Getting to the main highlight of our Nagoya vacation – seeing Arashi in concert. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen them live. To be honest, while they are still one of my fave groups, I haven’t been following them as much in recent years. I also haven’t been loving their new album, but I was hopeful they would include some of their recent singles on the setlist for Digitalian. =)

Even before getting to the main event, we had a list of things we needed to accomplish before the afternoon. First, we needed to get in line for con goods. We sort of anticipated waiting anywhere from 3-4 hours, so we got up at 6:30am and made our way over to Nagoya Dome by 8:45am. While the line looked impressive initially, it turned out to be one of the shortest waits we had ever done. My sis and I split the list and I was given the lighter half. I was actually done my half by 10:00am. My sis only ended up taking half an hour longer, so the whole process was completed in under two hours. I think that’s an incredible feat by con good standards. Lol.

However, that wasn’t the end of our ‘wait in line’ experience that day. After we were done at the dome, we made our way over to Aeon Mall across the street to grab lunch with Eri-san. As usual, the mall was packed with girls milling around before the con. Unfortunately for us, the restaurants inside the mall were equally packed. We had to put our name down at Iori then join the line up outside the restaurant in order to get seats. Eri-san met up with us a while later and overall we ended up waiting an hour before we were finally seated inside.

It was really nice to see Eri-san again. It’s been a few years since I last met up with her in Nagoya. While it was nice to catch up with her, I think I was even more happy when the food came because I was absolutely famished from all the standing we had to do. =P

After lunch we ended up wandering inside the mall to kill time. I didn’t want Eri-san to feel the need to accompany us, so we bid each other farewell about 90 minutes before the concert was to start. Then my sis and I began this painful process of waiting in line to use the washroom. While we were in our fair share of lineups that day, I think waiting 45 minutes to use the ladies washroom was by far the worst we had to experience. (@_@)

As we made our way over to the dome, we had to wait in one more line before getting to our seats. Since we had purchased Arashi fanlights, we needed to get our lights synced to the section we were sitting in. I thought it was a really cool idea since it meant that all the lights inside the venue were coordinated to the music. It was also a simple process, cause all we needed to do was take our fanlights to the designated colour station, which corresponded to the colour of our tickets.

Finally after all the waiting around we got to our seats. We were seated in the stands. I wouldn’t say they were great seats, but at least we weren’t right at the back. The concert started promptly at 4pm with a video showing half-naked Arashi. Lol. The crowd completely exploded when they came on stage for the first time. While the concert was going on, my sis and I kept passing our binoculars back and forth to get a closer view of their performance. They had a moving stage this time as well, so it was definitely a lot easier to see them when they came towards the back.

Even though I wasn’t loving the new album, I think my opinion of Aiba’s solo completely changed the moment he appeared on stage with his pink boa for his Disco Star performance. It was by far the cutest dance ever. The other solos were decent as well. For some reason Sho decided to introduce his solo in English and apparently no one could understand what he was saying. When he asked the audience “Are you ready?!” in English, I pretty much blurted out “YES!” immediately, while the audience had this momentary pause since they needed to read the Japanese subtitles before they could answer. LOL.

After the main Digitalian part of the concert was done, the encore was pretty much focused on their 15th anniversary songs. It was nice listening to some of their older tracks again, but I was sad they didn’t sing some of their more ‘recent’ singles like Breathless or Wild at Heart, which were released after the last con I attended back in 2010. However I guess the awesome lighting and the coordination with the fanlights really made up for it. It was definitely the prettiest concert of theirs I’ve been to. It was amazing how they managed to sync all the lights just from the colour of our tickets.

A personal highlight during the concert was when they came by in these hot air balloons. It was the closest they were to our section. I think the image of Nino waving at me (I know it probably wasn’t directly at me, but it was definitely in my general direction) will be forever ingrained in my memory. =D

The concert was over by 7pm. As with my previous experiences in Sapporo and Tokyo, I knew they were going to ask the audience to exit by section. Even though it’s a pretty efficient process, if you end up being one of the lucky ones sitting in the last section, you’re pretty much stuck forever trying to get out. Since we were sitting at the end of the row, I did some quick thinking and pulled my sister out of her seat and made a dash for the exit. While it was still packed as we made our way over to the subway, and we were crammed like sardines inside the car, I’m pretty sure that move ended up saving us at least an hour. Considering how much I already waited that day, an hour saved is much appreciated. =P

Later that night we ended up taking the subway to Yabacho. It wasn’t very busy on the streets for a Sunday, so we took our time exploring the area while admiring the nighttime illumination. We stopped for about 30 minutes at Loft just to buy some stationery, then we were off to Matsuzakaya for dinner at one of their restaurants upstairs called Houraiken. My sis and I both ordered unagi don with a glass of umeshu which came to 5,900 yen. I had wanted to try the hitsumabushi (eating unagi three ways), but neither of us were that hungry so the unagi don was actually a good choice.

After dinner we finally made our way back to the hotel to clean and repack our suitcases. That was our last full day in Japan so it was great we managed to end it with an Arashi concert. While it wasn’t my favourite concert by far, I’m still grateful I got to see them live once more. =)