Her performance was stellar. It blew me away.

I've only watched through it once so far, but I'm going to watch it again soon with my good friend! :) I may post more specific thoughts on each performance after that.

hmm,everyone seems like bored and feel frustrated with the shu-ya dancing solo part but no one feel bored with yo-chan guitar solo part?
i thought both are more or less same.solo.
but no one complain bout yo-chan?

Why would anyone by bothered by Yocchan?

nah...i'm just curious as ayu always let yochan do the guitar solo,like what shu ya did for dancing solo.
shu-ya showing off his dancing and yo-chan is showing off his guitar :p

so i was like "both are doing solos but why not many like shu-ya and not many complain for yo-chan"
lol

just my opinion :p

Well at least you can see Yo-chan's talent at playing the guitar...and not shuya twirling around

Yo-chan doesn't touch ayu's body :P

:D but ayu touches him...at least his shoulder :tired
lol

Yo-chan is an accomplished musician in his own right. He has played with other bands and released albums on his own. I'll check for his website and provide the link later.

Edit : Apologies but I can't seem to locate Yo-chan's orginal website but here's a fanpage that has most of what I referred to.

http://ayu-the-artist.tripod.com/yo_chan.html

He still plays for Rider Chips and there's a list of albums he released. Check it out.

To me, his guitar solos always have some variation which I enjoy trying to figure out and identify, plus together with Shingo, he provides leadership for the band.

I think Ayu is lucky to have him and the rest of the band, solidly backing her for the AT & CDL concerts. He's been with her so long and yet his guitar playing has not deteriorated or gone stale, although I've noticed he's gone offline sometimes in TV performances.

I think Yo-chan's rapport with Ayu's fans is fantastic and if he were to leave, he would be missed as much as for his mc-ing as his guitar solos. His showmanship and his guitar "messages" at one stage was one of the highlights of the concerts.

Shu-ya ? Okay, he dances well with Ayu and .. and.. give me a week and I might come up with something else.... On the minus side however, he's been overused and to some extent rubs fans the wrong way.

If ever either one has to go, I much prefer Ayu choose Shu-ya. It may be hard to replace Shu-ya, and the dancers may be affected but I think its even harder to replace Yo-chan and the band and Ayu may take longer to recover.
I'm sure good guitarists exist in Japan, but to build up that rapport all over again ?

Anyway, you asked "both are doing solos but why not many like shu-ya and not many complain for yo-chan" so that's my two cents.

I agree with ihulk completely. Yoshio's guitar talent outweighs Shu-ya's dancing talents. I'm pretty sure anyone could do Shu-ya's solos, in fact in school we studied modern dance and I found it incredibly easy to do what he does and I'm not even good at dancing...whereas guitar solos are completely different. A good dance solo is breath-taking, and sadly Shu-ya's solos are awful whether it be down to his dancing talent or Maro's choreography. XD

ohh,okie....
lol...just ignore me XD
just curious to know what you guys think bout yo-chan solo guitar =P

and i agree that ayu is lucky to have them (include enrique,yusuke and others) as their band

I happened to like it, it was better than the ones he performed at AT08 and PCDL 08-09. I liked it because this one had more moves in his repertoire and there are less moments where hes trying to grab at the sky or give frowny faces at Ayu because he can't have her yet shes just 5 feet away from him. I agree though it wasn't necessary for him to pop out midway through TO BE, its not really a love song, he could have just popped out at the end and do his outro.

Well... at least Shu-ya's good at being sad and dramatic... Ayu likes things exaggerated these days. :P

Shuiya is far from being a bad dancer... But coreographies always were a problem on Ayu concerts ~~'

But they are getting better since at07

The overacting it's a theater thing... The concerts are not planned to look good on dvd, they are planned to look good live... And when you need to act in front of a big audience where you can't rely on recording zoom ins, emotion needs to be exagerated in order to being noted for people far from the stage

Which is why she's using Shu-ya right? :) Since he can really throw emotions on his face... like when he dances, he has this ":( + :eyes" look.

hmm i actually enjoy yo-chans solos, i think he's really good. shuya is a pretty bad dancer when he dances during ballads.. but he's really not that bad with other stuff (like the Rule dancing for example). i think some people have a problem with him because his dancing is so girlish and it usually never goes with the music during the ballads he's dancing in, so it just seems pointless and can get irritating and "ruin" the mood. i feel like he seriously butchered her HANABI performance at last years a-nation, it probably would have been great for me if it wasn't for him.

yo-chan doesn't seem to ruin any performances like that, so i have no issue with him.

yo-chan is god xD;

I thought last year's a-nation HANABI was pretty good, but the AT08 is just too...ugh XD The rain probably helped the mood of the song too. And I agree with lfe, at least TO BE outro was good, I really liked it, it's really more than tolerable compared to his other solos! The choreography was nice, I thought this time it actually went well with the background music.

And another reason Ayu chose shuya was probably because only his dramatic-ness can match hers XD

Yeah, except I much preferred her concerts when she didn't do all that; it seems most people feel the same way as well. The lyrics, her voice, and the music are already enough to get the emotion across. All the pulling faces is just annoying. Plus nowadays, even in concerts they have screens that show Ayu throughout the performance so, she doesn't really have to do all the over acting for fans to be able to see her face. I remember groaning at all of her AT08 faces during the ballads section when I went to the show; it's just not necessary.

I was explaining why she does it, not that everyone must like it xD IMO it's pretty cool when it's well done, and pretty stupid when it's poorly done

About the screens, I would hate going to a concert and watching it from screens in order to see something xD If i will watch it from screens, i can do it at home