User blog:LuciaHunter/μ's Go→Go! LoveLive! 2015 ~Dream Sensation!~ Live Streaming Day 1

31st January 2015. 6pm was supposed to be the start of the concert, but it delayed for about 10 minutes or so before it really began.

Let me just talk about the stage first. This year, they really pulled out all the stops. Forget what you saw in the 4th live concert BD. This blew that one out of the water.

For starters, if you remember the Bokura wa Ima no Naka de/KiRa-KiRa Sensation! stage from the anime, it has that huge triple layer of light fixture things hanging above the stage. They replicated that. The hugeass screen behind? It's no longer alone: Below it is another tilted screen behind some steps. There are also two extra screens to the left and right of the center screen.

And good lord did they use the screens to their full effect. The center screen was usually used to provide a backdrop to the song, while the extra screens were for zoomed in shots of the seiyuus. It was a heck lot more effective than it sounds. All the sparkles and effects were amazing.

There was a really hyped up group close by to where I was sitting, they're a bunch of Twitter users with a LINE group that I also happen to be in and I was really glad they were there to boost the atmosphere. Most of the local LLivers don't know how to do proper calls: they can catch on when to throw up their lightsticks, but they just aren't able to lead calls.

Without further ado let me just list out the setlist first.

Setlist

 * 1) Sore wa Bokutachi no Kiseki
 * 2) Bokura wa Ima no Naka de
 * 3) Music S.T.A.R.T!!
 * 4) Intermission
 * 5) Yume no Tobira
 * 6) Takaramonozu
 * 7) Shangri-La Shower
 * 8) MC (2nd-years)
 * 9) Love wing bell
 * 10) Intermission
 * 11) Dancing stars on me!
 * 12) Mogyutto "love" de Sekkin Chuu!
 * 13) COLORFUL VOICE
 * 14) Intermission
 * 15) Eien Friends (Printemps)
 * 16) Nightingale Love Song (Printemps)
 * 17) Aki no Anata no Sora Tooku (lily white)
 * 18) Futari Happiness (lily white)
 * 19) Trouble Busters (BiBi)
 * 20) Fuyu ga Kureta Yokan (BiBi)
 * 21) μ's Miracle Music (Part 1)
 * 22) Kaguya no Shiro de Odoritai (short ver.)
 * 23) Datte Datte Aa Mujou
 * 24) Snow halation
 * 25) Wonderful Rush
 * 26) μ's Miracle Music (Part 2)
 * 27) No brand girls
 * 28) KiRa-KiRa Sensation!
 * 29) Encore
 * 30) START:DASH!!
 * 31) Happy maker!
 * 32) Oh,Love&Peace!
 * 33) Dreamin' Go! Go!!
 * 34) MC (Announcement and Thanks)
 * 35) Donna Toki mo Zutto

Detailed breakdown
So from the start the live was slightly delayed, but us being the impatient audience that we are, we were already doing calls to the songs being played in the background.

1. Sore wa Bokutachi no Kiseki

This came as a bit of a shock because honestly speaking we were guessing that KiRa-KiRa Sensation! would be the opener due to those costumes being the ones featured in the poster. But then they appeared in the Sore wa Bokutachi no Kiseki costumes with the music instead heh. This is a song that has already been featured many many times: Anisama 2014, Lantis Festival and so on, so it's nothing new to us. A fitting opening too, really.

2. Bokura wa Ima no Naka de

Right after the second opening they do the first opening. Well, it only makes sense. Again, nothing new.

They had self-introductions right after the song. The usual calls for each seiyuu. Pile went with Maki-chan Saitama, so the return call was "sa shi su se so".

3. Music S.T.A.R.T!!

Another song that just has to be in the opening. It's kinda hard to fit anywhere else, yeah? Meanwhile Pile being fabulous with her hair flicks again.

4. Intermission

Animated chibi short story to buy time. This one was about Honoka rushing here there everywhere being all hyped up right before the live and everyone telling her to calm the hell down. And then Nozomi resorts to hypnosis to calm her down and ends up leaving her asleep. It takes Umi to wake Honoka up afterwards.

5. Yume no Tobira

My jaw dropped when they came out on stage. I'm not even exaggerating. You know how gorgeous Yume no Tobira costumes are on the characters? That is nothing compared to how they looked like on the seiyuus. Ucchi was practically an angel. I barely paid attention to the song because I was looking at all that glorious skin on all of them. It's not exactly a very revealing costume but it's just so simple and pure it's so perfect ;_;

Also Soramaru had Nico's Mickey Mouse ears. xD

6. Takaramonozu

A song that dropped onto us outta nowhere! I had thought that I would never, ever be able to see this one live because it was performed only once at Lantis Festival and without a video recording. So when they grabbed pompoms and the music started playing the audience all just went wild.

They also left the stage for this one and mounted those smaller moving stages according to their LLSIF class: Smile, Pure, Cool. The moving stages this year were so much more epic, they even had screens on the side displaying chibis of the characters that were onboard them! The song ended with them still aboard the 3 platforms which practically formed a mini-stage on the opposite side of the crowd.

7. Shangri-La Shower

A first performance ever for this song! This song took the second half of the trip across the audience back to the stage. What was nice was the fact that the screens on the moving platforms had visuals for the song, especially the parts "Festival!" and "Carnival!". And when they finally made it back to the stage, the dance was actually rather nice. Fast-paced.

8. MC 2nd-years

When the song ended the lights went out, then came on again to reveal only the second-years. Which then began to engage in a lot of random banter. That of course immediately cues us that they were buying time for the rest to change, which means...

9. Love wing bell

Wedding dress Rippi. Tuxedo Jolno. RIP me.

Also as the song moved into the second half, Rippi took Shikaco's arm to advance into the outer stage. The wedding is gay.

The song ended with them all on the outer stage, which had like 3 concentric rings that were all able to raise separately. So it ended looking like they were on a wedding cake, with Rippi taking center stage of course. The effect was tearjerking.

10. Intermission

More animated chibi short story, this one about not being able to find their costumes right before the live. Nozomi pulls out a bunch of spiritual cosplay. Eri goes desperate and asks Kotori to cut them up to make new costumes on the spot. Nozomi thinks they'll be cursed if they do that. Honoka appears last minute with all their costumes for some reason, I wasn't really able to follow that last bit.

11. Dancing stars on me!

Dancing stars on me! costumes. Kussun owned this performance, being the center for this one. The opening was rather good but I didn't like the costumes that much so it didn't leave that much of an impact on me. Still, Kussun did a ballet triple pirouette which was pretty amazing.

12. Mogyutto "love" de Sekkin Chuu!

2 weeks too early for this song. But yay. The camera captured the instrumental section perfectly this time, I hope it ends up on the BD. I really love that segment. Also the background visuals was nice, it's funny how just tessellated colours can remind you of the PV.

13. COLORFUL VOICE

I never really liked this song and nothing much has changed. It's a very fast-paced one though.

14. Intermission

I missed most of this chibi short. I didn't really understand it either, other than it somehow ended up in a sort of wrestling match between Umi and Eri. o.o

15. Eien Friends (Printemps)

Friendship song. ;_; The background visuals stole the show for me LOL. Just this constantly circling ivy with sprouting white, orange and green flowers. That aside the Printemps costume this year was great! Very feathery and fluffy, the dress is reminiscent of last year's. But in the skirt portion in front they all have the word Printemps sewn on.

16. Nightingale Love Song (Printemps)

More awesome stage visuals. This time of a cage with falling feathers of their colours. (If you don't understand the cage you should go look up the lyrics).

17. Aki no Anata no Sora Tooku (lily white)

Lily white's costume this year, I approve. It's not as simple as it used to be but looks a lot more chic and stylish. Definitely suits them. But the issue is they started with mics on stands in the center of the outer stage, and it got borked by bad audio from the start. Took a while for the audio team to rectify the mic volumes. The dance was great though, would've been a great performance otherwise.

18. Futari Happiness (lily white)

This song was always kind of boring to me. It still is. Even after they pulled out all the stops: They started on the outer stage which started revolving like a disc. And then they moved onto mini-platforms (only space for one each) to move out to the mini-stage of platforms on the other side of the audience.

Also they tried to get the audience to draw hearts every time "Shiawase" comes out in the chorus or something but I could never catch it. ._.

19. Trouble Busters (BiBi)

Thought it would be the other way round but it was Trouble Busters first for BiBi. This wins the most random song of the night, hands-down. They emerged onto the scene on a moving platform that had cannons attached to its side. But what made everyone go wild were their costumes: It was like... like aluminium foil LOL. It looked really really weird, foil bits with white lines that held it together.

Turns out the cannons shoot smoke. And then they got to the outer stage at the middle of the song, where Pile and Jolno take it easy in the center while Soramaru starts running circles around that whole stage while rapping. It was crazy. xD

And then in the next section the lights cut off and the costume finally shows its true powers: The white bits were all lined with LEDs that lit up like a christmas tree, at first according to their character colours but then changing between all three colours afterwards. ._. BiBi always gets the overpowered costumes. Though it still looked kinda weird. Jolno's shorts were a bit high and Pile's shorts were at nosebleed level.

Oh yeah, Pile either forgot her lines or her mic derped- I think it was the latter. Also during the talk section we noticed she had a bandage around her left knee, looks like a pulled muscle of some sort. =/

20. Fuyu ga Kureta Yokan (BiBi)

This was one of my favourite songs. Darn those LEDs, lighting up like snow. The feels are real. ;_;

21. μ's Miracle Music (Part 1)

In which we get a music medley of all their songs ever, in order of release. Each followed by a comment from one of the seiyuus who sang it. Some were exceptionally funny, but most I missed out due to the speed.

22. Kaguya no Shiro de Odoritai (short ver.)

Kaguya was always a crowd favourite. How does one not get hyped by that thumping beat? And everyone just calls out "FEVER!" together. They cut this one short though, after the first chorus it went straight to instrumental.

But what was really noticeable about this was their costumes. They were all wearing kimonos, colour-coded to characters. And their hair had all the fitting accessories that were absolutely absolutely gorgeous. This was my favourite costume of the night.

23. Datte Datte Aa Mujou

They went straight into Aa Mujou right after it. I really don't know what to say. It was like my first time watching LOVELESS WORLD all over again: the stage is all red, that opening tone goes up and the whole crowd goes HOLY CRAP IT'S THAT SONG THAT SONG and you can just feel the electrifying feeling surging through the place. And then the fire lights up the place once again because freaking pyrotechnics, you need them.

What made it so special was that it was a kind of quiet and calm song despite its content: you mostly don't do any calls to it, you just sort of bob along hopelessly to the tune waving your lightstick. Which is kind of fitting with the lyrics and theme. I really loved the dance for this one too, I felt they really captured the essence of the song. It felt like they did a bit of a skip after the first chorus to speed up the song, but no actual lyrics were skipped.

During the instrumental section when they all began speaking I couldn't help but remember my own fanfic xD.

The background visuals were of drifting sakura. With fire in the foreground. Freaking hell. I can't even begin to describe it. It was hell to my emotions.

This was my favourite song hands down.

24. Snow halation

This song started a bit slow. Basically they didn't even add in anything to distract us except ringing bells and a few white lights (effect was gorgeous btw) while the seiyuus did one hell of a speed-change from kimonos to Snow halation costumes.

Snow halation, nothing new. Just that they finally changed it so that it's no longer the final song before the encore. Same old white to orange transition of lights. So only the costume was new (which was pretty cute). And oh, fake snow drifting onto the audience.

25. Wonderful Rush

Wonderful Rush right after Snow halation? That's a new one. Nothing new once again, except Pile actually did Maki's "WOOOOONDERFUUUUUUUUL". I think she usually avoids it in lives by toning it down but I thought tonight's one was almost there- will have to check again when the blurays come out.

26. μ's Miracle Music (Part 2)

The second half of the discography. Man, LL has so many songs.

27. No brand girls

They emerged onto the stage in KiRa-KiRa Sensation! outfits actually, but the music was already playing the customary No brand girls drumbeat so everyone knew what song it was gonna be. Same old, same old.

28. KiRa-KiRa Sensation!

KKS was the closer for this night. Halfway through they released confetti onto the audience that were apparently printed with wishes from the characters. =/ I want a Maki one...

Nothing much to say, the costumes were kind of a downer after the last few, though the dance was rather decent.

29. Encore

They actually had a whole animated short for this, where the characters each do the introductions once again, complete with calls and responses. Timing was pretty good too.

30. START:DASH!!

Stood up for this one. I mean hell, it's START:DASH!!. They were wearing the summer uniforms for the whole encore.

31. Happy maker!

This one came right after S:D. Dance was kinda derpy at the start but it was complete with the whole circling thing same as the anime so it was really cute.

32. Oh,Love&Peace!

For Love&Peace they moved out onto mini-platforms to get to the mini-stage across the audience. It was a bit of a funny scene seeing all nine of them scramble onto different platforms (I was reminded of pilots scarmbling for their aircrafts LOL). But anyway the song proceeded with them on 4 separate larger platforms moving around, and they started to throw gifts out.

'''33. Dreamin' Go! Go!!'''

More gift throwing. A lot of people didn't know this song where I was, I was kind of sad. I was the only one doing the Go! (Go!) section. And the group behind started shouting Hai! instead which wasn't exactly wrong but just not right either. Welp.

Also the seiyuus were shilling the official 5th live towels xD Jolno kept doing this derpy thing behind hers too.

34. MC (Announcement and Thanks)

So we had the first two announcements today: LL movie on 13th June, as well as the second Best Album Best Live! compilation (May if I wasn't wrong). About darn time for the latter, really! We also got to see a trailer of the movie which was just them dancing on a stage that seemed to be in the middle of a city center with lotsa lights/adverts, the usual. But they were in gorgeous kimono-esque costumes so yaaaaaaaay.

And a whole lot of thanks.

35. Donna Toki mo Zutto

The only song they can end with now. Rippi brought out her maracas again despite it being a different song. It was just like how it should be until near the end, the part where the characters usually catch the feathers in the anime: The two side screens showed a collage of all 9 characters, all catching the feather. And then the seiyuus brought out a feather each from god knows where.

I don't know why that almost made me cry. It was just so nostalgic, maybe from remembering the anime's S2...

The song ended and then they did the whole bow stage left, bow stage right, bow stage center thing again.

And then they exited using a stage lift at the back, slowly descending down. What was absolutely hilarious here was Jolno doing a thumbs-up as she went down. I'm pretty darn sure that's a Terminator reference which is like absolutely random.

Overall Thoughts
Best Song of the night: Datte Datte Aa Mujou

Best costume: Kimonos / Yume no Tobira (tied for this one, really.)

Personally the center portion was just too epic... After discussing with my friend we realised we had the same sort of feel. The ending was a little bit of a downer compared to how insane the center section was. Yume no Tobira costume's 3 songs, plus BiBi, and then Kaguya+Aa Mujou, those were the most hyped portions of tonight. Mostly things that were fresh and new.

There was a bad timing where they had to change costumes before NBG and then KKS... NBG is a strong song but it couldn't carry the show by itself. KKS was kind of weak. So basically that last section kind of lost its momentum.

Usually the encore can save things by being a tear jerker. But Love&Peace and Dreamin' Go! Go!!? Not gonna work out.

I'm not saying it wasn't enjoyable though. I'm just saying the setlist wasn't fully optimized so it left me feeling a bit empty. Or maybe that's just post-live feels.

Either way there's still one more day to go, so hopefully they put on a better show tomorrow. Looking forward to the BD songs! Or actually just Zurui yo Magnetic today and Soshite Saigo no Peiji ni wa.

(...If they do LOVELESS WORLD and Datte Datte Aa Mujou back to back I will outright cry.)

EDIT: According to Soramaru's tweet, a lot of the microphone derps that happened were due to people using their smartphones and the radio waves clashing or something. Aww man, what a waste, really... Our tech isn't there just yet. Hope there are less issues on Day 2.