CDL 14-15 - My Review!

[evolution7931]

Hey everyone! I just got back from Ayu’s CDL 14-15 Cirque de Minuit and I have a lot of details to give you all… I’m exhausted since I left my apartment around 4pm and just got home at 10:45pm, but I feel the need to write and publish my review before I forget any of the details. I waited 10 years for this to happen so please forgive me if I go off on a tangent

Background:

So I moved to Japan with my partner nearly a month ago for work and when I heard the CDL tickets were going on sale, I had to snatch them. I got our tickets at the Lawson convenience store in my neighbourhood 2 days after they went on sale and we got decent seats in the elevated level (section D).. we were kind of across from the catwalk circle mini-stage thing but we could see over everyone and I really enjoyed the view from where we got to sit. I noticed some people on here in older threads saying they “had” to have seats near the stage to be happy but I need to let you guys know that Yoyogi is a LOT smaller in person than they make it look in videos and every seat in the house seems good (from the elevated levels)… the people at the back of the arena (floor) were chanting and having the time of their lives!

We got to Yoyogi around 5:30 when the doors were supposed to open, but they didn’t open the doors until around 6 and the concert started a bit late, around 7:10 (instead of 6:30 which the tickets stated, no big deal). When we got to Yoyogi, there was a huge crowd taking pictures with every little sign and tons of people buying merch… and it was so funny because they had a noodle tent where you could spend 1200 yen and scarf down some Ayu Ramen while standing up haha…

When they opened the doors, it was very easy to find our seats (ridiculously easy) and they had an awesome area under the balcony selling lots of good concert food (hot dogs, potato wedges, chicken, etc) but the line-up for the bathroom was insane! There must have been 50 guys in front of me.

The crowd was a very interesting mix of young and old, male and female… there were people that had obviously been to several Ayu concerts already wearing merch and memorabilia from older concerts. But everyone had a light stick! Next to us was a young girl with her middle-aged father and on the other side was a group of 4 very ecstatic fangirls..

The Show:

It was obvious from before the opening that the concert would have a circus theme. They were playing circus music before the main opening and there were a few circus props on the catwalk, the main stage covered in classic red curtain. The opening was less than I expected from an Ayu concert (always known for big dramatic openings) and must have lasted only about a minute or two of dancers bouncing around on balls and doing a few circus tricks.

The opening song was “Duty” and I was in disbelief when I saw Ayu appear in a big dress so quickly! She had brown hair with bangs looking incredibly cute… I thought it might have been Princess, but when she started singing I knew it had to be her. The music had a slight “creepy circus” twist to it but her rendition of Duty was extremely impressive. To be honest, I could not have expected her to perform it any better.. she belted it, hit all the notes, and sounded extremely amazing. The only thing I could think of during this performance was how impressed I was with the sound of everything – listening to Ayu through headphones or speakers is one thing, but the band sounded extremely powerful and so did she. I was extremely impressed.

After Duty she performed a newer song or two that I can’t fully recall because I’m not all that familiar with some of her more recent songs. But I can tell you that the first segment had a rock-meets-circus theme, which was very interesting and cool. I loved it. Not only that, but Ayu looked amazing! I couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked in person.

After a short interlude of the backup singers sounding like they were dying, the intro to Game started up and I was in shock… one of my favourite songs ever! (in my entire life btw).. I started freaking out and couldn’t stop smiling.. she did an amazing job and the performance involved a ton of aerial acrobatics (the ones rehearsed for in the doc on her youtube channel.) Then came My Name’s WOMEN performed in the usual routine, the crowd was going wild and everyone was loving it!! After that she performed 1 LOVE and I think another newer rock song which I didn’t fully recognize.

The next interlude was surprising to me… the keyboard player actually SANG a full Ayu song while a female dancer danced around. I never saw this happen on any of her DVDs, but the keyboard player fully sang “End Roll” and sounded pretty good but I was wondering why she wasn’t singing it herself… it was still enjoyable and I liked it.

The Ballad Section:

Here comes the only criticism I have… after she got on stage she sang 8 or 9 ballads IN A ROW.. and not her old good ones like Moments or M, newer less exciting ones… she didn’t mix any old classic ballads and only did newer (imo not as good ones..) and it took away from the excitement of everything)… the crowd was really feeding off the energy of those rock songs and then came 8 ballads in a row.. the “new years countdown” was done with forgiveness (the 7th or 8th ballad in a row) . This segment of the concert was just overly long… I could see people in the crowd losing interest and sitting down, it was just too much ballad at once.

Also, I think her mic was turned up way too high during a lot of these ballads and made her sound a bit screechy at times, and the visuals weren’t making up for it.. a long drawn out Church scene with Opera singing from Princess and Timmy (ugh) made me hope “M” was coming, but it was forgiveness and it was just way too loud and they REALLY dragged it out, to like 8 minutes, which was more annoying than fun. But it finally ended.

Finally the ballad-fest ends:

The last ballad turned into a rock song and everyone stood back up and things seemed good again. She performed a few good songs, including Surreal-Evolution-Surreal, which was mixed in a different way than usual and put a smile back on everyone’s faces. She sang another song or two that I didn’t know, and then the main part of the concert ended. My bf thought that the concert was completely over and was very disappointed that she didn’t sing a single thing off of Colours. I reassured him that the encore was coming and hoped she would sing the upbeat Colours songs even though I knew the encore was usually ballads.

The encore:

The encore was better than any part of the main concert imo! I believe that she didn’t sing “Lelio” or the upbeat songs of Colours during the main part because they didn’t coincide with the circus theme of the main concert. However… after the “ayu-ah-ah” encore intro, people started to get pumped back up by the bass. Then, a DJ came up and started blasting techno/trance music… the colours of the screen and lights were better than the main concert and I was very impressed.. it reminded me of Premium Live. Everyone was rocking out and Terminal started playing, except it cut off and Ayu came out and sang a song I never heard before but it was techno-based and had some English in it.. everyone was having a blast again!

She performed a medley of XOXO and Lelio which was so much fun.. and Boys and Girls was a blast! I thought she was ending the concert with “You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful” and said “Arigatou gozaimashita” so many times I thought it was over… but she REALLY ended the concert with a very “real instrument” version of “Born to Be” which was fun and a good, happy ending to the concert.

Overall it was an amazing experience to see Ayu in the flesh and her energy was amazing. It seemed a little weird that she sang 8+ ballads in a row because the audience lost a ton of energy during that period and her voice was way too loud over the speakers. But the rest of the concert was top-notch and the amazing encore more than made up for it. I had the time of my life! Yoyogi Arena is a lot smaller in person than you would expect but that means everyone has a good seat ☺

If anyone has any questions at all, ask and I’ll reply ASAP!

☺