Kalafina Anime Boston Live
Free wifi is the one single tool that marketing companies should offer to fan bloggers and the like if they want like, hyped words from the fatigued wireless army of today’s convention fandom. Not kidding. That is if they all had 10″ laptops with massive battery life, that is \o/
Kalafina’s concert at Anime Boston is actually a two-part deal. The Boston-local orchestra organization, Video Game Orchestra, opened for them. The group pulls the talents of a couple local ensembles and students from Berklee School of Music and forms a full orchestra. At Anime Boston’s show, however, we only got a 13(?) member detachment armed with powered amps and electric shredding capabilities. It was actually rather good, I thought.
I wasn’t able to piece together their set list, but it had a very nice 5-piece medley with Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross pieces. [Edit: you can read more about the game music portions of their show at OSV, including a set list.] A very nice Silent Hill piece with a vocalist and a track from Halo also stood out to be impressive. What sold me however were their two-piece Kajiura tribute. Supposedly they don’t play anime music normally, so this was definite a treat–Himeboshi and Song of Storm and Fire. The Mai-hime track was short and to the point and I always thought Kajiura’s best work came out of that show, yet nobody plays her pieces there. Lastly, and almost in an obligatory fashion, there’s always FF7 music. The VGO played in a way that was very pop and the more jazz-rock style worked well with a convention audience. If they play more anime music I would be so all over them…But enough about that.
First things first: This is obviously done hours after the show and I might be off the rocker here and there. Feel free to correct me if you spot a mistake.Second, the set list– [now updated from here]
- oblivious
- Mata Kaze ga Tsuyokunatta
- love come down
- mc 1
- La’crimosa
- Natsu no Ringo
- fairytale
- mc 2
- ARIA
- Ongaku
- sprinter
- mc 3
- Kizuato
- encore: Kimi ga Hikari ni Kaete Iku [w/ Kajiura]
- encore: gloria [w/ Kajiura]
For a bit of personal anecdote, I actually missed out on the encore! What made them special was Kajiura hammering away on the mic and the piano between pieces, telling the fleeting Anime Boston crowd to stay. (I had to run somewhere else, unfortunately out of my own stupidity.) The final two pieces indeed had Kajiura accompanying Kalafina…
My first impression to Kalafina’s live was that, wow, this is almost like a Kotoko show with the heavy, loud thumping that characterizes Kajiura’s pop tracks. The girls don’t move very much; they root still, flip around in their gothloli outfits, and belt out some pretty awesome stuff.
It’s pretty obvious that these people can sing live, for real. I guess that’s their combination–vocal harmonies, thumping gothy sounds, and some pretty faces to go with those pretty dresses. But it’s probably why I had low expectations about their live coming in. I think in reality any of the three of the girls would go well with a rock band!
Especially Keiko. She’s got that look and she can hit some very low stuff… Where as Hikaru really does remind me of Kotoko in more ways than one.
But anyways, it’s definitely a very different experience listening to Seventh Heaven (the album) while drifting in and out of sleepiness versus pumping fists into the open air while crying “SPRIIIINTAAAA.” Man, I love that song when they get into it.
It’s a good show. The audience is timid as usual. I don’t blame them considering there’s not much of a track record for Kalafina, and it’s not like most people know what their lives are like (Youtube rips of Seventh Heaven bonus DVD are pretty meh), but they got into it right around ongaku. It probably helps that the video thing at the background were showing people “hey this was the kickass movie you saw last night” but the crowd eventually does its job and the girls really got into singing.
In fact, besides that I saw Hikaru squeeze out a smile once everyone got up on their feet, all three of them sang…”better” after that. It was pretty neat. I can go home happy even if I missed out on Kajiura’s piano…
I might or might not have mentioned this before, but con concerts need standing pits so people can get in the front and lead the crowd. It’s got a very different dynamic than a concert drawn from natural fans and their friends than “con-goers.” There’s an additional layer of legal and logistics problem with that, I understand way too well, but you really have a better show when you do this–provided the people at the front plays nice and straight. There’s probably some term for this, something like how live music is all about connecting the audience with the band through the music? Let’s do our best get rid of the stuff in the way!
The sonorous tune of Mata Kaze Ga Tsuyokunatta sort of muffled the ladies’ voices. Besides that, I found the concert to be pretty enjoyable.
should have come and said hi!
[…] has stated a list of the songs that were performed during the concert. Go check it out and read what he has to […]
I could not find you lol. If you are going back again on Day 3, I might have a chance to greet you because it is my intentions to check out the Dealers’ Room. Oh, panels are real fun. They justify the going to cons.
after reading your song list, I am just thinking…
are you really in the concert!?
#6,7,8,11,13,15 are so wrong = =
Ashita no Keshiki ..they didn’t even sing it, do you actually know the name of the songs?
and for the Encore part, they are singing GLORIA, not seventh heaven…
The crowd in last summer’s Yuki Kajiura concert were pretty subdued, too, by otagei standards at least. I imagine the Boston crowd were as stiff as logs for the most part and I’m seeing this in most american convention crowds. Simple glowsticking can go a pretty long way in these cases if you really wanna connect with the performers… were there any spotted in the audience?
Man, that sounds like a blast and may very well have been the best anime concert in North America this year. Unless you’re a Morning Musume fan, AX is looking like a bit of a drag, so I doubt the level of epicness on my end will be nearly as high.
aki: I know there were mistakes in the set list. Three of us pieced it together after the fact and we were probably off. Please let me know what it was.
Don’t worry about the list; having been in the front I was pretty overwhelmed with excitement myself, so I know how that goes. ;) I may have left out a few short mcs and such, but I know that these are the songs:
1. oblivious
2. Mata Kaze ga Tsuyokunatta
3. love come down
4. mc 1
5. Lacrimosa
6. Natsu no Ringo
7. fairytale
8. mc 2
9. ARIA
10. Ongaku
11. sprinter
12. Kizuato
13. goodbye and thank you speech
14. encore: Kimi ga Hikari ni Kaete Iku
15. encore: seventh heaven
Awesome, thanks for the set list. I’ll take your word for it.
zzparticle: I think Momoi’s show is the one to beat this weekend. However it’s still early in the con season and not even all the big summer cons have listed all their musical acts. yet.
cowboybibimbap: yeah, it’s a bit typical of a con crowd. I mean that’s expected now, but there are some ways to make things better. One is having your otagei group in front and center and lead the crowd, although that has its up and down sides too. I didn’t spot any of that at all, and no glowsticks.
FYI I sat in an aisle row near the center of the room, so I couldn’t do all that much either.
Does it matter who’s performing, or are con crowds generally like that. Like say if L’arc en Ciel played a show, would the con crowd act in the same way?
Glad to see you had a good time at the concert. :3
From what I’ve read from Japanese and Chinese fan blogs, this was the setlist:
01. oblivious
02. また風が強くなった
03. love come down
MC1
04. Lacrimosa
05. 夏の林檎
06. Fairytale
MC2
07. ARIA
08. 音楽
09. sprinter
MC3
10. 傷跡
MC4 w/ Kajiura
11. 君が光るに変えて行く (piano acoustic)
12. Gloria (piano acoustic)
The pre-show setlist:
01. 姫星
02. A song of storm and fire
Yea, I read your link from twitter and updated this post. I already mentioned the two VGO kajiura tracks by name.
TheBigN: If L’arc was playing, it wouldn’t. I was THERE. But in that case the band management would know enough to take care of (IMO) important details like that. Not so much with your average American con-going anison act.
[…] Kalafina’s show, there’s not a lot of very memorable stuff. Be sure to also read DS’s report for more […]
the list from cowboybibimbop is right！！
the list from kuri is wrong again, the last song is Gloria, and they have mentioned it before they began performing this song, how come you guys keep saying is seventh heaven -_-|||
LOL, yeah, too bad I wasn’t there for the encore ;_;
OSV blog has a good write-up of the VGO portion of the concert.
http://www.originalsoundversion.com/?p=3061
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK_mCN0kGcI the Kajiura portion of VGO’s show.