Chapter 9: First live at Zepp Tokyo 2006
Starting from 2004, we tried to promote ourselves as actual musicians. We even get to perform live today! After a bunch of rehearsals which were fun, we were ready for this big moment. We all came with shopping bags. Rehearsals were fun because we've had time to talk to one another and on how to improve our skills. Today was five days after BeForU II was released.
One of the fun memories of the rehearsals in the days before were secretly teasing Risa while she was practicing "Matenrou". Another one was while Noria was practicing "Love Love Sugar", I, along with Risa and Sayaka, danced to it. Practicing our group songs was one of my favorite moments.
And now, we walked on stage. While we got in our starting positions, the opening song of a DDR game was playing. Fans were cheering with their light-sticks and stage lights were shining. 'So this is how many BeForU fans we've gathered?' I thought. The songs will feature songs primarily from BeForU II, BeForU (our first album which is considered to be the best-selling one), and additionally some from my album Begin.
'Alright, I'm ready.' I thought. People will expect the most from me because I had the most solos and works among all the others, and it was the first time performing live for all members but me. "KI-SE-KI" was playing, and that's when the live began and the fans really enjoyed us. After that we performed DIVE2006, the hard rock version of DIVE that features all six of us this time. In the chorus, Yoma and I were the main vocalists while the rest four supported us by singing without their microphones.
After performing Firefly, the third song we've performed, each member sang their solo song that was included on a BeForU album. Everyone's came from BeForU II except for Noria's solo. The songs that were sang in order were Freedom (me), I am… (Miharu), Hatsukoi (Sayaka), Love Love Sugar (Noria), and Matenrou (Risa). I dressed like a punk rock star, Miharu wore a white, lacy blouse with a black skirt, Sayaka had a flower on her hair with a white minidress, Noria dressed up like a party queen with four dancers, Yoma wore a long, purple skirt and a white tanktop with a mysterious necklace that looked like either a chili pepper or a shark tooth, and Risa wore a long, thin black dress with a small black hat. She was playing the keyboard while singing. After I performed "Love Love Shine" alongside the two dancers that danced to it and "Shining" with Noria, It was time for me, Noria, and Yoma to perform "Chikara". We were all wearing a white shirt with knee-length jeans. In my head, I thought of this, spirit for BeForU Orimen: You need a short-sleeved white shirt and knee-length blue jeans! BeForU NEXT came next and performed "Scenario". They wore fancier clothes than us. 'Newer members get to be the "fashionables",' I thought. Risa wore earrings, a white, super thin blouse with a black tanktop inside with a skirt, Miharu wore a sparkly, white, thin cardigan with a shiny pink shirt with lacy frills on the top and shorts, Sayaka wore a denim jacket with a shirt with flowers and a pair of white, knee-length jeans. Minutes later, when it was time for me to perform "Candy", I introduced the members of BeForU on the "Yay" part. There, we were all wearing our clothes from our BeForU II promotion. Near the end, we changed into our BeForU T-Shirts. Noria and Yoma wore white ones, BeForU NEXT and I wore black ones. At the end, we all sang "Graduation ~Sorezore no Ashita~". I think in live performances, we will sing relaxing songs in general. At the end, we all thanked our fans, and at backstage, some of us were to tears. We were so happy that they've came to our live performance. We, individually, gave a "thank you" message to fans, and later some shed tears silently. Today was a really good time, I think I should thank everyone that came and helped us with staging and the styling. I had hair dye to my brown hair, white and pink streaks in them.
