An Cafe "COUNT DOWN 2003～2008" at Nagoya ell. FITS ALL

It’s been about three years since the last time European fans had the chance to go to an An Cafe concert. To give the waiting fans some insight to what the oshare kei band is up to in Japan at the moment, here's a report on the first of their two countdown concerts to usher in 2017.

The sold-out concert on December 30th started with the song Nyappy in the World, to which the fans started dancing right from the beginning after they got over the surprise the costumes of the band members brought. The fans were allowed to not only vote for the songs for the concert, but also the costumes for the members. This results of voting had drummer Teruki and bassist Kanon wearing costumes from the album Shikisai Moment, while keyboardist Yuuki and guitarist Takuya cosplayed their Summer Dive outfits. Meanwhile, vocalist miku was forced to wear his costume from the single Ryuusei Rocket, which was very happily received by the fans. With the following songs Ippatsu gyakuten renai Game and Ryuusei Rocket the band managed to get the crowed fired up pretty quickly and pretty much everyone went crazy while dancing around to the music.

During the MC, the members expressed their surprise and gratitude about the concert being sold out and miku shared his concern about his outfit making him look silly after so many years.

They played GO!!GO!!GO!! afterwards, during which Kanon was also allowed to sing a little bit, followed by One Way Love. During this song miku managed to make the crowd go berserk, which ended with the fans doing some heavy headbanging, Japanese style. Afterwards, the song Koi no Dependance spread some high spirits, before the fans were subjected to a hilarious MC in which the members talked about Kanon's legs and Teruki's first time in Harajuku and how he learned that the name is in fact not to be read as "Genjuku".

The next song Hanazo mukashi no kaoru ni nioi ikeru was, as how the vocalist put it, the song that’s the least like An Cafe. After that, the first ballad of the evening was played with Rinne no tsumi. During the song one could notice pretty well that the quality of miku's singing has reached a higher level than before. The song apparently caught everyone’s interest, since all of the audience was listening very intently.

Next up was an MC session, during which miku left the stage to the other members. The four of them used the opportunity to have a little conversation with their other female personalities. These conversations were about Teruki justifying to Teruko that he likes the anime Love Live so much, Kanon having to decide whether he likes his job or Kanoko more and Yuuki setting things straight with Yuuko, that he didn’t accidentally propose but just wanted to eat some cake. Yuuki also didn’t let the chance pass him by to do his own version of the recently hyped PPAP. Afterwards, he did the "Nyappy exercise" until miku came back on stage again and they started playing Nyappy in the World 2. The audience was in very high spirits and happily danced along to the choreography, which miku also seemed to enjoy doing.

During the following song Duck no Magical Adventure, the Nyappy doll was used in place of the usual doll of Donald Duck, along with a pink plastic hammer. miku told the fans that the hammer would be used to punish fans who wouldn’t participate in dancing along. In the middle of the song, the music stopped and the members started talking about how they spent Christmas back when they still went to school. The conversation then drifted to old cellphones because of Teruki's age before they continued the song. With the songs Omocha, Snow Scene and Super Rabbit, the band ended the concert with three of their classics, which seemed to please the fans quite a bit. Even the members themselves seemed pretty happy about playing songs the fans chose — especially miku, who imitated having buck teeth and seemed to enjoy himself a lot.

The band left the stage in a good mood after that, which was promptly followed by the fans' screams for an encore. The encore was given to them after a short while of waiting with the songs Meguri aeta kiseki, and their probably most well-known songs BondS ~kizuna~ and Smile ichiban ii onna. After the audience listened to the ballad intently and silently, everyone got their towels out for the next song, during which the fans went all out, as well as during the last song. It was noticeable that the band performed the original versions of all of their songs instead of the revised versions they released lately, which seemed to have pleased the fans quite a bit.

After the last song was done, the band announced a concert for May 28th, 2017. It will be held at Astro Hall, the same venue where the band had their first concert with the five of them, and it was announced that they will do a little bit of time travel and play the exact same set list from 10 years ago.

At the end, every single band member expressed his gratitude to the fans before everyone in the live house started to hold hands with their neighbor and the obligatory "Three, two, one tiramisu, tiramisu" was done. After that, the band left the stage for a final time on that day.


Set list

01. Nyappy in the World
02. Ippatsu gyakuten renai Game
03. Ryuusei Rocket
04. GO!!GO!!GO!!
05. ONE WAY LOVE
06. Koi no Dependance
07. Hanazo mukashi no kaoru ni nioi ikeru
08. Rinne no tsumi
09. Nyappy in the World 2
10. Duck no Magical Adventure
11. Gangu
12. Snow Scene
13. Super Rabbit

Encore

01. Meguri aeta kiseki
02. BondS ~kizuna~
03. Smile ichiban ii onna