NKDS

It had been a long weekend and the climax of Anime Festival Asia 2008 was finally here. It was time for May’n to come on stage to perform. Ever since the news was confirmed at the press conference, we had all been eagerly anticipating her first live performance overseas. For me, it would not be my first time seeing her perform live. I had seen her at Animelo earlier this year, alongside industry greats like JAM Project, Momoi Haruko, Aki Misato and Yui Horie amongst others, on day two of the event.

Please note that this post will not contain any pictures of the artiste due to the restriction on photos of her during the performance. We choose to respect the wishes of both the artiste’s management and organisers with regards to this issue. Lucky us! The organisers have sent us some photos of May’n we can use! Who needs a telephoto lens when you got a photog right in front!

Let it be known that once the barriers were set up, all of us rushed straight for the area to grab the best possible viewing position. Most of us ended up against the barrier, right in front of the stage centre. It was only 1730 and we had a lot of time to kill. We settled down and began to kill time. Zel and JF broke out their Magic decks. The rest of us decided to engross ourselves in other meaningful activities like playing Gundam vs Gundam on the PSP or eating dinner. Senti was eating his dinner that he had got from the food court.

Concert attire. Glad that I have a chance to finally use them.

As mentioned on Bonkurasu, we were joined by Matsumoto-san, who had flown down from Japan just to attend this live event of May’n’s. He himself is no stranger to anison concerts, having attended many of the recent ones that were held in the past year, including Animelo and I believe, Nana Mizuki’s Live Formula. He had brought along some violet lightsticks for us to use, along with his own battery-powered ones. Not surpisingly, he had brought along several ultrabright orange lightsticks.

Speaking of lightsticks, I had purchased several from Bugis and handed them out to those around us. No anison concert is complete without the audience doing the lightstick calls, as they are known, along to either the tempo or lyrics. While waiting for the concert to begin, Matsumoto-san showed us the calls for most of songs, just to prepare us for what was to come.

Looking back, we could see that the stage area was already filled with people and both VIP sections were slowly trickling full. Final estimates had put the number at approximately 5000, certainly a lot more than Aniki’s performance yesterday. And like yesterday’s performance, Quis worked the crowd with several J Rock numbers.

When the time came, it came. At the front, we began chanting her name and stood up, urging those in the VIP section stand up as well, much to the chargin of the non-paying crowd. Sorry, guys. I did not play $118 to sit down while May’n performs on stage.

ME-I-N!

ME-I-N!

ME-I-N!

(For those wondering, yes. Her name is to be chanted with three syllables, not two.)

Here she was, finally, HERE WE GO! To the beat of Welcome to My Fanclub’s Night, Mei Nakabayashi broke out of the curtain, dressed in a grey and white ensemble, topped with a white cowboy hat. Her first overseas live had began. Indeed, it was her fanclub’s night, with all her high kicks and placing her boot on the stage speakers, showing off her well-toned legs, for all to admire. My word, she does have great legs. For the distance, were only about a metre and a half from her. Not even, the Japanese audience have it as good as us. Heck, almost no one does. The closest I think was JAM Project’s live at Otakon in August. SHERYYYL ON STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGEEEEEE!!!! Indeed it was!

BUCHOU-SAN!!!!!

Now let us fast forward to what had to be the moment of the night, her performing Diamond Crevasse. I remember the first time I heard this song, I was utterly blown away by the awesome vocals of this young lady. By some stroke of luck, the great chaps over at Random Curiosity chanced upon a live performance of the song on a Japanese music show. I thought the recorded version had utterly blown me away. The live version was just so much more powerful with all the emotions on her face and her going into what I would call a singer’s high, being caught up in the music and just singing her heart out.

Now was the time when the one hundred and eighteen bucks that we had willingly given up would really pay off. When the song started, the whole hall was just silent, even the arcade machines over at the gaming area were turned down. By jove, she hit all those notes just perfectly. I myself was almost in tears by the end of the song, as were most of the chaps with me. She is just that damn good. Diamond Crevasse live is truly something to behold.

During Northern Cross, I tried to do something I had been practicing for a while on my own. RandomC had posted a video of May’n performing this song live, and from it I had noticed that during the chorus that she would move her right hand in the shape of a cross. Being a bit overactive, I have been trying to imitate that exact same motion for use at the concert. Then the time came. I tried my best to imitate the entire motion. I think at some point during the chorus, she actually saw me doing it and she had this big grin on her face. YESSSSSSSSSSS!

The last song was Iteza Gogo Kuji Don’t be late. For many, this was the very song that introduced us to the vocals of May’n. I had initially thought it was Aya Endo behind the vocals but once the TV series started proper in April of this year, did I find out about the lady behind the singing voice of Sheryl. This is a similar arrangement that was done in Macross 7, with Yoshiki Fukuyama (BOMBERRRRRRR) being Basara’s singing voice. JF had hopes that Nana Mizuki would have been in roped for the project because of the voicing and singing talent.

Before the song begins proper, May’n would usually get the crowd to chant her name but before she could do so, we began do so for her. She was very surprised that the crowd knew exactly how to do so. When you have two people (not a lot but enough) in the crowd, who have attended a live event of hers and they have briefed those around them, you are sure to get something spectacular. During the song, we really went into hyper active mode. Matsumoto-san broke out four ultrabrights (he had ten apparently) and we began jumping up and to the beat of the music. The highlights for would have to be the chorus and fast portions of the song. We jumped at the last syllable of both ‘motteke’ and ‘tondeke’ and jumped and yelled ‘hey’ during the fast beats.

All good things have to come to end and end it did. All of us were sweating from all that physical activity. Now I know why they sell those mufflers at live events. We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and count our lucky blessings that she performed so close to us.

After a short break, it was time for the autograph and handshake session. Due to time constraints and the behest of Horipro, the autographs were pre-signed on white boards, and unlike Aniki’s the previous night, no personal items for signing were allowed. We also felt quite honoured, because according to Matsumoto-san and the May’n Mixi community, this is the first official autograph and/or handshake session session of any kind that she has done. And add to the fact this was an overseas event. Not even in Japan has she done something like this, contrary to certain claims. The fans over in Japan are all bursting with jealousy with what we got.

Sheryl meeting Sheryl

When it was my turn, the manager instantly recognised on sight the t-shirt I was wearing. “Ahhh, anisama live no tee shirto!” He seemed very happy to see that shirt. When I shook May’n’s hand, I told her I saw her at Animelo in Japanese (thanks Terrence!) and she looked very happy to hear that. I waved bye bye to her like an idiot.

No dissatisfied people here.

Surely, I would have some gripes about it, right? Well, yes, I do. If anything, it was the bass. During Diamond Crevasse, the sub woofers decided to go into overdrive and went mad, causing the whole hall to vibrate like mad. I felt like I was being jellified inside. Some time after the event, I queried the festival director, Shawn Chin, on this issue. He replied that due to the combination of less-than-desirable acoustics of the venue and restrictions on speaker placement, they had to modify the sound levels to ensure everyone had a good experience. Turning down the bass would result in the people in the back not having an optimal experience and since the turnout was higher than expected, the change was need. He is grateful for the feedback and will take note of this for next year’s AFA.

With that, Anime Festival Asia 2008 came to an close for all of us here. We then headed off for dinner at the Suntec food court with Matsumoto-san. He was one very happy May’n fan at the end of it all; he felt so lucky to be here. He mentioned the live he experienced here was nothing compared to the one’s he had attended so far. I mean, less than two metres away! You would be lucky to be thirty metres away from her at a concert in Japan.

For myself, this was way more epic than Animelo. I felt more tired in the small fraction of the time that she performed here than compared the five and a half hours of the second day. Granted, I would take a seat during the MC periods of the concert. The IM@S Girl’s had one that was like 10 minutes. And trust me, the sound at Animelo this year was horrible. In fact, it was worse than what we got here. At times, the mikes would just cut off completely. Coo-Rie was almost in tears when it happened to her on the first day during Yells. And the big question. Was the 118 bucks worth it? Yes, it was. No questions asked, I thoroughly enjoyed myself during the live and I am feel very blessed to be part of her first official autograph session. And where do people get the idea that they have autograph sessions after concerts. Can you imagine the autograph session for both days of Animelo? An 18000 strong crowd and a minimum of thirty artistes?

AND NEXT YEAR, ICHIROU MIZUKI, HIRONOBU KAGEYAMA, RICA MATSUMOTO, MASAKI ENDOH, HIROSHI KITADANI, YOSHIKI FUKUYAMA, MASUMI OKUI AND RICARDO CRUZ. MOTTO MOTTO!

Yes, Rica Matsumoto IS back with the group.

Thanks to the organisers for sending the official photos for us to use in the article.