Description:

Concert/documentary DVD covering Porno Graffitti's concert tour beginning May 7, 2005 and extending all the way to their December 18 show at the Nippon Budokan.

Track List:

01.Lightning Thunder 99
02.Let's go to the answer
03.Heart Beat
04.Documentary Clip
05.Bittersweet
06.Documentary Clip
07.Tokyo Landscape
08.DON'T CALL ME CRAZY
09.Documentary Clip
10.Free and Freedom
11.Nando mo
12.Twilight, Towairaito
13.Ai ga youbu hou e
14.ROLL
15.Documentary Clip
16.Documentary Clip
17.Jobairo
18.Neo Melodramatic
19.Documentary Clip
20.Documentary Clip
21.We Love Us
22.Dilemma
23.Hard Days,Holy Night

Review

This review contains spoilers.

This concert DVD is in a different format to the usual kind of concert DVD, between the songs they cut away to show loads of behind the scenes footage of them travelling to the different venues of the tour and also there were clips from songs they performed at other venues, a lot of them being smaller than the final of course and all having great atmospheres and energy!
These scenes are both fun and interesting, while they are no doubt even better if you’re fluent in Japanese, they are still fun to watch if you don’t understand. There are no long talk sections really, and it cuts between different scenes pretty quickly which keeps things interesting.
There is one time when this documentary style becomes an annoyance, and that is when a song gets faded out to show documentary clip instead, although the song still plays in the background the change is rather disconcerting as it’s at the point where you’re just getting into the song and it’s kind of a disappointment not to see the song fully.
However, other than that I think this documentary style DVD is excellent, it makes what would have already been a cracking concert into something even better and also more unique!

The opening to the concert is really cool this time, it plays on the big video screens and introduces all the band including the support band in the style of an old movie opening credits, there is a shot of each member dressed in cool gangster style, and Lightning Thunder 99 plays over the opening and matches it perfectly!
It’s really nice to see all the band members get nice big credit like that too!

After the previous 2 more subdued concerts, they recapture the energy and passion of their early concerts in SWITCH, but also they bring maturity and experience to this concert making it the most well rounded concert experience so far.
Although Akihito’s funky dancing seems mostly left in the past now, he is more energetic on stage this time, he always sounds great but he’s in especially fine voice this concert!
Haruichi is on fire this concert with some of his best solo’s to date, and plenty of them!
Porno Graffitti always look like they’re having fun during a concert which makes them fun to watch and this concert they are definitely having a blast and this translates to the viewer making this a really fun concert to watch.

Now usually I don’t pay much attention to shots and editing, unless it’s bad I don’t usually notice such things, but in this case I noticed it because I think it’s really well done!
The editing of the documentary clips is excellent, but the shots and editing of the performances is also very nice, with interesting and effective use of slow-mo shots which really help emphasise the emotion and power of a song!

The tracklist on this DVD is great, with some fun songs like We love US and Hard Day’s Holy Nights which have some fun audience participation, but it’s the beautiful songs that really stand out for me.
The first time I watched this DVD I watched Nando Mo and felt floored by how gentle and beautiful it was in this performance, I thought to myself, they couldn’t top such a performance, however the next song was about to prove me very wrong in that thought!
The next song is Twilight, TOWAIRAITO in a specially arranged extended version and with no exaggeration it’s the best performance by Porno Graffitti that I’ve seen, in fact it’s the best performance by ANY band I’ve ever seen!
It starts off so gently, then gradually both Akihito’s voice and Haruichi’s guitar build in strength, Akihito’s range is really showcased here, and Haruichi’s guitar soars like never before!
It’s a performance beyond description really, something best experienced for yourself.
This performance is truly something special, I felt moved watching it, and still do!
So rarely in life do you get to witness perfection!

This DVD was already excellent, but the addition of the Twilight, TOWAIRAITO performance makes it even more special, this concert draws with 74ers for best Porno Graffitti concert so far in my opinion.

This is Porno Graffitti’s longest concert yet at 136 minutes.
The DVD comes in a cardboard casing this time which is pretty nice, the design is cool but there are no pictures of the band, and no lyrics leaflet, only a credit leaflet, which again has no pictures of the band in it.
The menus are very nicely animated and there’s the usual sort of options but nothing extra.

Reviewed by shiro

7th Live Circuit "Switch" 2005 -2006.03.29