^her soft deep voice songs are healing for the soul too lol

She just needs to find the right compositions that suit her current voice and avoid any of the Tetsuya Komuro type songs that are challenging

I hope this gets an OS release, need to save money somewhere... :laugh

To those who speak Japanese and watched the PL digest with the commentary. Did ayu say anything interesting/funny about the concert, its production etc?

Maybe not funny exactly but she talked obviously about each song, what was going through her mind before/during and between her and the dancers.

Like she said she was terrified of the stairs she stood on in complete darkness before the show started. Also her fall during snowy kiss, she hoped people would think it was part of the show I think. If I recall ZIN said he had no idea she fell because he was on the other side of the stage but he felt something had happened.

That sort of stuff. I find that really interesting so I'm watching tonight's stream. :D

That was the most talkative I've ever seen Ayu haha!

^ Thanks a lot for this!

Can somebody explain me what is the Participation 1-2-3-4 on the team Ayu Shop for the TA versions?

I think it's different time slots during which you can watch the online pre-viewing event on 23rd August.

The time slots are: 1pm, 5pm and 9pm.
Participation 4 seems to be nothing, I guess?

I hope I'm not just mixing things up right now.

Thanks... I think I'll take participation 4 then :rolleyes. I am quite excited about the live CDs I liked her vocal in that show and it was a great setlist. I'll also take the chance to order Loveppear's anniversary!

Seeing this cover make me wonder if ayu is now doing the photoshop job all by herself on her glittering Mac.
This is such a disaster. This photo is a choice by itself but now with the random rainbow flag, the poor typo and that horrendous digital beam of light straight from an early 2000s video edit... Wow I'm impressed haha.

I guess in her long live career, it’s okay for her to have a show that she loathes lol. That’s the sense I get from PoM 2018. And honestly I’d agree; I didn’t enjoy that concert. However, this could simply be that I was going in with the original PoM in mind. I think that was the biggest mistake... the scale, simplicity and most of all the passion and emotion behind PoM led to it becoming one of her more popular tours. The “new” felt empty in comparison. I think she had good intentions but it was up against big competition I guess you could say haha. I’m glad I saw it in retrospect, though I can’t say I remember too much about it now. Which I suppose says a lot... haha

In any case, I’m excited to see this CDL on DVD since I couldn’t go :(

Well... In fact... I think Ayu's music, stuff and ... probably a lot of us also seems to be stuck in the early 2000's :p

I had the same thoughts as this initially after I saw it live. Ayu had been building it up as huge PoM2011 sequel, like it was going to be her most extravagant show ever, so I was expecting this huge thing with the full orchestra and initially I was disappointed. Being that it was the only Ayu show that I've seen in person with the band still there, I actually ended up really liking it, and I kind of wish she would release it on dvd. I still watch the broadcast version every so often. I do understand why she looks on it with resentment, because I think it's the first tour that she had planned that her vision could not be executed the way she wanted, likely because of budget issues. She was really hyping it up at the beginning of announcements and it didn't turn out how she wanted. I'd be super disappointed too if that happened to me. I kind of have the same mentality when it comes to my work and if it doesn't come out exactly how I planned it, it feels like it's ruined. But at the same time, I think it was still a good show in the end, it was fun to see in person and I'm so happy that I did get to see the band, since she hasn't had them on any of the tours after CDL2018-2019.

I wouldn't even say it's budget issues (if anything, an anniversary tour would probably get more) but rather a lack of time and well thought out ideas. Ayu spent most of 2017 (and early 2018) focusing on JTB. She had about half the time she usually has (for arena tours) to prepare for PoM18 (1,5 months VS. 3 months).
I would like a DVD release but I'm okay with how things are since we got a full, well-edited broadcast.

I do wonder, though, why Ayu didn't 'upgrade' the show to fit her vision. She often had around two weeks between stops and pretty much a full month until the Osaka shows. I'm sure that if she really wanted to, she could have changed things up to her liking. But what's done is done.

In a way, it feels like A^3 was her way of "making up" for PoM18. While it's vocally inferior, it's quite apparent that many people -including Ayu- like it a lot more than PoM18.

I was expecting a show on pair with A BEST LIVE and I got a low-cost CDL, I was really disappointed back then...

I think you're right, the timing issues had a lot to do with it too, but I remember very clearly when she first started announcements that it was going to be a big budget major show and gave all the indications that it would be like PoM part 2, with the orchestra and everything. But also I remember her saying something either shortly after the initial announcements, or somewhere in the middle of the tour, about budget cuts at the time. I could be wrong, but I feel like budget cuts were a factor in this. Probably not totally to blame, its most likely a bunch of problems, but I think budget cuts ended up being a significant factor, and she was extra mad that they were doing it to her in an anniversary year show. It's possible I'm mixing something up, but I remember her mentioning it somewhere. But at the time I was trying to stay off the forum and Ayu blogs/social media until after I saw the show so it would be a surprise for me...and it definitely was after all that build up.

Since 2015-2016 or so she's been splitting her time/budget between tours as opposed to doing just CDL then a tour, there's been half of a tour or a whole tour then half of another tour or some other special concert happening the same year. I feel like that hasn't really helped with focus or budgeting either.

Just before PoM2018 was when the whole "Ayu is so fat" thing came about, so it could be that the tour reminds her of that time as well where her staff and fans were critical about how puffy and huge she looked along with other problems with the show. Looking back at that time, it was also when fans were starting to direct messages as Max to "do something" about Ayu since they were frustrated with how lives were and how it was getting more expensive, there were too many dancers, and so on.

I attended POM18 and really enjoyed it. It was polished, it didn't feel cheap, and I think she was very purposeful in the song choice and flow.

That said, it wasn't what I was expecting either.

It was also a REALLY short tour.
2010 - RnR Circus: 34 shows
2011 - PoM: 26 shows
2012 - HLS: 28 shows
2013 - A Best Live: 28 shows
2014 - Premium Showcase: 11 shows
2015 - CdM: 22 shows
2016 - Made in Japan: 17 shows
2018 - Power of Music: 11 shows

I think the biggest thing was that so much was recycled from the original PoM.

^ And then you have TROUBLE which was intented to have 100+ dates lol

I went to PoM18 and I don't regret it. Yes it was a "lowcost" PoM11, yes the setlist wasn't groundbreaking, yes after BRILLANTE the shows feels like a huge ENCORE and i'm not the biggest fan of the re-arrangements of B&D, Born to be... and forgiveness.
BUT! Her vocals were so good, she finally sang ever free (awesome performance), I got to see iconic songs live such as SEASONS and A Song for XX, I had the chance to witness TROUBLE announcement (at the time we thought it was going to be a full album so I was ecstatic lmao) and the first performance of The way I am.

Maybe there was a reason why she got fatter too... maybe it was health issues, or she had a rough time that year, or maybe she was pregnant and lost it... could be many things. For sure she wants to forget about that whole period.