Live Tour 2009 WE ARE KAZEYOMI Notes

Well! Here's a big one! Maaya's official site updated this week with a new mini site to commemorate the release of her first live DVD, the recording of the Tokyo show of her hall tour WE ARE KAZEYOMI which took place in January. On the site it has the usual information but there was a rather large section which contained notes on the live written by Shinya Ueno. Very interesting which of course means they were difficult to translate (haha). Well, enjoy! It's a nice insight for people who are getting the DVD:

Maaya Sakamoto 2009 Live Tour "WE ARE KAZEYOMI" Notes
Original text: Ueno Shinya
Taken from here

This January Maaya Sakamoto’s 6th album was released. When the album was finished、she said that she experienced “A happiness that was out of this world”. It wasn’t that the creation of the record had taken months, it wasn’t because it had taken 3 years and 3 months since her last work ‘Yuunagi LOOP’, it was the sense that everything since she began singing, the path she had walked and everything up to this point in time had all been connected into one. It seems to have been a moment of where she looked back from a place with a fine view on her journey up to now and found in her hand a new energy to grab a new dream which reflected her and continue forwards. It was then that the words that fell from her lips were “I want to do a concert”.

And it was this that after the release of the album “Kazeyomi” her first hall tour ‘Sakamoto Maaya LIVE TOUR 2009 “WE ARE KAZEYOMI”’ was decided upon. January 21st in Nagoya, January 22nd in Osaka, January 24th in Tokyo, the tour held in these three venues was the first tour in 5 years that hasn’t been limited mini lives for her fan club. At the venues, the heat of fans with high hopes for seeing her perform for the first time in a long time was felt even before the performance started.

A vivid opening with Maaya coming out in a red mini dress! Made up of Kouno Shin (p,key&g), Sano Yasuo (ds)、Tomohiko Ohkanda (b)、Ishinari Masato (g)、Misawa Izumi (per) and the Oki Shouko Quartet (strings) the sound from the band members echoed out with a brilliant strength and instantly the hall was wrapped in excitement. In the carefully carried out rehearsals not one uncertain element was left to chance for this one day and the motivation of the main person herself was certainly not half-baked. In the songs as well, numbers from the album ‘Kazeyomi’ were certainly there “Get No Satisfaction!”, “Remedy”, “Kazamidori”, her debut song “Yakusoku wa iranai” and “Kiseki no umi”, “Purachina” the representative songs were all there and the line up she chose with the thought of “What I want to sing now” is sure to please both fans who have been with her from her debut and people who are seeing her for the first time. Both powerful and cute enough to make you think there had never been a 5 year gap, her performance on stage communicated the transition between each song’s world view through a delicate singing voice and a bold power of expression. A voice which upon hearing in person, unconstrained and entrancing with clearly overflowing without her voice with the power to spellbind you and make you comfortable without you even realising it, and an appearance which with its small movements holds your eyes and won’t let you look away – surely this is enough to nod and realise: “this is natural talent”.

However, when the live was heading towards its end Maaya began a long MC beginning with the words “I’m doing this tour because I think I felt like I had to explain why it’s been 5 years since I’ve done a concert”. This honest confession about the motivations for this tour was an important moment that deepened the bonds between the audience and Maaya Sakamoto. The weak self that surely most people have in their hearts was standing to face an invisible wall and about to overcome it. Through this tour we were all able to share the moment where Maaya was pushed forward by the album “Kazeyomi” to advance. The dazzling moment when she raised her arms up to the sky passionately singing “Hikari Are” after this MC was a scene so moving as to be permanently burned into one’s heart.

The red mini dress from the first half which so suited happy numbers like “Get No Satisfaction!” and “Praline” was in the second half replaced with a costume change to a black dress for the more calm numbers like “Yakusoku wa iranai” and “Yubiwa” and the contrast was quite dramatic. Through this personal expression in a ‘song’, the things she has thought about and felt during her long career rather were communicated and that Maaya Sakamoto the artist was both serious and real towards the field of music, always being truthful in communicating the feelings of a living person, flesh and blood.

Every moment was something that both the staff and guests could not take their eyes from, the scene when Maaya introduced the final ending, singing “Universe” alone with a piano was moving enough to surprisingly bring forth tears. The DVD “Maaya Sakamoto LIVE TOUR 2009 ‘WE ARE KAZEYOMI’” is definitely filled with must-see items! The second disc includes all of the MC’s from the Tokyo performance are included, document footage of the rehearsal and songs that were only performed in Osaka and Nagoya. You can see all the expressions of Maaya Sakamoto, her nervous face from before the real show, her sigh of relief after finishing playing the piano and then her happy tears. And, more than anything, in this package is something that captures both her courage and the audience’s wonderful energy that filled the entire space with warmth. Even the people who couldn’t go to the concert, with one press of the play button everyone can become “Kazeyomi People” with this release. We can all share in the moment when, after reaching an arrival point, a new door opened. A thing that many people have in common that after a career of 14 years, a new door opening at that arrival point. And on the other side of that door, a wonderful song penetrating the soul with a light to fill you with courage

Text: Ueno Shinya