just as bad in Depend on You at the concert date that I went to as the one on DVD does. :)

There is also a Japanese report from the Saitama show that says they suspect that Energize was lip synched, they also mention thinking that identity was as well: http://ameblo.jp/komaneko7859/entry-10241434500.html

^ i was at the tour on the april 1st show, and i'm pretty sure it was live...

BUT anyway, when did people start actually liking this tour?! all of a sudden it's "i cant wait for the dvd!!!!!" "wow this is gunna be my fave tour so far!!" lol, surprising to see that after all the negative stuff before the clips came out :P

I think that the first impression killed it for many people but we all know first impressions are wrong a lot of times. XD

I'm glad to know that EnergizE is live. ^__^

I'm just curious - and this is meant as no offense whatsoever to tokyoxjapanxfan - but what makes his opinion that it was live, more valid than the opinion from the Japanese report that it was lip synched? Shouldn't that at the very least make it in the "too hard to tell category"?

Well you used the word suspect.
Maybe I should have edited and write I'm glad that there is a high chance it's live, though it could offence the person here who was in the live and shared his experience with us (in that matter).

Also as I said earlier for me it's not that important if she lip-syncs since she doesn't do that most of the live and specially if it's just 1-2 songs. It's also why I don't think it should be so hard investigated, and at least we should wait for the full live or something to see if at all, since it seems that some opinions don't correlate from people who went to the tour.
As you say at this point we can't be sure it's 100% that or that so shouldn't we skip it for now until it will be revelead eventually?

Also you said that EnergizE is most likely lip-synced because there are no side sounds and there should since she moves a lot, you haven't hesitate to say it's lip-synced too. Even if it is lip-synced then what's the huge problem that we have to investigate the issue to depth?

I would be glad if it wouldn't since I live ayu's live singing and I think it's great most of the time but if it's just 1 or 2 it's really not an issue.

wow...the stage...i don't think her costume is that bad too...i think its okay

OH please just stop the lipsync issues. I wish she just lip sync the whole tracks like britney spears and we'll see how it goes...maybe she'll lose all her fans?
EnergizE sounds different from the CD, especially when she hit 'nani kata koto GA', the 'koto GA' part is just off tunes. Maybe you guys can suspect she use a pre-recording track ^^.
anyway even there's no props...the stage is actually the props. the stage is like a living thing....all made of screens and lights..gosh....

Right, judging by the video, it doesn't appear live to me. But if tokyoxjapanxfan says he thinks it was live, I'll at least give some benefit of the doubt. I'll make a final judement when I see the show in October. I hadn't checked on the Japanese opinions of the show in a few weeks, but when I started looking just now, I have seen a number of people post the same thing about Energize - "EnergizEは口パクだった.他にもあったと思う " (Energize was lip synch and I think more after as well) "Energize口バクやってました。"(she did lip synch for Energize), "やっぱEnergize口バク" (as thought, Energize is lip synch.)

But, yes I hope it is just a few songs - or hopefully even just this one.

....using a pre-recorded track is lip synching though... If you mean using a backing track, then that is a bit different.

This lip-syncing thing is getting ridiculously annoying...:shakehead

I see, so it's possible for both ways.

Btw did the re-sale tickets number went up?

^We don't have to discuss it in depth, but I would certainly think that it is at least relevant to know about in a NEXT LEVEL tour thread.

So, right now, we can just leave it at there are some songs in the tour, mainly energize that are in question about whether they are live or not.

^Sad thing is we will never know for sure because the DVD sound may be edited, although i'm hoping for a lightly edited DVd sound ala AT 2008. I really don't care though, just kind of curious. The TV version is probably edited sound too right? Since its not aired live.