Subject: Tokyo concert From: SueW
Set List: Truth Buffalo Grass Mammon Fascist Christ I Hate My Frickin' ISP While My Guitar Gently Weeps God Said LiarsNot a review but some comments about the concert:Solo Todd: Beloved Infidel Lunatic Fringe
Band without Todd: Green Onions
Band and Todd: Soul Brother Flaw Sweet Past Love Science Born To Synthesize Feel It For The Want Of A Nail Hello It's Me Just One Victory
It was nice to see a concert in Japan in a proper looking venue!
It wasn’t the easiest building to find but the area of Shibuya is amazing! Think of Piccadilly Circus multiplied by Times Square and you’ll get some idea of it!
On the way there we met a Japanese lady who was also having trouble finding the venue. She ended up standing with us all evening (thankfully her English was very good!). She also said about how expensive this concert was but it was her first time of seeing Todd. Even though she didn’t know the Liars CD afterwards she told me that she’d enjoyed the concert so much that she’d bought a ticket for tomorrow night’s concert too!
This was a standing concert and the room was probably three quarters full (there was a balcony too). The great thing I did notice is that unlike UK and US audiences, once the concert starts, the fans stay in the room and enjoy the music rather than keep going out for drinks! In fact only one person went out of the door near me for a drink during the whole show.
Security even had the nerve to look in my handbag tonight!! Don’t they trust me in Tokyo! He even asked me if I had a camera in my handbag first too! I was honest and told him I didn’t – I did have a camera and a recorder but they weren’t actually in my handbag! Unfortunately I stood near the side tonight so I was too close to security to take photos as they pretty soon stopped one guy near me. Later someone held a lighter up in the air during one song and they soon snuffed that out too….they would have a fit if they saw the audiences in Germany!
Todd came on stage at about 7.10pm and left at about 10.30pm. They’re playing that dramatic music before the start of Truth like they did in UK. Usually Todd gets to the microphone just before the “I’m gonna find it” line but tonight he was about 8 bars early so he had to just stand there in his cloak!
I thought Todd’s voice showed a few signs of wear in places tonight. He sounded a bit hoarse at one point and certainly in one of the “I was born” lines he realised that his voice was totally off and sung it again.
Todd seemed especially “merry” tonight after his break to change clothes!
Todd has worn the same “skirt” in all the gigs in Japan. Tonight he wore his bright yellow suit. He mentioned a few times how hot it was (and not just for his sons to come on and wipe him down). When he took his jacket off for JOV, there were visible sweat patches on his shirt!
Kasim’s bass solo IS getting longer and longer each concert! It was even more amazing tonight!! The crowd started clapping (with no prompting from Prairie) almost as soon as Kasim started it! It’s harder for Kasim than the others as during Jesse and John’s “solos” the rest of the band are playing along (and Kasim’s fingers are all up and down his fret during those too) but for the bass solo, it is just 100% Kasim! When Todd came back on stage he called it “Typhoon Kasim”!
All 3 of Todd’s sons came on stage to wipe Todd down! Even Rebop was wearing a “pimp” suit and a bowler hat! Later it was Randy and Rebop who “woke up” Todd. As Todd had feigned surprise at being woken, he knocked over the microphone so one of the techs dashed on stage to pick it up so Todd joked about that being his “mommy”!
Thankfully Love Science was back in the set tonight. I don’t understand why they drop that one as it really gets the crowd going – there were people near me all dancing to that song.
In Flaw the "mother fucker" at the end was far louder by the audience than in Nagoya and Osaka. Todd said that he was increasing our English vocabulary one expletative at a time! (I also noticed that there were also far more Westerners in the audience tonight than in the other 2 cities.)
It also took me until Osaka to realise that Todd is singing in Flaw "why do you have to be such a lying ass" and not "why do you have to be such a lioness"! That song makes SO much more sense now!
In the line-up both Randy and Rebop joined in. As Rebop bowed his bowler hat fell off so Kasim picked it up and put it on his own head!
Todd ended the concert by calling out "Next year, Budokan"!
