Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 4

Yes, yes, I know I've missed out MC 3 but there's a word I want to check over with Frecklegirl before I post it up. Now, the mother of all the MC's. This baby took me over three hours and there are still places where I couldn't for the life of me work out. These places are marked by notes one and two respectively. Who would have thought that introducing the band would provide the most difficult part to translate!! There was also a word after she introduced The string quartet that I couldn't find either...it sounded a lot like carpet but I know it's not. Anyway. This is the longest MC and the juiciest in terms of content and understanding Maaya herself.

It's worth it.

Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 4

And now, I’d like to introduce the people in the band who are standing on this stage together with me here today. (applause).

Firstly, Sano Yasuo on the drums! Ah, it was this way! (laughs) I’m sorry! I can’t believe this I’m so sorry for that. This is Mr Sano, he’s been – ah, wait a second. Mr Sano, right? He’s played the drums for my first live, second live, third live so he gets a bonus for perfect attendance. For the rest of our lives please!

And now, bass Ohkanda Tomohiko! (laughs) As you can see, a natural character. Actually, please call him Kan-chan! (audience shouts Kan-chan!) With the Kanji character for yellow please!

(Note: Now the word Maaya uses ‘kanji’ might mean both ‘feeling’ and Chinese character ‘Kanji’. After spending ages playing around with Ohkanda Tomohiko’s name in various search engines as well as looking up the characters for his name and the word yellow to find any correlation and finally looking up phrases using ‘yellow feeling’ as slang etc. I have come to the conclusion that she means that both the kanji for yellow ‘kiiroi’ and the first kanji of Ohkanda’s name can be read ‘Oh’ and…somehow…yellow has some significance for him being a natural kind of guy? Anyway, Maaya says to write Kan-chan with the character for yellow…)

Next, on to guitar and Mr Ishinari Masato! He’s so cool, and he often bursts forth with this really wonderful phrase - when he’s singing he’ll come out with this ‘Uuunnh’ kind of noise, like an ‘ah I forgot the lyrics!’ sort of noise like he’s blaming it on someone else. Sorry but it’s true, it always looks like he’s thinking something along the lines of ‘ah even though it was that [I got it wrong]’ when he sings.

(Note: Maaya kind of mumbles at the end of this part so take it with a grain of salt)

Continuing, percussion – Miss Mizawa Izumi! Over here. She’s cute, she’s cute.

And with that, with this band from Osaka to Nagoya – wait, there’s one more person but I’ll introduce you in a second – we’ve toured around just like this.

Next, I’d like to introduce today’s special guest string quartet beginning with the first violin, Miss Oki Shouko. Then there’s second violin, Miss Shimokawa Miho. Then on the viola there’s Mr Watanabe Kazuo. Then on the cello it is Inoue Masayo. Earliar, the completion of the beginning of ‘Hashiru’ made me think suddenly “Whatever happens I have to do this song”.

Finally, Kouno Shin on the piano! He’s going ‘aheyaheyahe’. On the band bus Mr Kouno is always smiling, friendly and good fun. He’s someone you can really rely on. He’s actually the arranger on ‘Kazeyomi’ for ‘Get no Satisfaction’ and ‘Colors’. They are completely opposite songs. From such a cheerful song to a song like ‘Colors’ where you can feel both the sea, the earth and the universe, he arranged them both.

With this band right now, standing together with them on stage, I’m really happy!

(applause)

I’m really happy. From here I can see everyone making many smiling different faces.Um…well, I’m on this tour because I felt like somehow I have to explain why it’s been so long since I’ve had a concert…I have to talk about the reason and my feelings here tonight. Well, I’ve been singing for a long time up to this point, I’ve also written lyrics – singing and writing as well as acting and commenting on this. I’ve loved all of this. I felt I could really experience life through this without being deprived of anything.

But saying that, honestly the word ‘live’ was for something really frightening for me. Always. There were many people who would say “Let us know when you want to do a live!” or people would say “Try it out, it’s fun” I would think “Well, that may be so” and when I tried it each time I would feel like ‘ah, that was actually fun’ or ‘I really did it’ and every time I really learned something, that I had climbed up one more step. But even though that was my intention I could never say ‘I want to do another concert someday’, was it impatience? But inside of me there was a part that was always ready to run away.

If you ask why, I was really bad at standing in front of people. Not because I was nervous or embarrassed but because right from the beginning I found it was really difficult to open myself up to people. It was always like there was a sheet of glass between me and the audience, that I could be in contact with them and think ‘I want to get rid of this wall’ but couldn’t. Even I was thinking ‘I’m so awful’. But really, continuing to wear cute clothes and singing beautifully – doing concerts like this was something I couldn’t stand. I had a feeling that it shouldn’t be like that, a concert should have something more important to it. That it was some kind of communication and it was because I thought that way that I was so regretful that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t say it from my own lips.

But, at that time I started to do the limited fan club events, I’d do a concert at a pace of around one a year and slowly the number of concerts I did increased as did the number of people who came to see them – is there anyone here from the IDS! Fan club? Thank you. Those people really taught me how enjoyable concerts could be, and this with the warm staff meant that every time I was left with warm feelings. I was able to sing and in the midst of that how much I was able to do on stage began to increase.

Finally, I realised that although I had been under the impression that I was addressing a whole crowd of people in reality every single person there was walking their own individual path, that many different people were gathered together and that it was actually one to one communication.

I hadn’t even realised this even though it was something obvious. When I realised that there was this back-and-forth going on, far from being scary, it became something reassuring. It really made me into an adult. You all did that.

So when I was making ‘Kazeyomi’ it felt like I was being released from many different things and becoming free, so many pieces of good music were being born. I thought how amazing this is, how wonderful. I was really happy. And I was surprised when the words ‘I want to do a concert’ just naturally slipped out one day. And the planning of this tour began.

So because I was thinking I’m really sorry that I made you all wait so long, I even said because it’s been so long and I rarely do them I want to make it a big one! And because I did that so many people came! I was actually really worried that so many people were coming and I’m so happy that everyone waited for me. (bows)

Damn it, it’s still to early to cry!! (laugh) But really, I’ve been able to feel how much everyone had been waiting for me and being able to sing…it’s really the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.

When I was choosing songs for this tour I was lost and troubled because I had so many songs I couldn’t possibly choose. But within the many songs that I wanted to sing I could see that when I looked back within myself at the path that I’d followed to this point I could see that wherever I cut the songs from ‘Maaya Sakamoto’ was there. And I could see that whatever I sang would be fine, the songs I want to sing now and the songs on ‘Kazeyomi’ could be lined up together. From the songs I sang in the past to what I sang now, listening to them there was a continuation. Even though it’s been a while, it wasn’t just a treat for everyone that I sang my old songs or my single songs, it was actually because when I lined up the songs I wanted to sing in everything there were footprints leading to ‘Kazeyomi’. It was really interesting. And I really felt that I was glad to have come to where I am and that I hadn’t been mistaken in anything.

Within all those songs, to the me that was there on that day there’s one song that I have to sing. Please listen. ‘Hikari Are’.