Blog - Aprils and NOMIYA Maki

Aprils and Nomiya Maki

What do the Aprils and Nomiya Maki have in common? Nothing I guess, but I saw both in the same evening, and for free!

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Yesterday I finished work a bit early and rushed to the KDDI Designing Studio in Harajuku to check out a mini-live by the Aprils, who I hadn't seen in quite a while (almost a year). This was to promote the DVD release of animation film Kaede Newtown for which they made the theme song and BGM.

18:30 @ KDDI Designing Studio, Harajuku —

First, director Iwakiri Naoto introduced himself and presented the 30-minute film, which we got to watch in the small theater space. From what I had read and the beginning of the film, I had the impression that it was for small kids and that it wouldn't interest me much. But sure enough, towards the end of the film, the overall cuteness plus the bad luck of the protagonist got me over and I shivered (well almost) until the happy ending. :) It was quite nice! I was surprised that the film is in Kansai-ben, but upon checking the director is from Osaka, so there's why.

My friend Franck showed up around then. There was a special interactive thing where all audience members were handed a QR code of a URL to be accessed with a mobile phone. Each person was shown their "own ghost" (this has to do with the anime's story), and at that same time that ghost showed up on the big screen! Mine was a little guy with a beret (check the note on the photo at Flickr).

19:10 —

Then Aprils got on stage and performed this set: kaede Newtown / Pan·da / Cosmo '80s / (new song?) / kaede Newtown (reprise, since it's what the event was about)

I really didn't expect to see their big Gloomy panda. Last time was at the final Usagi-chang Night Fever in 2006. Also, for "Cosmo '80s" they gave their cool light sticks to everyone. The live space being very small and light, the distance between the band is minimal, and I must have made eye contact a dozen time with each of them, which felt a bit weird. :)

Btw, I have a theory that the animation's girl character Haruko was made to look like Aprils' Iguchi Miho. :)

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19:40 —

Then it was time to run to Shibuya to catch another mini-live, by Nomiya Maki at Apple Store Shibuya! I didn't exactly run, I called my friend Miwa who was already there and it seemed like it was too late to get near the front anyway. We had about 15 minutes so we just walked at a good pace and arrived on time. There were quite a lot of people, so we had to stand quite at the back of the store though, and could only see Maki's face.

20:00 @ Apple Store, Shibuya —

Maki wore a black and white dress with a green scarf (if I remember correctly, I was far away and struggled to see anything at all), she was accompanied by Portable Rock guitarist Suzuki Tomofumi and a percussionist. The three first performed an acoustic set.

Set list: Pizzicato Five's Tokyo wa yoru no 7ji (the night is still young) / Pizzicato Five's Sweet Soul Revue / Portable Rock's Green Books / Ann Lewis' Goodbye My Love / Towa Tei's amai seikatsu (la douce vie) / toshishita no otoko

I had heard that Portable Rock song live 2 years ago when they played at Loft. After the 5 first songs, there was a short break during which a video digest of last year's recital "Joy" was shown. How I wish that the whole would be released on DVD!

Kikuchi Naruyoshi got on stage with Maki, and performed a brand new one from the upcoming "Eleganceholic" recital. Kikuchi-san wore a trench-coat and sunglasses, he played saxophone. Although it's been out in a special package since last month, it was the first time that the song was performed live. It had a jazzy beat and groovy bass, with saxophone and some distorted guitar parts. Part of the song was spoken, and there were sung parts. The lyrics were about a younger guy met at a club in Aoyama, "he liked poses like this, dances like this" she sang. It was pretty good, and I'm looking forward to see it in its environment that's the recital!

As a side-note, "Tokyo wa yoru no 7ji" had been performed at this Apple Store before. The previous time was Nomoto Karia's cover, accompanied by Konishi-san, and it was even for the same TV show that was recorded this time with Maki! I'm glad to have seen both. :)

Photos weren't permitted, but hopefully I can catch it on TV.

20:30 — I'm hungry, it's time to go back home

Update (2008/3/10): Photos of Maki's show have been posted on her blog.

Posted on March 7, 2008 at 21:58 | Tweet |

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