Perfume: Porigon weibu

Let me state up front I am probably not the best audience for this concert. I'm in the U. S., don't understand Japanese, and there's undeniably a huge cultural difference involved.

I think to truly enjoy this concert, one or more of the following should apply:

1) You are Japanese 2) You are a long-time fan of Perfume, regardless of nationality 3) You're really, really into anime-type music 4) You enjoy eye candy (because this has a lot)

This review is my personal take on a music concert, nothing more.

First, one has to give creds to a 3-girl group that started young, and is still going at age 33 (all are the same age), performing exhaustive and intricate dance moves for a solid 2 hours. And they're still cute. Yes, we can see they get winded a bit, and I can understand why. Yet they keep on going. That's impressive.

The dances were very stylized with common gestures, reminding me of American boy bands and girl bands. This came across as very "staged", but the charm of the ladies still kept it lively... most of the time.

The choreography is intricate and precise, down to even finger and eye movements. In the entire 2 hour show I noticed only one "mess up"... where one of the singers missed which side of the stage she was supposed to be dancing on. The member supposed to be there simply danced up beside her, came the dawn, and the mistaken singer laughed and ran to the other side. That was actually amusing and got a chuckle from me, especially since the rest of show was pretty much flawless. Even a mistake was handled with style.

Note that this performance had a fourth, very visible member: a huge LED stage floor and back wall with highly-computerized graphics. That stage almost stole the show... and for some people might cause motion sickness or epileptic seizures. That thing was tech to the gills. Made me wonder what kind of computer system(s) they have operating it.

The accompanying "Kato" dancers added to the fun.

I was especially impressed when the group did an entire song highlighted by spotlights casting their shadows on the stage floor... only to discover at the end of the song that the shadows were doing different steps than the performers. And as the performers walked away from the shadows we realize that during the entire song the shadows had been the LED-programmed stage floor, the dancers in perfect sync with the shadows. Most impressive. (The performers laughed when the audience realized they'd had one pulled over on them. Fun stuff.)

The music style is technopop with heavily digitized vocals... which these days is fine. I couldn't tell what music was live and what was dubbed, but I understand one can't dance like that for 2 hours and still have plenty of breath to sing. No problem.

Because of the language issue (and probably culture differences), the one negative is that every song sounded very much like every other (to my ears). A thought that regularly crossed my mind was "Does this group do the sound tracks for most anime I've watched?" That's what Perfume sounds like to me: an anime title song group.

At times despite the constant dancing and that amazing LED stage... the show became "boring" to the point I used Prime's 10-second skip function repeatedly. I didn't mind doing so; it helped me get through the tedious parts that I didn't have the background to enjoy. That's okay.

At times the performers stopped and spoke to the audience, taking turns telling their feelings about working through the Covid crisis-- without actually mentioning Covid (kudos to them. No one wanted to hear that word). Part of that was heart warming and helped the audience relate personally to the group.

So for me, this was not my favorite presentation, but it was unique and interesting. I suspect for the right people (like the sold-out-every-ticket huge audience), it was a real thrill. I have to give creds to 33 year old performers who can still dance like that, remembering every move and gesture of a 2-hour show. That's what impressed me the most... not to mention the fact that they've been doing this for some 2 decades now (the group was formed in 2000 with their first single released in 2002. Yes, that would have put the girls at about 13 years old when they first published.

If you're into anime, J-pop, technopop, face candy (both the ladies and the constantly changing stage), this should do the trick. The average American might not get much past 30 minutes to an hour before hitting the stop button... but I'd say that's more a cultural issue. Can't fault the band for being popular in Japan... and I can't fault this performance just because I'm not personally a fan.