CoCo was one of those groups where I had not one but three favorite songs from them, and at any given time of the year, any one of them might be my Number One Favorite! CoCo was the very first j-pop group I fell in love with (and in fact was the catalyst that would make me totally jump into all things Japanese from music to movies and dramas) so it was natural that I would have strong feelings for just about everything they did, but my “Top Three” (as it were) were even EXTRA special to me, and those songs were:
Naze? (off of album Straight)
You’re My Treasure (off of Sweet and Bitter) and
Yume Dake Miteru (off of album Share).
And then there’s Yume Dake Miteru.
From the first time I heard it on CoCo’s Complete Singles Collection, I knew there was something special about it. Unlike most of the idol songs at the time with jangly guitars, programmed drum beats and bright keyboards, this one sounded at once both HUGE and EPIC, as if it were the soundtrack to a great Space opera! Opening with a synthesizer symphony and grounded by a heavy thumping beat, this song would slowly build and build, ultimately working its way up to a crashing crescendo!
BUDOKAN!! MAN, I cannot even begin tell you how much this concert blew me away. For one thing, this was the first time I got to see the band as a five piece with lead singer Azusa still in the group. You see, up until this point, we’d only ever seen CoCo Concerts 1993 DE-LUXE EDITION and CoCo Final Concert FOREVER- that is; we’d only seen CoCo performing as a four-piece unit. Aside from the songs on SINGLES and ICHIBAN, we really didn’t know anything about that mysterious fifth member Senou Azusa, and were quite happy to enjoy the performances we saw featuring only Maki, Rieko, Erika and Mikiyo. But then we saw the Budokan Concert, and watching the group with Azusa fronting them, I suddenly realized for the first time how vibrant and COMPLETE the group felt. THIS was truly how the group was meant to be! 
Songs that I’d loved from the Forever and Deluxe Edition concerts like Onegai Hold Me Tight, Hanbun Fushigi, Otome No Rehearsal and Naze? took on a whole new dimension, because the versions we’d been watching up until then had in fact been drastically changed from the way it was performed when they were a five-piece- when Azusa left the group, all the songs they’d performed up to that point had to be restructured for a 4 piece band to do: all Azusa’s lines had to be reassigned to other members to sing, and the dance routines had to be re-worked to fill the void left by the missing fifth member. Even stranger was when (like in the case of Naze?) they DIDN’T restructure the dance moves, and there was a big HOLE in the stage when the girls froze in their “positions”.
So to suddenly see the group working like a well-oiled IDOL machine, dancing the routines as they were meant to be danced and singing the lines they’d sung on record was nothing short of HEAVEN!! Not only that, the thrill of playing at the Budokan mixed with the sadness of Azusa’s departure made for a concert where EVERYONE was pouring their hearts into every performance!
Side One set me up with a GRAND opening, starting with Haru Milkyway, Live Version, Hanbun Fushiji, and a particularly heartfelt Otome No Rehearsal, where, in the middle of her lines, Azusa becomes overwhelmed with feelings and happy tears start rolling down her face! From there they did some solo songs then back for a fun version of Natsu No Tomodachi… Then it was time For Yume Dake Miteru.
At this point in the concert, a huge screen had dropped down in front of the stage and the audience was treated to a short movie clip as the girls took a brief intermission. Then the clip ended, and as Side Two began, the huge screen slowly began rising up like a curtain lifting, and as the cameras focused on the posed silhouettes of CoCo, WHAM! Yume Dake Miteru started!!
First off I have to say that this silky green ensemble the girls are wearing is just about my all-time favorite outfit worn by the girls, and that’s saying something because I’ve loved LOTS of their concert costumes. Man, they look so, so nice in these dresses!!! And to make it even more special, they wore it for this one performance only, and when they returned onstage after this song, they’d changed to the next outfit!
Another great thing about this perf is that the dance routine for this song almost seems to have been tailor-made for the Budokan Concert. The huge stage has clearly been taken into consideration for the “moves” of this song, and as soon as the song starts, the girls do their best to cover the entire floor, moving out up the runway towards the stage ready to take on the audience, then dividing to extend the performance to the very edges of the arena’s extremities!
Watch this and the girls individual personalities emerge:
If these was any doubt that Rieko was the “princess” of the group, you’d wonder no longer, as her lines are just adorable, and I love how she has to psyche herself up before she sings her part, expending ALL her energy into getting her lines out! 
Maki has always been the emotional one and I don’t know if there’s anyone who loved this group more than her, and you can see she’s already getting misty eyed, and it would only get stronger as the concert moved on! 
Erika’s the genki “best friend” member of the group, and for this perf, she’s all smiles, rallying the audience with her arms and running back and forth with energetic gusto! 
Mikiyo has always been the kind of aloof one, but I love how she always smiles proudly after every line she sings, as if to say “Yatta! I did it!” 
And then there’s Azusa! MAN, what a singer! Watching the way she just absolutely belts out her lines with the power and confidence of a seasoned singer, its no wonder Pony Canyon wanted to spirit her away towards a solo career!
With so much running integrated into this performance, I have to say that every other performance I’ve seen of this song since (like on Music Station and the like) has looked a bit strange as they would be doing basically the same dance moves as Budokan, but running only two or three feet back and forth. In Budokan, it’s like they’re going for a goal running the distance of a lit-up football field towards a total otaku touchdown!! (and in that, I must say they succeeded)
As the song slows down to its finish and the girls retreat back to the back of the stage to resume their poses, I love how Azusa looks over her shoulder, as if to say, “We Came, We Saw, We Kicked Your Ass!”
Coming right off their awesome album SHARE, I think its safe to say that for this BUDOKAN show, CoCo was at their absolute PEAK! Emotions are running high during this show because it is Azusa’s very last concert before departing to a solo career, and the girls are making every minute count: They look absolutely beautiful, their voices have NEVER been better, and they are pouring their HEARTS into each song they sang! This Concert is the finest example of what the group was all about, and there’s NO BETTER example of this than their majestic performance of YUME DAKE MITERU.
They would later repeat this dramatic formula for their twelfth single CHIISANA IPPO DE (to satisfying success, I might add) but for sheer magnitude and importance in the anthology of CoCo, Yume Dake Miteru will always be the group’s “A Day In The Life”!
Funny thing about this single: Though it’s a Favorite J-Pop Single, the version that I love is actually the ALBUM version. One of the best things about the live version of Yume Dake Miteru was that it had an insanely great ENDING, and the single version FADED OUT! So imagine my surprise when, listening to the SHARE CD for the very first time, and hearing the song have the SAME ENDING as the LIVE CONCERT!!! WOWWW- It seems that they’d only faded out the single version in consideration of radio airtime! WHEW!!!
Lend your eyes and ears to CoCo, performing my favorite song from them, wearing my favorite outfits, at my Favorite Concert from them! It’s a J-pop Favorite Triple Threat!!!
