Listening to: BUMP OF CHICKEN's albums
Reading: BUMP OF CHICKEN's albums booklets for lyrics

ORIGINAL DATE: JAN 5, 2005 -

Here's Part 2 of BUMP OF CHICKEN's "Pegasus You" live concerts (20041211-12, at Makuhari Messe, Chiba, Japan).


Part 1 and the SET LISTS can be found here - [link]

Related drawings/paintings for now (please click to view) -


Will colour the followings soon (click to view), please stay tuned -
[edited: coloured!]


Hopefully more later.

Sketch of the stage/venue plus a scan of the concert ticket, and an illustrated journal (please click to view) -



Warning: Don't think I could ever recover from the overwhelmed feeling from BUMP OF CHICKEN concerts, so I'll just write disjointed highlights/personal thoughts. Please excuse the often long winded ramblings, bad English grammar, and incoherent gushing.

- On both nights, upon walking onto the stage with the loud cheering from the audience, Fujiwara raised his yellow Gibson guitar up into the air, followed simultaneously by a louder cheer from the audience, they're all raising their fists into the air - [link] . The atmosphere was amazing.

- BOC kicked off the concert with the very energetic ONLY LONELY GLORY, audience were all jumping and raising their fists with euphoric excitement.
This followed immediately by the live classic TENTAI KANSOKU (on 20041211), and STAGE OF THE GROUND (on 20041212). Note that they performed an awesome guitar line that lead into STAGE OF THE GROUND, I could listen to that part forever.

- On 20041211, TENTAI KANSOKU was followed by another high energy crowd pleaser SAILING DAY, and then SHARIN NO UTA!

There's something very special in watching/listening to BOC live, the cohesiveness between these four childhood friends, their dedication and concentration in performing beyond their 100% with full heart, and the emotions in Fujiwara's singing; it's pure magic.

Also note that the arrangement of many the songs were quite different to the recordings in their albums, in certain lines Fujiwara even sang in a different key/tune, which was charming. Plus the lyrics too, eg: DIAMOND's "nankai koron datte ii sa" he sang "nankai koron datte ii yo" (as if speaking directly to the audience), "boku" to "kimi", and in some songs he even changed the whole sentence; gave it a great improvisation and live feel.

- Then Fujiwara's continued onto the next song dived straight into the chorus line: "Kami-sama chisana futari ni~ " it's KUDARANAI UTA! The audience erupted from overjoyed and excitement! Now I could imagine the scene where the floor collapsed when this song was being performed at the free live at their hometown back in May 29th 2004! I absolutely adored this song to pieces upon the very first listen, and I just can't put into words how happy I was listening to it live!

- Then onto another classic from their FLAME VEIN album: NO HIT NO RUN, with the quieter start with Fujiwara's more mature and seasoned voice, the tight play, it was paradise. And then BOC had to overwhelm the audience again by playing GUILD straight after that *speechless* I'm losing all capability in describing how great GUILD sounded live.

Note that, Chama and Fujiwara did a bit of MC in between some songs, working out the atmosphere of the audience, asking the audience at the back to raise their hands/fists etc, it was amazing. Also, Fujiwara thanked the audience a few times saying "Thank you" in accurate English (not the "Sank-you"), I'm not sure if it's a habit of the band to say "Thank you" in English, 'cause from past concert I only heard them said "arigatou"... maybe this time Fujiwara said that in English because he knew there's overseas fan in the audience *points to self* haha wistful thinking. (Summary of a long story: BOC knew about me attending the concerts 'cause I visited Chama's family during previous trip and this trip. And I'm extremely grateful (and lucky) to have received messages from BOC via email through the family. They're truly the warmest, nicest and down to earth people).

- Next, with quite a long and mellow guitar intro as we're guessing the next song... it's LITTLE BRAVER! I've always love LITTLE BRAVER with every cell in me! This live version, with the more mature/seasoned and skillful take of this gem, with everyone around moving to the rhythm my vision started to fog-up due to moistures.. I'm sorry for unable to describe how awesome the live version/arrangement of LITTLE BRAVER, but I can tell you it's a crime not to release a BOC live DVD!

- Then it's the very VERY soulful EVER LASTING LIE, it's close to the album THE LIVING DEAD version instead of the acoustic version but again, I'm totally speechless. The song then completed with the awesome long guitar solo interchanging between Fujiwara and Masukawa. After that, Fujiwara did MC and said: "shin kyoku arimasu!" (we have a new song), it's YUME NO KAINUSHI, the b-side from their most recent single "Sharin no Uta". The live version was quite close to the recorded version; and yup, I'm speechless due to being overwhelmed again.

- On the last night 20041212, they sang LAMP (instead of NO HIT NO RUN, in different order). Absolutely magical. PLEASE RELEASE A LIVE DVD!

- After that, it's JYO SHA KEN, which rocked the place. And of course they had to continue with the energy that lead onto K! The audience went absolutely wild with all these fists raising high up. BOC was totally energetic when performing both songs! Please, please release a live DVD!

- Then, it's a cool cool guitar intro that lead into DIAMOND. I tell you, this song never gets old; it's a blessing to hear this rocking and very soulful song performed live.. (forgive me as I'm speechless)

- If I have to choose the best song performed in both evenings, which they all were; it had to be ONAJI DOOR WO KUGURETARA. Fujiwara sang the start of this song and pronounced every single word with so much heart and soul, extra slow, extra emotion, slightly hoarse voice (which adds to the magic).. with the strumming of the acoustic guitar. Suddenly I found myself with tears streaming down, I wasn't crying, it was just tears streaming down. Everyone in the audience was listening quietly, immersed into the song. The song slowly building up and to the end with a long and awesome extended guitars solo from both Fujiwara and Masukawa, supported by the brilliant drum and bass combo of Massu and Naoi (Chama). It was magic.

- Then they performed SNOW SMILE. I think I was already up in the cloud 9 of all cloud 9s. So much warmth and heart in this song I'm speechless again. Except to note that, BOC gets better and better as they performed through the whole night. Fujiwara's voice has so much emotion. And yes, they ought to release a live DVD and live CD, it's against humanity not to! < - .....

- With all the audience swimming in such warm and mellow mood in SNOW SMILE, BOC went onto FIRE SIGN! I'll report the FIRE SIGN that performed on the 2nd night as it's more fun. Fujiwara started with the MC, and introduced the often publicly very quite Masukawa to do the MC, saying Masukawa's been in his room practicing his speech for days. Masukawa started his speech in his usual shy/awkward charming way. Saying he's very happy, and FIRE SIGN was a birthday gift written for him from Fujiwara *awww* and then he didn't know what to say and Fujiwara walked up to him and whispered something into his ear.. [link] Fujiwara then walked back into his position smiling and Masukawa raised up his right arm/fist into the air and cheered "YAAAAY!!" and of course the audience went wild and followed suit. Oh I love them. Also note that during the MC, the audience were singing Happy Birthday to Masukawa, as his birthday was on 20th Dec and this was the every last concert night of their 2004 national tour.

Then they started performing FIRE SIGN, encouraging everyone to clap and sing along, Chama kept leading the audience to do the clappings while the band performed and sang. They extended the NaNaNa~ part where Fujiwara, Masukawa, and Chama guiding the audience to sing along the chorus with the clapping, he put both his hands behind his ears indicating to the audience to sing louder, he even did the conductor's move! - [link] So for a good 10 minutes the band and us were singing this very very warm FIRE SIGN! BOC then left the stage after thanking the audience, which went into huge streams of encore chanting!

- BOC walked back in, with changed T-shirts (the official Pegasus tour t-shirts). They sang EMBRACE and DANDELION on the first night 20041211. With EMBRACE, it was so much heart and soul. Fujiwara was singing his heart out with eyes closed (he often sang with eyes closed), arms and hands reaching during the lines where he didn't need to play the guitar. Very emotional; and then wrapped up the awesome night with a very energetic DANDELION.
On the last night 20041212, it's SNOWSMILE, FIRE SIGN, and of course the classic of all BOC classics - GLASS NO BLUES (with audience singing-along), to close off this brilliant and extensive 2004 national tour.

After GLASS NO BLUES, the band thanked the audience again, Fujiwara opened all his water bottles and threw them high into the sky towards the audience and everyone was ecstatic and trying to catch the water and the water bottles. AND THEN HE RAN DOWN THE STAGE AND SHOOK HANDS WITH THOSE LUCKY AUDIENCE AT THE FRONT! And had to be saved by the security guards to make it back on stage XD

You know, I have one regret, that is not able to squeeze my way to the front row (and to get squashed on the way) before BOC got on stage, and missing the precious chance of shaking Fujiwara's hand. But then I was also lucky to be able to secure the spot that I was at (in front of the metal bar division around 20-25m away from the stage directly opposite Fujiwara), else I might get stampede and squashed by the ecstatic audience if I didn't make it to the front and stuck in the middle. There were so many people fainted due to lack of air (plus hyperventilation?). It's a 15,000 people all standing hall after all (divided into A, B, C blocks), and they all packed together and more crowded than in a Japan Railway's train carriage during peak hours Shinjuku station.. but still...
Oh well, next time!

I have to thank Yuka and her friend again for getting me the tickets, and in the best block. You made my 2004! And my 2004 was all about BUMP OF CHICKEN, thank you Motoo Fujiwara, Hiroaki Masukawa, Yoshifumi Naoi, and Hideo Masu!


PS:
1. SET LIST for both nights can be found here - [link] . You may like to arrange your playlist with these songs and imagine hearing them live. Also, for those who have capability to dl SSTV shows, SSTV will be showing the concert (Pegasus You 20041211) on 2005-01-28. Very much appreciated if you could please share it with me. ^^

2. For live report of BUMP OF CHICKEN in Rushball August 2004 (Kobe), please refer to [link]

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Links -
BUMP OF CHICKEN official site: BUMP OF CHICKEN.

English-speaking BUMPOFCHICKEN fan site - Star Gazing.

J-music translations/review site - Centigrade-J

SiSSou holiday [link] - Nagi-sama's illustration site (Note: the site is in Japanese, please respect the rules and don't steal artwork/words/write-ups nor direct link to any pictures nor pages).

My Club -
~BUMPOFCHICKEN