Kanagawa Prefectural Hall is a small conference hall near the harbour in Yokohama. Not exactly your average venue for a pop concert. Yet the area was full of excited fans in pink hoodies and denim jackets eagerly waiting to see their queen.
Koda Kumi fans are some of the more welcoming and dedicated fans I’ve ever seen. The fanclub makes sure to have a different encore cheer song for every concert and they make sure to let all the concert goers know. They will stand in front of the venue with big signs and repeat the cheer over and over and over again until the doors open.
Furthermore, they seem less shy than other fandoms and will smile at foreigners and even try to engage with us, making us feel welcome and part of the event.
The hall looked like a traditional albeit very large, concert hall. Three floors of soft foldable chairs and a big stage. A giant projection of Koda Kumi’s W Face album covers was projected on a screen hiding the stage. All the fans who had first floor seats rushed to take selfies in front of it.
The lights dimmed and loud dance music played to get everyone cheering and excited. As the lights turned off completely, the opening movie started to play making everyone get on their feet and turn on their purple triangular shaped light sticks. The screen went up and revealed a giant triangle with a screen in it. (Illuminati confirmed). Koda Kumi got on stage to the sound of W Face, wearing a gold outfit resembling an armour, her hair loose with bangs and a black face mask with the words Ultraviolet written on it. Her dancers soon joined her, each wearing a mask with different song names on them. When the dance track ended, she took off her mask and went straight into Ultraviolet; a powerful dance track to guarantee excitement and cheering. After a couple of seconds of “are you ready Kanagawa?!” she dived right into Pop Diva, an amazing pop dance track with amazing lyrics such as “I'm the top diva. Most beautiful, powerful, talented girl on the planet” that seem extremely fitting. At the end of the song, she walked into the giant triangle only to emerge again sans armour wearing only a black bodysuit with mesh stripes and dived into a medley of Wicked Girls, HURRICANE and Money in My Bag, which was incredibly hyper, colourful and epilepsy inducing.
Not waiting for anyone to catch their breath, she moved on to a beautiful performance of Insane. As the title suggests, she decided to showcase her insane acrobatic skills and stepped into a net that brought her up in the air while doing a full split. She then went on to sing while suspended in the air and spinning at terrifying speeds, ending the song by falling off the net with only her leg keeping her from crashing head first into the stage.
Drawing energy out of thin air, she continued unfazed and getting a nice big hat, went on to sing the very groovy Bassline.
Once she finished that song, the screen came back down and a spacey video started playing. The initial thought was “costume change!” but, surprise! Koda was behind the screen, suspended in the air as if floating in space and performed an amazing rendition of Damn Real. She floated in space, under water, performed magic and just dazzled the hell out of the audience who stood in awe.
The it really was time for a costume change so the music video for W Face was shown on the giant screen. The screen rose once more and unveiled an elegant Kumi, wearing a pastel green gown with a cutout at the waist, one long sleeve; her hair tied neatly in a bun at the nape of her neck.. It was time to slow down.
She sang On my Way and Ai no Uta with raw emotions and powerful vocals, as she always does and then relaxed into her M.C.
Kumi M.Cs are quite always high paced, funny and confusing. She talks VERY fast, in a Kyoto dialect and just rambles nonstop. This M.C was relatively short and she went back to performing a medley of softer songs.
They then brought a piano on the stage and she sang Heartless accompanied by the piano only. While the English in that song may be questionable at times, Kumi’s devotion to delivery a gut wrenching and emotional performance was not.
She, the piano and the pianist left the stage and were replaced by one of the dancers dressed in a pink suit. On the third floor, one of the female dancers dressed in a pink dress was walking amongst the audience. It was time to find the lucky winners of the bracelet lottery! See, fans could buy bracelets before the show began. Each bracelet came with a different song title embroidered on it. But, if you got a gold one, you would be invited on stage where Kumi would sing to you!
The male dancer walked around the first floor as the female dancer walked along the 3rd. The 2nd floor seemed forgotten. At last! They found the two lucky winners and brought them on stage. A young woman and… an adorable tiny little girl!! The crowd melted into puddles of cute as the two went up stage into a makeshift garden tea party.
Kumi emerged back wearing a beautiful pale mauve sparkly dress with a long tulle over it and a braided bun. She started singing Sukideshite and went to sit between the two girls. The younger woman was crying with excitement. The little girl just looked confused. Kumi gave equal attention to both, holding their hands, singing directly to them (can we all agree that’s the most awkward thing?) and leaning on their shoulders. She pinched the little girl’s cheeks and wiped the young woman’s tears away. Truly, a sweet performance.
While she sang the song, the makeshift stage moved around and the dancers took lots of pictures to give the two guests.
When the song ended, the girls went back to their seats and Kumi continued on with the show.
She sang a couple more songs with the pretty gown and then left for another costume change.
She came back wearing a tiny pink skirt, denim thigh highs and a short top; her hair in 4 long purple braids and sang a series of upbeat dance songs and a pretty bad DJ set, but she looked adorable doing it. You see, Kumi tries to showcase a new talent in every tour. She drummed in one tour, played the piano in another, spun around suspended in the air and dived into water then flew back up spinning again in yet another tour. So DJing was bound to happen at some point. But yes, she should stick to singing and dancing. And drumming, she looks very badass when drumming.
Somewhere along the way, she managed to change up her outfit again and threw on a denim jacket with no shoulders and switched up the thigh high for booties.
She finished the concert with What’s Up, a fun summery song that’s great for waving a towel around.
As soon as she left the stage, the fanclub members took over and lead the crowd into singing Ai no Kotoba over and over again until the screen came back and a video started playing. We were going to clap in order to choose the encore songs! 4 songs for Outside and 4 for Inside. In the end it came down to IS IT TRAP? (representing Outside) and LALALALA (representing Inside). At this point it felt like everyone was clapping for both because both songs are great live. The winner was IS IT TRAP? And Kumi came out wearing the tour denim jacket with black short shorts and a black crop top. She removed the braids and just had 4 buns. She then sang Butterfly and Comes Up.
It was time for another M.C. And a Koda Kumi concert doesn’t end until she cries, so of course, she sang Walk.
Koda Kumi is the most professional performer. If you’re looking for a raw, in your face show; this isn’t it. Kumi is here to give you a full show. She will fly and jump and always have a new talent to show off. She will make a full concept and follow it through. She smiles and bows and makes dramatic gestures during ballads and takes out her tongue and gets crazy during the rockier songs. She gives her all and the fans adore her for it.
01 Ultraviolet
02 POP DIVA
03 [Medley] Wicked Girls | HURRICANE | MONEY IN MY BAG
04 Insane
05 Bassline
06 Damn Real
Music Video [W FACE]
07 On my way
08 Ai no Uta
09 [Medley] TATTOO | SWEET MEMORIES | Chiisana Koi no Uta
10 Heartless
11 Sukideshite
12 BRIDGET SONG
13 Stand by you
14 HOTEL
15 TABOO
16 XXX
17 BE MY BABY
18 LOADED feat. Sean Paul
19 Bring It On
20 What’s Up
EN01 IS THIS TRAP?
EN02 Butterfly
EN03 Comes Up
EN04 Walk
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