w-inds. 2008 fan club event 3/24 @ zepp nagoya


so before the show starts they're playing lp's minutes to midnight. lol. nice choice ryuichi.

i have to say beforehand that this review will probably be fairly short. not a whole lot really happened (like journey or the 2007 fc event), per se, nor was there a lot of blatant omgsmexy (like journey or the 2007 fc event), but on the whole, i think it was one of the best concerts i've ever been to. the set list was pretty much perfect; it showed off the boys' many varied talents and was a pretty damn good cross section of seven years' work. granted, i'm extremely biased in that they did a lot of my favourite songs but that's entirely beside the point.

but. speaking of sexy. hello ryuichi. once again, my belief that he is the most gorgeous thing since... well, ever... has been thoroughly reinforced. point one. point two. any arguments will be directed to your local optometrist, because you'd have to be blind to not want to lick that, ryuichi fan or not. *ahem*

a note about those that sent in pages for the scrapbook. thank you. unfortunately, even with the physical and digital entries, i had less than 25 for each member. nowhere near enough for them each a book, and in total not really enough for a single book. i waited until the absolute last minute to decide in hopes that i'd get more in, but i didn't. instead of giving them only a handful of pages, i'm extending the project and making it for the summer tour. those that sent in pages, i apologize x3456345476, but i hope you'll understand why i did it.

random things to keep in mind while reading:
i wasn't too far back- close enough to see for the most part, but just barely not quite close enough to be seen. i was on ryu's side and had this weird tall chick in front of me who blocked ryohei a good bit of the time, and keita nearly as much. which is why outfit desriptions are incomplete for ryohei and because you all know i watch ryu more anyways.


costumes:
ryohei: grey suit and vest and yellow and black (?) tie, black hat, aviator sunglesses (that he keeps on til the mc), hair cute and short
keita: grey suit with vest (lol, dark american flag design, half stripes half stars), black hat, hair finally longer again and still dark
ryuichi: grey suit and jacket, snug yellow tshirt over a dress shirt, black hat, hair darker blonde and in a ponytail

staging:
metal light racks on the left and right, big logo in the middle that separated on rails to display the screen for the vtr later

i'm a man
way to open a concert~ at the beginning of the show there was a thin white screen up with lights flashing behind it, then went to silhouetted flashes, ryohei, ryuichi, then keita, before dropping to show the actual stage. wow. um. this was sexy. they really made use of the hats in the choreography, taking them of and flipping back on.

beautiful life
ahahahah this song is so bouncy. thank you ryu, for waving your ponytail at us when your back was turned like it was some kind of cat toy.

past tense
guh. ryuichi moves like honey. i swear i could watch him all day. yes, there was choreography to another slow song, but it worked. quite well. and keita sounded effing fantastic.

mc

~w-inds. music corner~
during the mc, there was much moving around of things on the stage. a keyboard set up on one side with a mic and chair, a keyboard set up in the middle but a bit farther back, also with a mic and chair, but with another mic stand further in front of it, and then a chair and mic stand, along with a guitar stand holding two different electric guitars. ryuichi then introduces the bassist and drummer, he and keita move offstage to retrieve an acoustic guitar each. ryu sits down, keita moves to the mic in the center, and the audience has a collective moment of WTF as ryohei sits behind the keyboard on the left.

somehow
-ryo@keyboards, kei@rhythm guitar (acoustic), ryu@lead guitar (acoustic)
gfjhgdhgfdhf yes! sounds. so. amazingly. good. now. omg.

somewhere in time
-ryo@keyboards, kei@rhythm guitar (acoustic), ryu@lead guitar (electric)
ryu mentioned hayama-san before they started this, but i was still surprised. i like this arrangement, especially the little mini-solo bits for each instrument.

endless moment
-ryo@keyboards, kei@rhythm guitar (acoustic), ryu@lead guitar (electric)
and the audience goes nuts, as to be expected. this whole little set was awesome, and ryu totally pwns on guitar.

deny
-ryo@keyboards (harmony), kei@keyboards (lead), ryu@guitar (electric)
it took me half a verse for it to sink in that they were actually doing this song. deny has long been a favourite of mine, but this totally blew me away. keita's voice is heartbreaking, not to mention ryu's. the added depth of slowing the song down, the piano, the added intricate guitar part, everything, are just utterly incredible.

~~~

mc
instead of throwing things to the audience, this year they held a drawing/raffle thing for three prizes: a stitch plushie with cd thingy, ryu signed pants, and ryo signed tshirt. with much adieu, two of the dancers came out dressed like a cross between hg and the village people with a table covered in a red sheet, and another table with four boxes. under the red sheet were the prizes. after they talked about what everything was, they drew numbers from the boxes, each box one digit of the ticket number to win. keita went first, then ryohei (whose winner wasn't there, but was a few minutes later and got a 'stern' look and comment from keita), then ryu. while ryu was drawing, he was mumbling/singing and keita is all 'STOPPU da ne~' and ryu continues singing, then keita lets out an exasperated 'BAKA!', even though when he went, he had the audience chanting 'se~no' before he started. after the prizes are given out, they go offstage for...

vtr
starts off with a shot of an apartment, quite obviously ryuichi's. he then comes into the camera's view, haphazardly cleaning up and not-so-subtly moving a picture frame sitting by the tv so that the picture can't be seen. then you see him in the kitchen cutting up vegetables. camera moves to the elevator outside his partment, out of which ryo and kei are just emerging. the doorbell rings and ryu goes to answer it and lets them in, then goes back to the kitchen to continue making what looks like veggie stir fry. ryo and kei start playing a socer game on the playstation and ryu comes into the living room with bowls of instant ramen like nothing in the world is wrong, placing more instant and conbini food on the table all 'eat! it's delicious! really!'. ryo and kei wtf and then sigh and accept their fate, grabbing the first thing at hand to hold the cover on the instant ramen down while it sits there. keita notices the title on the tape and sticks it in the vcr. the video? a chibi street live. you know, the one on w-inds.tv where they're in yoyogi park, running around like morons with mic cables and keita does that head-tilty thing. the camera zooms in to the tv, then the video itself is playing. then the stage lights up and w-inds. comes out to continue the dance, old insanely easy choreography and all, grinning the whole time. and then at the end they do this move where everyone lines up, crosses arms and grabs hands, the person at the end turns and everyone follows, doing this half-bow thing until it gets down to ryohei on the far end who then flips into a pose and holds it upside down 'til the lights drop before the next song.

costume change
ryohei: black shiny jacket thing
keita: black and white strped shirt under a black button down shirt with a white pattern
ryuichi: blue-ish grey hoodie, grey dickies pants with a white stripe down the sides

triangle
she mah~chu~wah! i mock because i love. very happy to see this since it was conspicuously absent from the summer tour. mmmm, keita. *_*

mc

ame ato
i've been a good girl and haven't listened to any of the radio rip of this yet, even though i've accidentally run across a comment here and there. i like it. quite a bit, actually. and whoever on lj (i can't remember atm, sorry T_T) commented that they hoped there would be rained upon w-inds. in the pv? the choreography starts with them walking around and looking up into the sky, ryu pulling his hoodie over his head. i am hopeful. 0XD

offstage for encore
ryohei: black fc event hoodie over the adachi mitsuru tshirt he mentioned in his blog
keita: fc event tshirt, green cargo pants
ryuichi: grey dickies pants from earlier, white fc event hoodie (another ryohei designed one, can get from vf keitai site) over the fc event tshirt

super lover
yes! *dances* it really isn't a w-inds. concert without this song, you know. they were mostly just wandering around the stage but in the middle randomly broke out into the version of the choreography from thanks with the arm thing and keita was flailing all over the place. also, few things are funnier than ryo's face when he realizes that for once, he's the only one on stage (counting ryukei and the dancers) who's not dancing.

love is message
ryu and keita have serious 'let's fuck with the audience issues'. right before the song started, they were saying something to eachother without the mics. ryu steps up to the front of the stage, for all intents and purposes looking like he's going to sing instead of keita. which was exactly what they wanted everyone to think. by the time the screaming had died down enough to hear, you could tell it was keita singing, standing at the very back of the stage while ryu exaggeratedly lip-synched it. bit of a ryuryo moment in this one, too. while ryo was standing looking out over my side, ryu comes up behind him and slips his hands around ryo's waist for a few seconds before sliping away.

goodbyes and dancer/band introductions

closing vtr
back to ryuichi's apartment, where he's asleep on the couch and ryo and keita are acting very sneaky. keita: 'hmm... i wonder what this is! *pick up the frame*' the picture? ♥♥♥


final thoughts
deny alone would have made me ecstatic. it did, actually. but the entire concert was honestly one of the best concerts of any artist i've ever seen, just from the sheer amount of bursting-at-the-seams happy that i walked away from it with. w-inds., thank you and i love you. ♥