Description:

2008 Live Concert.

Track List:

01. Bears
02. Machine Gun Talk
03. Haneuma Rider
04. ROLL
05. Palette
06. Tasogare Romance
07. Utsusemi
08. Tettsui
09. Sora Iro
10. Noufu no Akai SKARF
11. Walker
12. Link
13. Light and Shadow
14. Melissa
15. Please Say Yes, Yes, Yes
16. Anata ga koko ni itara

Review

This review contains spoilers.

After a number of epic scale concerts for this DVD Porno Graffitti return to their roots for a slim down no frills style concert.
The packaging itself harks back to their first concert DVD with very similar cover image of the band in concert.
The presentation is back to basics too, with a normal style DVD case and just a single DVD and a simple insert leaflet with a few pictures of the band in it.
The animated menus for this DVD are simple but fun and great design, they remind me of The Beatles Yellow Submarine style animation, over the menu screen plays ROCK BAND ga yatte Kitta sung by kids in English by the sounds of it, which was surprising but fun!
There are no extras and few options on the DVD
The length of this concerts it short by comparison too, running to just 86 minutes.
The style of concert also reminds me of their early concerts. The audience are right up close to the stage and a lot of the shots are from among the crowd which gives this concert a great atmosphere to watch.
The band seems closer to the viewer which makes for a more personal viewing experience.
I don’t think this return to a simpler presentation of concert is a bad thing at all, it gives this concert it’s own feel and style.

The usual Porno Graffitti tour band line-up has changed drastically this concert, there’s no Naoto, in fact no violinist, no Tadasuke on keyboards, Nang-Chang is credited as being on manipulate but he’s not on stage, Takihiko "Pump" Obata has been replaced by Toshiya Matsunaga on drums and Morio has been replaced by Takamune Negishi on bass.
Ak Homma makes a welcome return on keyboards.
It was surprising to see such a different line-up of musicians for this concert, but they all perform excellently in support of Haruichi and Akihito!

The concert itself is presented in the simplest way, there is no talk sections from the band at all on this DVD which personally I find a little sad as I like to see that kind of thing. However it does make for a streamlined viewing experience.
The concert starts with a bang with Bears, and then some old favourites, it’s really great to see Machine Gun Talk on this tracklist, unfortunately there is only a tiny hint of monkey dancing from Akihito, but it’s still a great song, a great performance, and a nice new arrangement for this concert too.
In fact many of the songs, old and new have some excellent new arrangements for this concert making them familiar and yet unique at the same time, Pallette is one of these that deserves special mention.
The arrangements of many of the new songs also seem to me to bring out The Beatles inspired touches that are less obvious on the album, though these will probably only be noticeable by Beatles fans, I found it rather charming to hear.
The majority of the concert focuses on songs from their most recent album (Porno Graffitti) while mainstays like Century Lovers and Dilemma are missing, it’s really great to see the new songs performed live.

The real set piece of this concert has to be Tettsui which is performed in a dramatic extended arrangement similar to how they did Twilight, Towairaito in the Switch concert.
Tettsui is one of my favourite songs on the new album and I’d really been looking forward to seeing it performed live, when the song began and I realised as I’d hoped they were going to do something special for the song I got chills of excitement.
However, somehow it lacked the power and drama to really awe me as Twilight, Towairaito had done in Switch, for such a powerful song, it didn’t quite project the power I expected in this performance.
That being said it was still an impressive and enjoyable performance and I’m glad they decided to make something special for that song.
The other song I had been specially looking forward to was Please Say Yes, Yes, Yes, and this one didn’t disappoint, it was great, even more so because of the crowd joining in!

The credits to the concert are fun, although we don’t get to see Akihito and Haruichi wave goodbye this concert as usual, instead we get to hear the crowd singing ROCK BAND ga Yatte Kita, which almost makes up for the band not performing it themselves.
There’s no real encore this concert, but be sure to stick around after the credits for Anata ga Koko ni Ittara.

So overall, I guess I missed many of the things I had been familiar with in previous Porno Graffitti concerts watching this concert, however the trade off of seeing the new songs is worth it in this case.
Reviewed by shiro

"Porno Graffitti Ga Yatte Kita" Live in Zepp Tokyo 2008 -2008/05/21