レーンボー ベーグル~

[midori]

Goodness guys, Perfume is adorable. I was expecting them to be great live, and yet I'm still super impressed! I went to the last show of the Cosmic Explorer tour in New York. Lemme just try to recount the concert experience, shall I? I apologize in advance that things may be out of order and more of a general recollection of the event rather than in-depth; my memory ain't the greatest.

Before the concert:
The concert venue was at the Hammerstein Ballroom and from a distance before we reached it, we could see a line wrapping around the block. My friend who lives in New York (who also went to the Hatsune Miku concert there) was like, "Yep. That's the line." After some "No way. Joo lie." from me, we proceeded to line up. Let me clarify one thing, this line had quite a variety of people that you wouldn't expect for a queue to a japanese concert. This should've been my first warning. But New York is full of eclectic people, and Perfume is amazing -- I made it make sense to me somehow. I don't go to a lot of concerts, lol. My friend asked the people in front of us to make sure this was the line for the Perfume concert. They must've only heard 'concert' and confirmed with some nods. After a few minutes, they turned around and said, "Wait, there's another concert at the same building with another line. This is the line for Hillsong Church."


Oh.

So we walked around to the entrance and yes, she was right. There was another line. And it was distinctly the Perfume line, without even looking at the signs. Lots of Japanese people, cosplayers, Perfume shirts everywhere. This line was also easily three times as long. It was a good thing we had seats and weren't on the floor. (If we had floor tickets, we woulda' been there that morning. In line after the rabid fans that camped out I'm sure.) Anyway, by the time we got there, the merchandise line was non-existent, so I managed to myself a regular tour t-shirt and a pamphlet. Although I was sad the Limited Edition USA shirt was sold out. I cri.

The concert:
We sat behind two rows of college-age guys who all know each other. They seemed very drunk, but most of it was probably just them being high on Nocchi. No kidding. They were hilariously huge Nocchi fans that were screaming "NOCCHIIII~, MY WAIFU" and just, couldn't contain their excitement. It was a level I really should've expected, lol.

Notice in the picture I took, that it's not a complete view of the screen. That's because I was on the lower balcony, and there wasn't a lot of height before you reach the higher balcony. Thus, I could never see the full screen unless I ducked down. It was even worse for the people behind me. It really sucked. Good thing for the most part, Perfume was on the lower stage.

This is what I get for never seeing any footage of Perfume live, but the lighting is something else. Felt like I was at a light show. Their use of projected images is crazy cool, too. I understand now why right before the show, when a backstage guy was placing the lights on the ground, everyone cheered and clapped like he was Perfume. The real MVP right there. but really the crowd was just hyped and ready for Perfume so any movement on stage was an excuse to clap

They started off MC by asking if we'd heard of Pentatonix and that their Perfume Medley was amazing. (And it is, I saw it on my feed within hours and was like, NO WAY DID THEY DO PERFUME IT MUST BE SOMETHING ELSE.) They also mentioned their new song with OK Go called I Don't Understand You that's about an American Boy and a Japanese Girl, in which a dude in front of us went, "WEEEEEEBS." Hahaha.

Perfume themselves were SPOT ON. They are so in sync, it's incredible. They also do quite a lot of dancing with little breaks, whaaat. Most of their speaking sections were in English, adorably high-pitched English. Nocchi and Kashiyuka did most of the greetings. A-chan knows her English is close to non-existent and requested an audience member to translate. It was between a british girl and a japanese guy from Brooklyn. A-chan represented the girl, and Nocchi was the guy and they had a janken showdown. And again, even that was adorable, I can't handle. Mister Ken ended up being the translator and they had to warn him that A-chan's japanese is complicated even to the Japanese, lmao. It was probably something they did at all of their overseas concerts but I think it's great that they had this audience interaction.

A-chan mentioned last time she went to New York she was obsessed with Murray's (Marley's?) bagels. (Who knows what the place was called, it was lost in translation, can you tell.) But this time, she met Rainbow Bagels which changed her life. Then it became a running gag--Rainbow Bagels. lol. RAINBOW!! YEAHHHH! BAGERUU!! YEAHHH!

Teaching the audience choreography/stretches was super cute. They did the Apple, Banana, Cheeseburger, lol. And TRF's Survival Dance, which always hypes. There was a bit right before they did Baby Face, and A-chan taught us the hand motions for the little instrumental bits. I'll try to describe it (hahaha, well here we go): you roll your arms in a circular motion to the right, then same to the left, put your left hand up (a la the Macarena), then right hand, and together drag them down zig-zag-like all the way down. If that didn't make sense, just watch a video. I give up, LOL.

I'm hoping this particular show made it to the DVD, although it probably won't. D:

tldr; YES. PERFUME. YES.