Oh man...just got back from the concert. I have to say, I think overall last year's tour was better, but then again NEXT LEVEL is my least favorite album, so that's not a big surprise.
At the beginning of the show, I was mildly disappointed...she was clearly lipsynching Energize and a few other songs, I think I've kind of reached my limit with the oh-no-I'm-tormented-over-Shuya thing, the fake emotion was too over the top to handle sometimes, and then she was acting kind of...crazy (especially during rollin')...and I thought "What the hell? She's completely jumped the shark. She's lost her freaking mind." Looking back on it I know it was just her having a lot of fun, but not gonna lie-- there was a period of time where I was standing there dumbfounded, wondering what was going through her head.
That said, of course there were good parts too.
Her voice got progressively better over the course of the concert, and Curtain call blew me away. I started crying, actually, and then she sang Sunset right afterwards and for some reason, I was inconsolable for full ten minutes. The live arrangement of Load of the SHUGYO was MINDBLOWING, and the arrangement of GREEN was gorgeous too. They made it much more ballad-y (especially the first verse) for this performance. Also, the outro to Days was fantastic. The audience really liked Days, and people started cheering really loudly when the band started playing the song. Ayu was acting more natural, more like herself for the beginning of the song, but once Shuya came out the fake emotion was back. x_X (Someone shoot me.)
The encore was adorable; AYU BROUGHT OUT HER TWO NEW PUPPIES. So precious. And Ayu and the male dancers competed in a jumprope competition; when Subaru was emceeing he would have the dancers jump in (while two of the guys were swinging the rope) one at a time and they would have to play janken-pon (rock, paper, scissors) and beat Suba-sama before the next dancer could come in, and then the process would repeat itself until all the male dancers were in, and then Ayu came at the end-- once she jumped in, they all had to survive three swings of the rope, and then they were supposed to strike a funny pose. It took 3 or 4 tries to get all the way through, and for her pose Ayu leapt onto Shuya's back. It was pretty funny.
All in all, another amazing evening. I decided not to go the show tomorrow night, but I'm okay with that. I can't believe this is the fourth time I've seen her in a year and a half! Next up, hopefully AT2010 in April...