The biggest yearly event of avex trax is finally here again! And after watching it, I have formed many opinions (as expected) on the various performers' performances and outfits.


I wanted to do a Top 5 Best and Top 5 Worst thing, but there were only 10 performing groups in total, which makes it really silly in my opinion. So I'm just going to go from worst all the way to the best performance/outfit.

That said, I'm only including those artistes that were included in the WOWOW airing of the show. Which means artistes like Namie Amuro and mihimaru GT will not be included in this post.

Part 1 is the performance review part! (I sound like a company manager. PERFORMANCE REVIEW TIME PEOPLE.)

[Performance 10th place: hitomi]


I remember she performed LOVE 2000, which was a familiar song for everybody I assume. That's probably why the audience even bothered to patronize her a bit. I don't remember anything else about her performance. It was that boring.

The whole jumping around like a kangaroo with its butt on fire makes hitomi look really stupid. And of course her outfit totally did not help make her look any smarter.

Halfway throughout the performance, she had to go run alone to the side of the stage while her band remained at the main stage. It made her look lonely, sad and pathetic. If you have a band, use it well. Otherwise, why even bother? Might as well get dancers that know to follow you around when you run all over like a silly girl. That's probably why she got to sing only one song (other than DAI, who had a valid excuse - HIATUS). Try harder next time! Or wait - don't.

[Performance 9th place: Suzuki Ami]


Let's all face it. Suzuki Ami is really for female idol standards. Should she really be wearing such skimpy colorful gawdy outfits while dancing around in a supposedly cute manner? It's not cute Suzuki, it's plain scary.

The enormous effort she put into dancing is sort of nice to see I suppose, but her voice wavered like mad throughout Delightful. And she sounded really breathless too. Certainly not delightful I say.

Her dance is nothing much to speak of either. Standing and waving your arms wildly doesn't EXACTLY count as dancing. Unless I've lost so much touch with the world that I don't know my dancing anymore. Which I highly doubt.

And she lip synced through the second song. How sad is that?

All I have to say about her is.... she looks like an old, about-to-retire Sailormoon trying to squeeze her (little) remaining youth for what it's worth.

[Performance 8th place: Otsuka Ai]


When she came out in a Sedan, I thought "wow, now here's a good performance!". Well, I was wrong.

The first song she performed, BLACK HAIR J BEEF HIGH SALT TONGUE BURN $6.22 (2008.8.31) (I kid you not), was a rock song that seemed nonchalant and drunk. She just stood there and bent forward and sideways in a supposedly rocker manner while singing this tuneless tune, if that's even possible. The tune of the song sounds like a cat that landed onto a piano, ran all over it trying to chase a mouse (think TWAAAANG TWANG TWAAAAANNNNNG). It's simply that messy, frazzled and rushed.

She might have ranked EVEN lower had she not performed Kurage, Nagareboshi. It was a good performance, but seriously? For a summer concert? And besides by then, I was already highly irritated by the BLACK HAIR DUNNO WHAT BEEF song.

She should have just stuck to what she did in 2007. CHU-LIP was epic. Sigh.

[Performance 7th place: TRF]


Another old group. Maybe it's just because I don't really like them all that much. But at least they had proper backup dancers and a DJ to fill up the huge stage I suppose. The dancing members of the group are honestly just too old to keep dancing this way. You can see the two poor women panting and trying to keep up while the guy in the long hair simply gave up and stood around waving to the audience.

The lead vocalist is decent for the most part, but her voice ran out of pitch quite a few times. Once again, I attribute this to their oldness.

survival dAnce -no no cry more- was a hit with the audience, for reasons beyond me. I think it's a Japanese thing. I didn't like it. It sounds like a YWCA song. I'm not a young woman, so I guess that's why I don't like it.

[Performance 6th place: Every Little Thing]


I only gave them a higher rank because the songs they sang were pretty decent tunes, and I pity the poor guy who has to watch his partner act like a total idiot on stage.

That said, the lead vocalist was singing like an old woman (which she is), jumping around and posing weirdly. She shouts a lot too. And she somehow has the idea that the audience is reeeeally familiar with her songs and keeps asking them to sing, only to have a majority stare at her clueless-ly. Not impressive, just arrogant is all.

The guy's guitar skills was pretty amazing though. And I like how he has such a mellow presence. He just stands at the side and does his thing quietly. It would have been really really bad if both of them started going crazy on stage together. It would be "oldies gone wild".

That sounds really interesting actually. Hmm.

[Performance 5th place: Do As Infinity]


The surprise guest. Well, despite their hiatus, they still have it in them to give a great performance. I like how they seem to be not trying too hard anymore, and instead seem to be having loads of fun instead. Not too sure if the song they sang was old or new (I don't really listen to them all that much) but it sounded great either way.

The fact that they continued singing and playing while in the rain was pretty cool. It gave the whole performance a slight rebellious feel, like "we don't give a damn about the rain, WE'RE COMING BACK DAMNIT!".

I'll definitely pay more attention to them in the future. They're amazing.

[Performance 4th place: Tohoshinki]


They sang two songs, the first of which was kind of odd for a summer concert. Doushite Kimi wo Suki ni Natte Shimattandarou? was oddly placed to say the least. Luckily they broke the awkward atmosphere by singing Summer Dream, certainly a crowd favorite. The great thing about Tohoshinki is the fact that they're nearly always in perfect pitch and their dances are always decent to watch. Not as acrobatic, breathtaking and exciting as AAA's of course, but definitely much better than any Johnny's group.

But the whole handshaking part in the middle.... am I missing something here? Is it like some internal joke or something? Are they in business together? It sure as hell didn't fit with the rest of the performance.

Only gripe I have with this performance is how they seem to be frowning throughout the whole thing. Isn't Summer Dream a happy song? Smile more? Other than that, the performance was "big" enough to leave an impression, yet not so crazy that it made them look flamboyant or showy, which I doubt is Tohoshinki's style.

[Performance 3rd place: AAA]


[Performance 2nd place: Koda Kumi]


The slutty queen of Jpop has done it again! She has managed once more to incorporate topless male dancers into her performance for no reason whatsoever!

Joking aside, this was one of the better performances of the concert. Starting off with the upbeat Lady Go!, she waved her hands in perfect unison with her group of dancers (much unlike a certain Suzuki Ami) and shook her bum out. The performance was neat, lively and a whole lot of fun to watch.


Slutty Kumi is in full force here as she plays with her toyboy dancer, pokes his chest (while he looks at her lustfully) and then finally NEARLY kisses him before the lights dim.


It was at this point when the dancers went backstage and Kuu was left alone to sing Moon crying. With it being nighttime already, the mood felt just right for the song to create the mood of sadness (and nostalgia, it seems?) which left many Kumi fans amongst the crowd in tears.

But of course, Kuu knows better than to leave the crowd on a sad note. She finishes off her performance with FREAKY, which is thumpy and makes everyone really high and spirited. I don't really like this performance of FREAKY, partly because of the rapid camera switches. It was a headache to watch (and a bigger headache to screencap) and the song isn't all that catchy to be honest. But the crowd loved it, which is all that matters I guess.

[Performance 1st place: Hamasaki Ayumi]


And of course what good would a HUGE stadium be if Ayu could not go around it on a float? She sang AUDIENCE (one of my fave Ayumi songs actually) while waving madly to fans and finally made it back to the stage while singing Boys & Girls (another one of my fave Ayumi songs), so you can see why I like this part of her performance.

By now the crowd was going crazy with Ayumi on stage while she continued to encourage the crowd to get into the mood. The whole introduction of band members thing was entirely unnecessary in my opinion, but that's just what she does.

She sang July 1st as her last song, which of course involved a lot hand-waving. The concert ended with fireworks, much like any summer concert in Japan would.

To be objective, this wasn't a fair competition, after all a-nation pretty much revolves around Ayumi and has been for many many years. She gets the last performance, so the crowd is guaranteed to be really high. She gets 4 outfit changes, so she's bound to get it right at some point. She also gets 5 songs, which is a lot compared to some of her similarly popular counterparts (Kuu in particular, with only 3 songs). And she gets the darn float.

They should really name it Hamasaki Ayumi + many guest stars Concert 2008 or something. Stop pretending already! We all know better!

(Next post: The outfits!)

Labels: AAA, Do As Infinity, Every Little Thing, Hamasaki Ayumi, hitomi, Koda Kumi, Otsuka Ai, Suzuki Ami, Tohoshinki, TRF