2014/03/15 Studio Partita - SatochiP
More random notes than a report, but I tried my best. I forgot my pen at home so I couldn't scribble down notes right after the con, sorry if I'm missing stuff. Still, this turned out long, so I separated the notes into General impressions / Songs / MC / Encore.
Setlist was the same as in Tokyo, see here. Except that they did Sekai no owari twice, more about that in the part about the encore.
General impressions:
Satochi's musical taste is interesting. The songs he choose to be played before the concert made the audience laugh sometimes, haha. Yukke posted the full list here. There's pretty much everything, from female idols (Girls' Generation, Momokuro) over OOR and ELLEGARDEN to Nirvana and As I Lay Dying.
Except for Tatsurou in his Shocker shirt, they were all wearing band-shirts. Yukke - Iron Maiden, Miya - Slayer. I think Satochi wore a The Black Dahlia Murder shirt.
The way the other members were looking at Satochi was SO. EFFIN. CUTE. So gentle. Just letting him do whatever he wanted, in his own time. Tagging along with a smile. These four guys really work well together! (I know this is no news or anything but especially with Satochi or the way the others think about him, it's hardly ever this obvious)
Also, I don't think I ever saw the members (and the staff on/around the stage, too) smile this much. Not saying that they normally don't enjoy the concerts (they most definitely do) but their songs tend to be a bit too dark or sad for bright smiles. Given Satochi and his antics, we had so many bright smiles this time. It was touching, really. And contagious. I still have to smile myself whenever I remember it.
I don't know if this is common knowledge already, but the survey sheets you can fill out after the concerts are different for each member produced live. The member in question designed it (as opposed to the usual Tatsurou). The header on Satochi's was obviously Inuchi, with both arms raised. Not only that, the MUCC members he drew also had their arms raised. One big lot of \(^-^)/
Most of the time Satochi was in the spotlight (literally, he had a spotlight on him on an otherwise dark stage several times) which was awesome for a change <3
There were far more guys in the audience than usual.
Tatsurou's voice was not as good as usual at the beginning. On twitter he mentioned his voice being messed up after his own live (TatsurouP), because he choose songs not paying attention to things like "will my voice survive this". Not saying this was the reason, just the most likely of the ideas I could come up with so far.
Possibly because of this he seemed quite angry at the beginning. Second half was ok though~
Media no juusei was... wow. Even more emotional than I remember it from the last time I saw it live, and quite different as well.
YOU & I, bass solo part. Yukke gets ready to play. Tatsurou comes up behind him and rips out hairs from his tights. Yukke jumps and starts playing while having a WTF-expression. Tatsurou kept laughing his ass off until he had to stop and sing. Second bass solo. Yukke looks behind him. Gets ready to play. Hits Tatsurou's hand that was coming for his tight-hairs again. And starts playing.
There were several times in different songs when Miya went back, faced the drum set/Satochi and they both mouthed the lyrics to the song with smiles on their faces (or well, Satochi smiled when he didn't do his concentrated-face. Or his this-is-hard-face. Or any of the other awesome faces he makes while playing the drums.) Did I mention all the cute that was going on here? So. effin. cute!
There were three MCs in total. 1st MC before Mae e, 2nd MC after World's End, 3rd MC at the beginning of the encore. For comparison, in a "normal" MUCC concert (if there is something like that), 1st would be Tatsurou saying maybe one line. 2nd would be Tatsurou saying a little bit more, but still very short. 3rd would be the main MC, where all members talk. This time, Satochi and his drinking-water-in-between-sentences thing (he did that for 1st and 2nd even though Tatsurou told him to first drink, then speak during 1st 8D one glare from Tatsurou during 2nd made him quickly put away his water, making Tatsurou laugh) made even 1st and 2nd quite long, haha.
Satochi said that he didn't know what to talk about. Yes, he could have thought about that beforehand. But he wouldn't remember anyways so.
On Satochi not remembering, he has a bunch of stuff written on one of his drum heads (if you're interested in the details, on a Remo Weatherking Coated Emperor. Seems like it was given away to some lucky fan after TatsuP in Osaka), basically using is as a cheat sheet. Including the refrain from "Honey" and "ha iya iya sasa" (... from the live in Okinawa, this is an Okinawan call). Satochi: "I wanted to say that in Okinawa! It's there so I wouldn't forget!" Also, something that basically translated to "hunchback NO" - because he feels the sound (yes, from the drums, not only when he sings) is much better when he sits with a straight back. So whenever he crouches down badly enough to be able to read this, he needs to sit up straightly again. Tatsurou told us about this written stuff and was surprised that ha iya sasa was still there. And then laughed his butt off about the hunchback NO thing, he obviously didn't know about it. Neither did Yukke. Miya jumps in and says it's been there for around three years already, lol. So Tatsurou obviously picks on Satochi for keeping that for so long, still not remembering without the visual aid. As in, he had to have written that for quite a number of times because of he frequently changes that drum head (didn't quite get the timing, every 3-4 months or every 3-4 concerts)
When Yukke started talking, he immediately apologized for his deep voice. He caught a cold the day before when he went eating with Satochi, apparently the a/c in that restaurant was set really strong/cold. They went eating kushikatsu (as they were in Osaka already and this is one of Osaka's yummy specialities). A couple was sitting next to them. And apparently Satochi was really worried about them because even though they ordered a large number of skewers (around 15), they weren't even touching them. For Yukke and Satochi, they would be eaten pretty much as soon as they were put in front of them.
On eating manners there, Satochi "Why is it not allowed to dip your kushikatsu twice?" (before starting to eat, you dip your kushikatsu once into a big-ish container of sauce. You do that only once, and never after having eaten part of it already. Those sauce containers will be used by many more people, so leaving stuff behind [fallen off crust from double-dipping] or contaminating it with your saliva [if dipping after biting something off] are considered horribly rude) Yukke: "You wouldn't like it if people put something from which they had eaten already in for a second time, would you." Satochi: "But I really, really want to dip again!"
Miya mentioned being out of ideas on what to eat in Osaka because they've been here so often already that all the standard dishes have been eaten several times. Then he goes on and on about a Kushikatsu chain in Tokyo that opens more and more restaurants, but that apparently doesn't exist in Osaka. Tatsurou (?) compared it to "Taiwan Ramen" in some other town, but at least kushikatsu really exists in Osaka, lol.
Tatsurou: "Satochi, what does the P [in the concert names] stand for." Satochi: "… … … o.o … … p...produce (audience claps) OF COURSE I KNOW THAT MUCH. There are many important words starting with p in English. Like... …. please!" (Sorry, I don't remember the words. He said 2-3 fairly average, random words, and I think please was not the first one). Tatsurou: "But what's the one you want most right now?" Satochi: "?????????" Tatsurou: "It's „power“, isn't it?" Satochi: "YES OF COURSE IT IS *poses*"
During the MC before the encore songs, Miya said that Partita was really strange in terms of temperature. He can't tell if it's hot or cold in general. Of course it's hot on stage. But apparently it was so cold backstage that now he ended up drinking hot coffee on stage! First time he ever did that, lol.
When they came back on stage for the encore, they were wearing white shirts on top of the MUPP shirt (the one with the heads):
At first, Tatsurou was sitting behind the drums, Satochi was in front and Yukke and Miya were on their usual sides. At some point they lined up in the right order and Miya complained about being Inuchi instead of a letter, lol. As for Sekai no owari, Miya was behind the drums, the other three were in the right order for the shirt to say Sa-To-chi: Tatsurou (Sa) on bass (2-string bass, hanging as low as possible), on the left. Satochi (To) as vocal in the center, Yukke (Chi) on guitar on the right (kinda short-necked compared to Miya's usual guitars? hanging high). Miya totally hidden behind the drumset.
The played Sekai no owari like that, but had some technical problems with Satochi's mic. Afterwards, Miya threw the drumsticks up and behind him, lol, at the curtain. They took off the white shirts and Yukke totally failed at that. He first RIPPED the neck much wider, then tried to pull it down to step out of it. Forgetting that he still had the monitors in his ears with the transmitter on his back, so trying to pull the shirt down basically pulled on his ears. Next he tried to take it off over his head, but again, monitors and their cable in the way. He finally succeeded in taking it off after taking out the monitors (duh).
Meanwhile, audience was shouting for "one more time!". Satochi was already back behind his drums, Tatsurou walked to him and asked him to decide if they would play it again or not as this was his show. Satochi okay-ed it and so they went back to their other positions and played it again. No problems this time but Miya seemed to be less enthusiastic this time (or maybe tired). Still, he threw the drumsticks behind him this time as well.
Everyone back to their normal positions. But! With the same instruments used before, so Miya had that short guitar and Yukke a 2-string bass... Sorry Yukke, but apparently that's all Tatsurou could do and he said himself he had no interest whatsoever in learning to play bass any better, lol.
After the song, not only picks and drumsticks were thrown, those T-shirts were thrown as well.
In conclusion, it was an AWESOME live.
Yes, maybe I've seen better setlists. Yes, maybe I've heard better MCs. But it was so awesome to see and hear more from Satochi. To see him and to see how the members acted towards him in such a central position. Yes, Satochi is my favourite so duh but I've heard Muckers with other favourites say the same.
I'm just so happy I could go to this concert you have no idea.