IDS Fanclub Tour 2012 'Winter Songs' Zepp Nagoya Report - 5/2/2012

On Sunday I had the privilege of going to one of the Nagoya IDS fanclub events at Zepp Nagoya. Like the tour in 2009, the venue was small and even sitting right at the back we were still close enough to see everything clearly and make eye-contact with Maaya, nod along to her conversation and wave when she looked our way (I dragged a friend along.)

The fanclub events are nice as not only are they intimate in the sense Maaya chats a lot with the audience and there’s more interaction than a regular concert, but the band is made up of four members: percussion, guitar, cello and piano. The acoustic arrangements of her songs are really lovely and give off a completely new vibe in some cases to the original.

As you can see from the setlist, this concert focused on the winter themed songs of Maaya’s discography (mostly ‘Driving in the Silence’ as a lot of fans didn’t get to go to the Tokyo concerts in December 2011) for the first half then from ‘Remedy’ onwards Maaya said they were just the songs she wanted to sing.

The ‘Driving in the Silence’ tracks in particular had wonderful arrangements, and the percussionist’s performance in 'Kyoku-ya’ was great; she had so many different instruments clustered around her and each sounded unique and atmospheric. I was really, really impressed.

Another track that stood out was the acoustic performance of ‘Melt the snow in me’. This isn’t a song I would have imagined being acoustic but once the guitarist started strumming the opening it was hard to go back to the original. Even ‘Mizuumi’, a song I don’t have a particular love for in it’s original form, sounded deep and gorgeous.

Audience interaction, there was a game in the middle of the setlist where we were all gradually whittled down by rock-paper-scissors and questions to one person who was invited up on stage (!!) to draw from a lottery to select the next song.　The woman pulled ‘Kiseki no Umi’ out of the box and when Maaya asked if she liked that song the woman replied in the negative and we were all duly shocked. You’re up on stage with Maaya Sakamoto, at least say you like the song you pulled out!

Still, it was a good performance of a classic, along with ‘Pocket wo kara ni shite’ it was the only other really early Maaya song.

My friend had only heard ‘Loop’ before going to the event (I was reasonably confident she would enjoy it after hearing that as I don’t think of ‘Loop’ as high-quality convert someone to Maaya fare) and thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, especially the performances of ‘Kotoshi Ichiban’ and ‘Mizuumi’. Although we were sitting at the back but one row the seats were on a raised platform and it just so happened there was no one in the two rows in front of us so we had the perfect view.

So you can imagine how excited I was to be waving and be seen (and embarrassed, I did try and keep my dignity mostly.)

Here’s the setlist, apart from the song lottery, it’s the same as before. I’m going to Osaka next weekend with another friend so I’m looking forward to seeing what is pulled out of the box next time.

She also discussed plans for the 10^th anniversary of IDS next year, they are currently collecting ideas from members about what sorts of things they could do to mark the occasion. One bizarre idea was to put on a play about how IDS was started starring Maaya and the IDS staff, Maaya’s comment was: ‘Who on earth would come and see it?!’

By the way, when she was reading out the list of merchandise and stuff she let out this really loud goofy laugh and my friend was like ‘that was the best laugh ever!’ I’m glad she enjoyed herself.

1.Driving in the silence
2.Fuyu desu ka
3.Sayonara Santa
4.Melt the snow in me
5.Tatoeba ringo ga te ni ochiru you ni
6.Kotoshi Ichiban
7.Mizuumi
8.Kyokuya
9.Kiseki no Umi
10.Remedy
11.Chikai
12.Okaerinasai
13.Pocket wo kara ni shite