part 4...

アンコール
PIKA★★NCHI DOUBLE
明日に向かって
できるだけ
One Love

They came out in their tour shirts, except for Jun, who was wearing his disco ball jacket as Aiba had demanded. I was happy since he was easy to pick out even across the stadium! Mostly these were the moving stages moving around the stands, I think?

For One Love, they did thank-yous to the juniors, band and staff, and then added in specially: "And one more thank you: to all of you guys, who stuck it out in the rain!" And then once more, again, Jun repeated: "Thank you to all of the people listening outside!"

They lined up (Sho slid up on the stage through the water, and coasted up to hug Aiba from the side before everybody linked hands for the bow) and Jun called, "Okay now... What's our name? Se--no..."

"A-RA-SHIIIII!"

They bowed, and then filed offstage waving goodbye. Sho and Ohno were last, they exchanged a look, and they did their silly exit again. PLEASE tell me someone is going to catch this on a DVD sometime this CENTURY. It's so damn cute.

The call continued...


ダブルアンコール
ファイトソング
五里霧中
A・RA・SHI

Everyone back out again in their tour shirts. Jun took his off almost immediately. Right after he took it off, he realized it had stopped raining. Opposite of last year: the rain STOPS at the very end.

For Fight Song, they all gathered on the main stage at the beginning of the huge catwalk, and everyone in turn handed off their microphone to Nino, who would announce them to the audience as they did the slip-n-slide routine one by one down the catwalk. Jun was first. Sho went second and did a terrible job and got no distance. Ohno did very well. I didn't see Aiba one way or the other. Nino was left holding all the microphones. All the members went their separate ways on the catwalks, slipping and sliding, and Nino said from his spot, "Oh crap, you guys gave me all your microphones, so I'm the only one who can sing?!"

So, everyone gave up on the lyrics and they just led the audience in the "hoi, hoi, hoi!"

For Gorimuchuu, they reconvened on the back stage, retrieved their microphones, and got on the escalator stage up to the torch platform again. Total blast. I love this song live.

And then from the top, Jun called out, "Okay, last song!"

"NOOOOOOO!"

"Nope, come on, it's the last one! Let's go!"

And then the A.RA.SHI intro rang out, as they rode the stage back down to the bottom as the audience all went nuts dancing and screaming along.

All five of them walked down the catwalk singing back up to the main stage. Instead of going out the door again, they stood on a descending platform together as the music finished, waving to the audience.

Cutest moment EVER: as the platform descended to take them down below the stage, they were all waving normally...but Aiba and Sho started hopping up and down as the platform descended, so you just saw those two popping out below stage like jack-in-the-boxes, first their heads, and as they went lower and lower, you just saw their hands popping in and out of view coming out of the stage until the very last second.

The crowd wouldn't stop the call. The staff was trying to seriously get us to shut up and start leaving but nobody budged and we all kept screaming.

And it paid off...

トリプルアンコール
season

They came out and said thank you over and over again. The rain had stopped, yay!

But they looked behind them and saw the band was gone. Aiba said, "Even if we wanna, we can't do anything without them, so..."

Jun said, "I'm really worrying about you guys catching colds anyway..."

The crowd screamed for him not to.

"No, really. I'm serious, I don't want you guys sick."

The crowd yelled at him again. He put on his Doumyouji face and tone, and said sternly, "You idiots! Don't you kn..." and then trailed off as he was searching for a camera to speak into. It went on a second too long, so he broke character, cracking up, and he was like, "Oh, forget it, I'm not gonna do it."

Crowd: NOOOOOO! DOOOOOOO IIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!

Jun, dramatically, in Doumyouji-mode: "You idiots! Don't you know I'm only saying it because I'm WORRIED about you?"

Crowd: OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG<3333

Then he looked up and right there, the skies had opened up again. "Oh crap, it's raining again. Okay. We really need to get you guys home safe."

Everyone screamed no, we wanted another song. The band reappeared, and Jun said, "Okay, but you are only getting ONE and then you have to go home, okay?" The crowd whined, but he said, "No, no, no. We talked it over, the five of us, and we agreed this was the song we would end on if we did a triple. So this is it. Please listen to the final song we chose together... season."

They sang it standing on the main stage and it was great.

As it ended, they walked off the main stage, one by one yelling like teachers scolding students: "Now, all of you get home safe, okay?"

"OKAY!"

"Now, don't catch cold, okay?"

"OKAY!"

"Be sure to keep warm, okay?"

"OKAY!"

Jun: "Aishiteru yo!"

"OMGGGGGGGG!"

The other four started wolf-whistling at Jun's *~love confession~* to the audience, and the camera closed on Sho and Ohno slipping backstage still giggling at Jun together. XD

It was grand. It was fun. I might catch pneumonia and die.

IN CONCLUSION IT WAS GREAT.

Also, serious snaps to security and the subway staff this year. Last year, getting home from Kokuritsu was a nightmare brought to life. Staff directed us to a dead end when we were trying to get out to the gate, and then once I hit the subway, I spent nearly two hours trapped inside trying to get to the platform, sandwiched completely that whole time just trying to make it down four flights of stairs. So this year I've been freaked out for a while, thinking I wouldn't get home tonight at all this time.

Instead we got guided out of Kokuritsu rather quickly, and the subway was a breeze. Crowded, yeah, but we were constantly moving and the security did an amazing job guiding people through and separating the crowds.

By the way, while I did not repeatedly keep saying through the whole report, "AND THEN IT KEPT POURING" it was basically pouring the entire show from the start until that tiny lull in the encore, and then started pouring ALL OVER AGAIN from there.

I was soaked to the skin. My fingers actually pruned. My hair was soaked. My dress was soaked. The one stroke of genius I had was that I had kept my Arashi bath towel in its plastic. So I was able to sit down on my final long train ride home, since I laid that on the seat so I wouldn't get the seat wet. ;w; I really hurt all over now but feel surprisingly less terrible than I thought I would after that many hours of getting rained on!

Dome results are still unknown, so this might be the end of the line for me this tour (and probably is). But if that's how it goes, I can't complain. It was a great night, despite the rain! Really because of it, a little.



(edit: Wow. I don't think my con posts last year ever got over thirty or forty comments. When I woke up and saw all of these, I was stunned. Thank you so much, you guys! I'm trying to reply to people who had questions about the con now, but I know there's no way I'll end up replying to all of these because it's so overwhelming. But suffice to say I hugely appreciate all of the comments that have been left. Thank you!

I'm also still slowly editing things in and revising as I remember stuff, by tomorrow I'll probably arrive at the final version if any of you wanna check back.)