Just caught the Reunion Concert Princess Princess performed a few weeks back and MAN! I was simply BLOWN AWAY by how fierce and ROCKING these now 50+ years old ladies still are!!!
Princess Princess formed in 1983 and held their final concert some 13 years later in 1996, but after the Tohoku Earthquake disaster in 2011, the girls (along with other celebrated acts like Kome Kome Club) reunited for a benefit relief concert, and they’ve been working together and playing on-and off ever since!
In recognition of the 5 year anniversary of the disaster Princess Princess held this concert telecast on the WOWOW channel, and it’s just incredible that they’re sounding as good as ever, Kaori still rocking that incredible voice and Oh My GOSH, KYOKO still able to attack those drums as hard and frenetic as she used to!! You know, Drums were the most “physical” of instruments to play and Puri Puri ALWAYS had the most COMPLICATED drum parts with many, many changes throughout the songs, and to see her still pounding away at it was truly amazing to watch!
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| Tomoko |
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| Kyoko |
Now, my friend had been trying to get me a copy of this concert for a couple of weeks now, but since I’d already seen the reunion concert from 2012 and expected it to be similar, I told him there was no rush. Eventually I downloaded a copy of the concert myself, and sat back expecting a night of fine tunes and reminiscing… what I got was one of the finest Princess Princess concerts ever!!
First off, the girls were in absolute top-form, back in 2012 they were still a little bit rusty after not playing for 16 years, but you could tell in this concert that they had put months and months of work into regaining their incredible onstage chops, and secondly, the SONGS they chose to play were simply INSPIRED!!!!! Oh My GOD, they performed songs that I’d heretofore only seen done in “Medley” or “snippet” form, and they even did a couple of songs I’ve NEVER seen them do live before!!!
They began the concert with their anthem “19 Growing Up” then right into “Oh Yeah” and “Sekai De ichiban Atsui Natsu”, and by the time they began “Julian” I thought I was right in believing they were going to do pretty much their same set that they’ve been doing since the 1996 concert….and then I heard the rocking riffs of the awesome song “Shake It Off”, a song I’d NEVER seen them do live before, and they were so goddamn awesome I just stood there with my MOUTH hanging OPEN!
But that was just the beginning! Without missing a beat, they went right into another song from their LOVERS album, “Koi Ni Ochitara” one of my favorite songs that I’d only seen a clip of them doing on The Platinum Days video! I pulled my chair right up to the TV screen and said “NOW I know I’m in for a SHOW!” What were they gonna do NEXT?
Next came KISS, one of the very first songs I knew and loved from them (I even wrote about it here) and it was soooo soooo sentimental and sweet, I began to get misty-eyed listening to it, and by the time it wrapped up tis beautiful harmonic conclusion I was fighting back the tears, I was breaking gout in goosebumps that I was seeing these songs LIVE!
Then they went into “You are My Starship”, another BIG fave of mine that I’d only seen a clip performed once, and even then it was a special “taiko drum” version, for the first time I got to see the song done with Kaori performing the proper “dance moves” to it, sashaying and hip swinging along to this joyful tune, and I was so overwhelmed with nostalgia and gratitude that before I knew it, I was CRYING as I watched it!!!
They then had a little chat session which gave me time to regain my composure and it’s a good thing they did because when they came back they went right into the awesome, powerful smoker “Omoide No Sukima~ Sad Memories” off of the TELEPORTATION album, I was beside myself seeing this performed for the first time and MAN, when they built up to the conclusion where all the music stops and Kaori belts out “ANATA NIIIII….LONELY NIGHT!” I was singing RIGHT ALONG, I swear I couldn’t have been more excited if I was AT THE CONCERT itself!
They broke out the acoustic guitars for a smooth version of “She” before going into a song I NEVER thought I’d EVER see them do, the coupling song off of their very last single Natsu No Owari, the Intensely Beatlesey “Seishun Daydream” and DAMN, the vocals and guitar…just INCREDIBLE…never knew the verses were sung by Kanako and Tomoko with Kaori handling the choruses, aw man, they sounded so Damn SWEET!
From there they finished of the concert with the classics I’d come to expect, but even then, these sounded so organic and raw, hits like “Highway Star” and “Pilot Ni Naritakutte” sounded like I was listening to a seasoned Blues rock band in a smoky Saloon belting out rock n roll classics, so RAW!
And ANOTHER thing was how freaking TIGHT these gals were- there were times when I was listening to it and realizing that I wasn’t listening to a record album- the music I was hearing was being played by those 5 girls onstage! What an amazing WALL OF SOUND!
They wrapped up the concert with a blistering version of Seven years After before re-emerging for encores of M and of course the fan favorite “Diamonds”, which featured a very bass-heavy mix showcasing how solid Atsuko is and closing what ended up being one of the best concerts I’ve seen in YEARS!!!!
