Dear all,
Better late than never but here is a delayed report of my experience going to see the last Idoling!!! concert back on October 5th. Figure I should do it at the very least no later than the day they are all graduating:)
Hearing that Idoling!!! was going to all graduate at the beginning of the year was really depressing. However, when I talked to Hatix, he mentioned that he's going to this last concert and I really thought that, well this is the last time I'm gonna get to see them live so gotta do it! Fast forward to October and here I was at the concert. We went there at 2pm to line up for the merchandise. Sadly by the time we got to the purchasing area, the fanclub t-shirts and towels were already sold out:( Managed to grab the photobook, shirt, penlight and towel (for Kaepyon) and the calendar. We ended up also meeting up with Hellguard before the concert start. Here are my random thoughts:
Concert-specific
- Love the beginning montage. Really nice and classy with the drumbeat in the background to drum up the excitement
- The kimono matsuri dresses look amazing on everyone. The white dresses at the end is so Idol-like and pretty. Did Rurika and Ton-chan not have enough time to change out of their dresses or was it deliberate?
- I love the fans' dedication to colour-coordinate their penlight during certain songs (green for akogare, blue for first gen). Unfortunately my Kaede penlight only comes with one color so I had to turn it off during those songs!
- Love the in-joke of how short the Kogane Mushi song is given how many times they already paid in the episode:)
- It really hit me during the Baby Blue that man, this beloved group is going to be no more. The singalong part was pretty touching especially for me
- Thought the setlist is pretty good. Got most of my and crowd favourites in there. Personally I would have loved to see Lemon Drop there but can't have them all
- Being in a concert makes me appreciate some songs that are fantastic live so much more. Shakalaka Party is a blast with the tower-waving and Summer Lion is a lot of fun, much more so than I remember
- I no Standard 24nin ver. is such a masterstroke to incorporating 7-gen into the song and make it a one-off, totally unique rendition of the song for this concert
- So Idoling!!!-esque to end with Moteki no Uta and not Mata ne! Just the perfect final performance that encapsulate the silliness, fun vibe that makes us such a huge fan of them
Other
- Was good to see other ex-Idoling!!! there. All ex-4th gen (Manami, Kaorun, Yuna), Recent 2nd gen grads (Serina, Amimi) and 1st gens (Saya-nee, Maipuru and Fonchi). There was a rumour that Kobayashi Maia (the infamous #10) was distributing advertisement outside the concert!
- The thank you banner that the hardcore fanclub put at the second balcany was pretty cool
- Funny how much fans were paying attention to the ex-Idoling!!! members on the first balcany just before and after the concert. We even gave them a round of applause!
- We can actually see the sections that are for corporates or sponsors vs. fan sections from the amount of penlights there were
- Really interesting to see both Yuna and Kaorun visibly doing hand movement during NEO's Sakura Horizon song
- I was really holding out a bit of hope that there will be some surprise announcement at the end but alas, it's not to be...
Lastly, I am so glad I managed to make it to the concert (Many thanks again Hatix for asking me to come along and helping getting me ticket! Really appreciate it). Idoling!!! is my favourite musical group and has been a big part of me over the part 7 years. It provides countless hours of entertainment for me and really uplifting, happy music that never fails to cheer me up. I will really miss not seeing them as a group anymore after they disband. Hopefully, each of the members will go on to bigger and better things and we will still be able to follow a few of them who decide to stay in this industry.
Now I can't wait for any reunion they hopefully will have in mind:)