Blog - ZuTTO - hito ni yasashii Concert: report
ZuTTO - hito ni yasashii Concert: report
Today I went down to Shinagawa with Tsugumi to check out the free yearly 「ZuTTO - 人にやさしいコンサート」 ("hito ni yasashii Concert") organized by miso maker Marusanai, and held at Shinagawa Stellar Hall. Every year the concert is led and MC'd by ZuTTO, the unit of Matsumoto Eiko and Shinohara Tomoe (thanks to who we got nice 2nd floor seats!).
The show was about 3h30, featuring three guest artists and also some narrative bits. It seems like every year there's a theme, according to which people have to submit their thoughts when applying for free tickets. This year's theme was loosely "a song that reminds me of my home/favorite country/town", and people submitted anything from their home town's anthem to the Star-Spangled Banner (which was funnily more popular than Japan's "kimi ga yo").
The performance schedule went something like this:
- Shinohara Tomoe welcome video message
- ZuTTO intro song
- Tamashiro Chiharu
- May
- Hamazaki Takashi (ex-Flying Kids)
- Matsumoto Eiko
- Shinohara Tomoe
- ZuTTO
Each artist performed about 3-4 songs. The three guests were enjoyable, though not quite what I usually listen to. I especially liked a song by May, a Korean girl who has been in Japan for a few years, called "Wonderland".
Eiko's solo part was quite good. She looked very pretty in a blue-ish dress, and sang a new song called "kaerō" ("Let's go back home") that she chose according to the event's theme. Then, still sticking to the theme, she did a great set of two French pop songs, singing "Comment te dire adieu" and "Poupée de cire, poupée de son".
Before singing these she asked the crowd if anyone speaks French, seeming a bit worried that someone would be checking if her pronunciation was right. I waved my hand as much as I could, but she didn't look up to the 2nd floor, so she ended up thinking no one did... too bad. That made me quite curious anyway and I listened closely, her pronunciation was not perfect, but very good! If she doesn't speak French fluently, she did a good job at practicing those lyrics!
Then came up Tomoe, like a tornado! She was wearing some very bright clothes, sort of like back in the day..! With the excuse that she doesn't have any hit singles recently, she treated us to some of her old hits, namely "Story Book", "Anything" and "Rainbow rara ru-" (from single "Happy Point", albums "Megaphone Speaks" and "Super Model" respectively)! It was great to see her perform these live! She was as energetic as you would imagine.
Back to the event's theme, she sang "Tokyo Boogie Woogie" (a song from the 40's by Hattori Ryōichi), at the end of which she got the whole audience to shout "HEY!!!!!!" with her (even us lazies at the back!). Actually she had most of the audience standing and clapping the whole time.
As for ZuTTO, the two sang [I think] all of the four songs that have been released so far, one of which was performed as an encore. Good vocals and fun interaction on stage!
For the show's finale, they called all three guests and they all sang together "sekai ni hitotsu dake no hana"... a song that I can't stand hearing SMAP sing on TV anymore, but this time it was okay. :) While singing this one, the singers threw cherry blossom-like confetti on each other and on the band's musicians, as more confetti poured non-stop from the ceiling.
On our way out we got a 900g box of miso and four packs of soy milk and yogurt varieties from Marusanai. Thanks for the pleasant concert!
Posted on April 15, 2007 at 01:36 | Tweet
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