YUI 5th Tour 2011-2012 “Cruising ~HOW CRAZY YOUR LOVE~ in NARA!
~Concert Report~
by: Hatsumichan
**WARNING, LONG POST AHEAD~! (AND SOME SPOILERS SO IF YOU’RE GOING TO A CONCERT LATER ON AND DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS, PLEASE DO NOT READ UNTIL AFTER THAT CONCERT)**
So I got to the concert venue, ???100???? (Nara Centennial Hall) at around 5:00pm and since it was already starting to get dark, I decided not to take a picture of the outside of Nara Centennial Hall because it would’ve been too dark to see anyway. There was a nice panel outside that showed goods for people who probably had to line up to buy goods if they had gotten there really early. The limited edition “Nara Stained Glass Plate” was already sold out by 2:00pm!!!! (which is when my friend who I went to the concert with had gotten there)
haha don’t mind my shadow… lol
So I went inside the hall and what greeted me at the entrance was:
YUPPII with Nara’s 1,300 year anniversary mascot, “Sentou-kun” (Named after ???? (heijou sentou) which means “relocation of the capital from Nara (to Tokyo)” – more about this later xD)!!! It was really funny to see these two mascot characters next to each other lol
Then after that I went to buy goods for me and those who pre-ordered (I’m sure some of you have seen this pic already):
And then I went to go find my friend who had my ticket for the concert. We met up and he handed me my ticket and it was SO CUTE! The tickets this year were designed like boarding passes for a boat ride!
Blocked out name and seat numbers so that Sony can’t try to find me/my friend if they don’t like me posting this…
When we were giving them our tickets, we got the flags for the “Lock on” dance, but I didn’t like that both of them were printed on one side in the same direction!!
So I don’t know if you can see it clearly in the pictures, but the pole is on the left side for both flags, so you couldn’t hold them like they did in the dance video if you wanted the words to face forward. You had to hold one that faced the stage, and one that faced you in order to get them to look like the video T_T Oh well… lol
We were also given plastic bags with the “Cruising” tour brochure (which showed the goods on one side and had a cute little map on the other side) and other advertisements in.
The words on the back panel say:
“Cruising
~HOW CRAZY YOUR LOVE~?
??????????????????
Thank you for embarking on “Cruising ~HOW CRAZY YOUR LOVE~
??????????????????
I would like to guide everyone on how to have a peaceful boat trip.
??????????
???????????
??????????????
Chase after the sun that sparkles on the waves
To the horizon that is as far as the eye can see
The ocean view that you can look out on from the ship’s deck
?????????
????????????
???(???)????
??????????
????????
Entrust the drifting (of our boat) to the waves
And while you gaze at the puffs of clouds
Open the “mast” of your heart
And enjoy this mere small amount of time.”
My friend and I got inside and we found our seats and we were PRETTY CLOSE to the stage in comparison to how big the venue was. It was the closest I’ve ever been to the stage at any concert I’ve ever been to. :O So I decided to take advantage of that fact (and the fact that the guards weren’t looking at me), and I took a picture of the stage with my cell phone:
Sorry it’s not very clear, but if you squint, you can see “HOW CRAZY YOUR LOVE” written beneath the screen!
CONCERT PART STARTS HERE (if that’s all you care about)
So since my friend and I went in pretty early, we waited about half an hour until the lights started dimming and everyone started screaming! Then the Captain for that night (I couldn’t really catch his name…) started to MC and welcomed us to “Cruising ~HOW CRAZY YOUR LOVE~” and the beginning background music of “Hello ~Paradise Kiss~” started playing (where they keep singing “hello” over and over again) and all of a sudden YUI popped out from the left side of the stage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (red circle):
Stole this from Staff Diary for Oomiya, but the stage setup was the same for Nara
She was wearing a SUPER CUTE outfit that looked like the American Flag (w00tw00t – since I’m originally from NY)!!
She had a red-and-white-striped v-neck shirt with dolman sleeves over a black shirt with a white fur collar over it, and then a long blue flowy skirt with white stars on it! And she had a really nice big light-brown sunhat on! Then she came down from the top of the stage and entered with her band members while waving to everyone (we were all freaking out by then, everyone was yelling “YUI!!! KAWAIII (cute)!!!!”) and then she took off her hat and picked up her guitar. Her hair was down in her usual side part, but at one point during the concert, I saw the back of her head and like maybe, a quarter of the way in from both sides of her head, some hair was pulled into a braid on both sides and then brought together in the middle like those princess braids, but from the front, you totally couldn’t tell that it was braided! (I’m TOTALLY gonna try out that hairstyle sometime LOL!) So since the background music was already playing, they went straight into:
Hello ~Paradise Kiss~ (She sounds JUST like the recording <3)
no Reason (During this song, the background screen made it seem like we were actually on a boat sailing along the water, and then there were some famous places in Nara that came up on the screen like the Big Buddah in Nara, Nara Park (with a lot of deer, lol), and one of the 5 tier temples that I don’t know the name of LOL etc etc… and it was really funny to see this because Nara prefecture is land-locked so there’s no way to view Nara from the ocean lol)
Nobody Knows (The lighting in this segment was SUPER awesome where there were red, white, and blue lights
flashing all over the place to the beat of the music, the words of the song & the guitar solos. It made it SO dramatic! The background screen also showed a lightning storm as if our “boat” got caught in one D=)
Then there was a really short MC where YUI welcomed us to the “Cruising” tour and said “Let’s all have some fun tonight!” and they started playing:
It’s My Life
I’ll be
Then they did the introductions for the band members and she introduced everyone from the left, back side of the stage, around to the left front of the stage, and then herself. So the stage was arranged from left to right, back to front:
Percussionist: Sakura, Drummer: Chris, Keyboard: Arisa
Bassist: Bakky, Vocals/Guitar: YUI, Guitar: Kuro-chan
So she went around introducing everyone, and then she skipped herself after Kuro-chan and started to introduce Bakky, but first she apologized because apparently she forgot to introduce him at the last tour location and went straight to introducing herself on vocals and guitar and then started playing the songs without mentioning him LOL! Everyone laughed at that xD Then they went into the next song:
Uniform (There was a “music video” in the background that was kinda like a mesh of the “Laugh Away” PV and the “I’ll be” PV with some extra shots of baseball equipment and baseball fields in it – it was really cute ^^)
Separation
Then YUI asked us to all sit down and relax for a little bit of the concert, so we all did, and she said she was gonna sit down too so she tried “lying down” on one of the beach chairs that was on stage as part of the set, but there was a green beach ball in the way, and it seemed like she didn’t want to have to lie sideways the whole time so she just decided to sit up on the edge of the beach chair.
They had the sound of waves playing on the speakers in the hall to make it seem like we were really on a boat in the ocean and YUI asked us to close our eyes for 5 seconds and just listen to it. Then she said, “It really soothes you doesn’t it, the sound of waves? I really like listening to the sound of waves to soothe myself.” and about half the audience nodded or made agreeing sounds. So then she asked “What do you do to soothe yourself?” and someone yelled out “SLEEPING!” and YUI laughed at that. AND THEN, THE BEST PART OF THE ENTIRE CONCERT came about when I yelled out softly in my sick voice “YUI??????(Listening to YUI songs)” and my friend who sat next to me, knew that I couldn’t yell very loudly so he yelled out the same thing for me, and YUI turned towards our direction and said “??! ?????????????120??(Ohh, Listening to my songs! Thank you! 120 points!”) So my friend and I were SUPER excited that we were just spoken to directly by YUI AND we got 120 points from her!!!! 
Then someone said “taking a bath” and YUI agreed with them too. After that, YUI moved back to the center of the stage and started talking about Nara and how she didn’t get to go around Nara, but her band mates did. So she asked Chris how he was doing and how he enjoyed Nara. Chris said that he and Bakky went to Nara Park, (and if you don’t know, Nara is famous for having A LOT of deer – they’ll even jump out into the middle of the street sometimes, and it’s illegal to kill deers in Nara so you have to be careful when driving so as not to hit them D: ) and Bakky’s cell phone was chewed on by a deer (LOL)!!! By the time he got it back it was all full of deer drool and Chris was laughing the whole time at him. But he said that they had a lot of fun.
Then YUI started the “Acoustic Line” of songs that they had:
Winter Hot Music
So there was a really nice calming atmosphere after “Winter Hot Music” and YUI started another mini-MC about the theme of this year’s concert, “Cruising.” So she talked about how the Nara arena was PERFECT for the tour this year because “Nara Centennial Hall” is built in the shape of a boat! (But really, it’s only built in the shape of the bow(front portion) of a boat). And then for some reason, Bakky started giggling, and then some of the audience started to giggle, and then YUI was like “Why are you laughing?!” And Bakky shook his head as if to say “no no it’s nothing,” but he kinda kept giggling a little (I think it’s because the hall is only made in the shape of half a boat, and not a full boat, so maybe he kinda laughed at that). Then YUI moved on to talk about “cruising” and asked if anyone in the audience had been cruising before, and quite a few members of the audience raised their hands! (but not me, I haven’t been cruising before… 
) Then YUI asked if Chris had ever been cruising before and he said that he had been on a cruise once with his family around Norway and Finland and YUI responded “Oh, yes, that’s right, because Chris is from Sweden.” Then they segued into the next acoustic song without announcing the title, but said that they hope that we would enjoy it.
CHE.R.RY (OMG THE ARRANGEMENT THAT THEY DID TO THIS SONG WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!! – I wish they would release a CD for this acoustic version of CHE.R.RY. It was played in a jazz style and had a lot more piano in it than the recorded normal version or acoustic version. And Chris was playing this strange little circular thing in his hand that made drum-like noises, but they weren’t actually drums…. or bongos…. but it really made a nice backing sound to the vocals and the music.)
Good Night (The entire venue fell dark and the backdrop of the stage had little blue and white lights in the shape of stars all over the top half of the set – It was SO pretty! YUI’s voice really echoed through the hall in this song <3 SO GORGEOUS)
to Mother (It was really nice to hear an acoustic version of this since there is no recorded acoustic version and it was mostly done with guitars so there was a different feel from the piano that this song is normally done with)
After the song was over, suddenly, there was this static sound coming from the speakers and someone’s voice came out over the speaker, asking if anyone on the ship could hear his signal and pick up the receiver and respond if they could. So YUI “picked up the receiver” and said “Hai hai! YUI desu!” And a Radio DJ named Hirano Satoshi introduced himself and said that since we were in Nara, YUI should know a lot about Nara. So he asked her “Do you know a lot about Nara?” and YUI goes “Mm….. I WANT to know a lot about Nara” (LOL) And so the DJ started talking about how Nara are famous for deer and YUI starting singing ???i????? (Shika ni aitai – “I want to meet deer”) though I couldn’t tell what the melody she was singing it to was and then apologized for interrupting the DJ (LOL SO CUTE). So the DJ continued on talking about “shika senbei” which are rice crackers that you can feed the deer at Nara Park with. And she was like “I want to try that!” and the DJ said that she should, but that she should be careful because the deer in Nara Park are so used to being fed “shika senbei” that they end up flocking towards you the instant you have a “shika senbei” placed in your hands.
The next famous part of Nara that he introduced was the Big Buddha statue in Nara (aka Daibutsu). He said that you can imagine how big the Buddha statue is in your head before you go see it, but then when you actually go see it, it’s much bigger than you probably ever imagined. YUI said that she used to see posters of Nara with the Buddha on it and just looking at the poster made her think “????????(I REALLY want to go!)” He also talked about how the Buddha is inside Todaiji Temple and how famous it is.
Then he asked YUI if she knew about Nara’s 1,300 year anniversary from when it was the capital of Japan (heijou sentou which I mentioned earlier) and if she knew what was created in commemoration of that. And she proudly said “Sentou-kun!” who she said looked cute and that she bought a cell phone strap of Sentou-kun with a bell on it. (My friend and I went to a Convenience Store after the concert and they were selling souvenir Sentou-kun straps with bells on them and my friend was like “I wonder which one YUI bought…. I want to buy the same one…” LOL)
Then the DJ talked about a power spot in Nara (that I missed…. sorry >.>), and then said that there’s another power spot called “Hearty Rock” in the middle of the ocean somewhere in Nara and that we should go find it and make a wish on it! (Again, Nara is land-locked so there is no such thing as Hearty Rock, but this will be explained later).
Then YUI thanked the DJ for introducing her to Nara and the two of them said their good-byes and “signed off.” And after that, YUI went back to talking to her band members about how she didn’t really get to explore Nara, but they were able to, and asked them about their experiences. Apparently Arisa had a fun time in Nara exploring Nara Park, while Chris tried an assist cycle at a “rent-a-cycle” place, but when she heard that Chris was able to try that, she wanted to try it too, so the band members all made plans with each other to go out to see the “rent-a-cycle” place, but when Bakky woke up in the morning and even after he finished getting ready, everyone was still sleeping! So they didn’t get to go (lol). Then YUI said “Well, you can go next time we tour in Nara. Think positive! Positive!” and she said it so cutely that everyone laughed (and maybe also at the fact that they don’t know when the next time they’ll tour in Nara is).
Then after that YUI asked how everyone was enjoying the concert and if we were ready for some movement! She had a set of “Lock On” flags on stage and told us to pick up ours and practice the dance with her and the band members. So she taught the dance step by step and then we did two practices with Chris tapping the beat on the bass drum and YUI singing the words. Halfway through the second practice, YUI messed up the movements a little and she said “Ahh, machigachatta (Ahh, I messed up)” and then continued singing and dancing afterwards and everyone laughed at how quickly she recovered singing after messing up xD. Then after the two practices we went into the real thing!
Lock On (They had us dance an extra chorus for this song, and every time the chorus ended, YUI would say “Dance arigatou! (Thanks for dancing!)” Seeing all the red and white flags move at the same time in the auditorium was really cool!)
After Lock On was a whole stream of songs with no real break between them and the energy in the venue was so high at that point.
LIFE (They turned off all the other spotlights and only spotlighted YUI when she was playing the last solo guitar part at the end, and watching/hearing her play it live was SOOOOOOO cool compared to any video shown on TV!!)
No Way
Rolling Star
es.car (There was no dance lesson for this one, but about 7/8 of the audience knew the es.car dance and the other 1/8 just followed the people that knew it and around the last chorus almost everyone was perfect 
)
The last section of “es.car” got cut off abruptly as Kuro-chan stopped playing his guitar and pointed to the screen behind them, and then everyone else stopped playing and looked at the screen. YUI pointed and said “Oh look! We found Hearty Rock! Make sure you make a wish when we go through it!” And “Hearty Rock” is literally… an image of a rock… in the shape of a heart LOL! It was pretty cute, and the screen made it look like we were going through the rock and inside the rock had different colored shining crystals all around it (which is the inspiration for the Hearty Rock ship bottle good). YUI said that she wishes for peace in Japan.
Which was then a good connection to the next song because she started talking about the earthquake on 3/11 and disasters that followed and how she wrote this song while thinking about all those people in Japan that suffered through those hard times.
Green a.live (There were images and videos of cheerleaders that were trying their hardest to do routines and it showed how they wouldn’t give up until it was perfect. -Very possible that the video might have been taken from a school in the Tohoku region of Japan that was affected by the Earthquake the most.)
Get Back Home
Your Heaven
So Your Heaven was the last official song during the concert and YUI thanked us for coming and walked off stage with her band members. The MC from the beginning of the concert started talking saying “We have now reached a port, and I hope you have enjoyed our trip on “Cruising ~HOW CRAZY YOUR LOVE.” Maybe so much that you wouldn’t mind joining us on an ‘encore journey?'” And everyone started clapping and yelling “ENCORE, ENCORE.” A couple minutes later, the band members came back out wearing the tour T-shirts and hoodies (Kuro-chan and Sakura wore the 2011-2012 Tour Tee, Arisa wore the Cruising Tee, Chris wore the Cruising Invitation Tee and Bakky wore the Cruising Hoodie) and YUI came out wearing a gold sparkly shirt with blue jeans that had rhinestone designs down the front part of the thighs, and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She thanked us for the encore call and went into the next song:
Sea (There was a video of the ocean playing the whole time and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a video of the water at Shingu Beach xD)
Cooking (YUI asked us if we were at the concert with a “special someone” whether it be a lover, or a family member or anything, and that this song reflects all the wonderful feelings you feel when doing something for a loved one. A cute “PV” of a girl making pasta for someone (they never show the face or the body of the person, just the hands and cooking process from a birds-eye perspective))
Laugh away
YOU
After YUI stops singing at the end of YOU, there’s a strong note where the drums come back in and rainbow streamers were shot out from both sides of the stage at that second (it scared me at first D= ). My friend and I were close enough to get a lot of those streamers!! 
Then after YOU, the band members said goodbye and walked off the stage, leaving YUI there in the middle by herself with her guitar and she starts talking about her street live days and how the next and last song held so much meaning for her when she wrote it.
It’s Happy Line (Just YUI and her guitar <3. It was so beautiful. It was almost like I was listening to a street live of YUIs with thousands of other people. )
When she finished playing, she took her guitar off and stood up and took a really long bow while we, the audience, all clapped like crazy for her. Then she walked towards the left side of the stage, waved, found the green beach ball that was in her way when she was trying to lie down on the beach chair and she hit it into the middle section of the audience! Then she went to the very left side of the stage, waved a bit and flicked a guitar pick into the audience. Then she walked over to the right side of the stage and started waving, and when she looked down, a fan was holding out two sunflowers to her, and so she took them and showed everyone in the audience her new gift! (I so wish I was that fan right now LOL) She flicked another pick and the right side of the audience and started to walk towards the middle of the stage and flicked another pick and waved some more! (OMG I WANTED A PICK SO BADLY!!!! T_T Too bad they didn’t reach where I was). Then she walked off the stage and we were asked to leave the venue
THE END!
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Thank you, Hatsumichan!
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