Concert Tour 2002 - Koji Tamaki Acoustic Special Night
[Part 1]
[Part 1]
[Part 3]
Part 3
Greetings,
Here is the third and final installation of my Tokyo concert report.
So, the big question is: what about Tamaki's performance? Well, what
else can I say? He was in excellent form. Spending very little time
between song breaks (some of the songs were literally played in
succession), he just went for the songs and hit those notes
flawlessly. All these great songs being played all at once, my mind
felt like being punched non-stop, and I was enjoying it!
Hearing his rendition of the songs from his first solo album, I
noticed Tamaki's voice had changed. Sure, quite a few songs were
performed with a lower key, but his singing voice was different not
because of that. The angst of a young buck, for the lack of a better
phrase, was replaced with serenity and wisdom of a statesman. I
should stop before I'd go into the "well-aged" wine analogy....
Back to the shows, he did not spend much time talking on stage. In
fact, he did not move around the stage much at all. Again, I do not
have a lot of Anzenchitai/Koji Tamaki concert attendance under my
belt, but the Koji Tamaki on this tour was remarkably different from
the Koji Tamaki that I know of in the past. The first ten minutes of
the shows felt like a running silent scene (hmm...."Silent Scene"...
it sounds familiar... ;) ), especially with the mellow songs and the
acoustic arrangement. Not necessarily a bad thing, since we
certainly were not going to a lecture! Haha! Kidding aside, I feel
the silence had a hand in the captivating atomsphere at Theatre
Cocoon. That is a huge departure from the days when he would shout
out "Rock & Roll wo suki ja nai?!" on stage. And there were not much
catcalls from the audience at Theatre Coccon, either.
On the 1st February show, he told the audience that the next song
will be an Anzenchitai song before playing "Tomodachi". If I
remembered correctly, he did try to say something to the audience at
one point on both nights but instead he just told the audience that
he did not know what to say to them, which garnered a few giggles
amongst the audience. Without missing a beat, he would introduce the
next song as something he wrote many years ago. It turned out to be
an excellent rendition of "Anata Ni".
After "Anata Ni", "Sacred Love" and "Melody" followed. Each of these
songs on their own are great, but all three in succession was
awesome. By then, I noticed people around me were breathing with a
stuffy nose... I kid you not, hearing these three songs performed
live in succession was quite an experience. Very potent stuff.
The show on both nights closed with "Yume No Pocket". Afterwards,
Tamaki and Yahagi returned to stage to play "Den'en". It was
interesting to hear this song with no drums. Rokudo and Ando
rejoined the duo to play "Ki Tsu I". The encore ended with Tamaki
performing "Shiawase No Lamp" on his own. It is too bad that I
missed the night when "Kanashimi Ni Sayonara" was performed during
encore.
This concludes my concert report. My final thoughts on this tour: I
was particularly delighted to have heard songs that I thought would
never be performed live. It was certainly a nice way to cap off
Tamaki's solo career for a while, in anticipation of the resurgence
of Anzenchitai.
Yo, Tamaki, in response to the question that you used to shout out to
the audience decades ago: it is an unequivocal "Yes". Let's get it
on!
Anthony
[Part 1]
[Part 1]
[<Part 3]
Written by Anthony Chan
Organized by Kelvin Tsang
Last update: May 18, 2002
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