Anna Tsuchiya Live in Osaka

As most people might know already, Anna Tsuchiya is a multifaceted artist: she is a very talented singer, actress, model and last but not least, a mother. Therefore, she has a wide range of abilities that she can use on stage. She knows how to pose, how to transmit emotions, has a great voice and knows how to interact with her fans. In short, she is the perfect entertainer. Because of that, Anna’s lives are really something to look forward to and seeing her live with one’s own eyes is an unique experience, one which cannot be compared to watching her live shows on DVD.

The audience at her live on August 29th at the Osaka Big Cat (which had been sold out for weeks prior to the event) is varied, though most of the visitors are young people in their teens and surprisingly, quite a large part of the audience is male. Most of them lined up to buy some of her merchandise, which included T-Shirts, wristbands, stickers, keyholders, CDs and DVDs, and had to line up again before entering the concert hall. Everyone who got in received a free towel from the staff members. The towels were black, with her name and a skull printed on them. The free merchandise was certainly a nice gesture!

After a showing a short commercial clip for her jeans line under the Edwin Label, which was also the sponsor of this concert and the concert in Tokyo two days later, on a big screen, the show started off with the mid-tempo and grungy song Scream. Though it seemed a rather weird choice as the opener for the live, the audience didn’t complain and was already on fire when Anna appeared on stage.

After the first strains of one of her older songs, Taste my skin, every last person in Osaka’s Big Cat was caught by the magic spell Anna’s voice cast and the amazing atmosphere that her sheer appearance created.

Being a model, Anna is very aware of her appearance and took three breaks during the concert to change her outfit and hairstyle. Her first outfit was an elegant black dress and her hair hung down quite simply, while the second was a more common and casual jeans and T-Shirt. Her last outfit was more punk style with the colors black and red. For each of these breaks, her support musicians had a little time to step into the spotlight and jam a bit. Notably, it was Ju-Ken (Gackt Job/S.K.I.N. support) who stood out the most with his bass and posing skills, but all of them did a good job in general.

The set list consisted of various songs from her whole career: songs from her first album Taste my Beat to the songs off her newest single BUBBLE TRIP/Sweet Sweet Song. Quite fittingly, during BUBBLE TRIP, a bubble machine was used, which made the entire hall look like a big bath tub. This had a great effect on the whole atmosphere as the rest of the stage setting was minimalistic. After these two songs, she announced a new song called You can have it all, which will be on her new album and is quite similar to her latest single.

The highlight of the concert was definitely her very first live performance on acoustic guitar. Stating that she “actually can’t play but really gave her best to learn this song during the last week”, she performed a new interpretation of the song True Colors by Cyndi Lauper. The song was packed with so much emotion that it could have brought tears to the great Cyndi Lauper herself.

After this song it wasn’t an easy step to switch to straight-forward rock songs like Lucy and Without you or to her last song, the sexy and tempting Slap that naughty body, but Anna pulled it off well and set everyone on fire again.

Then the lights went off and she left the stage, leaving the audience to scream for an encore. After a little while, she came back and gave the audience what they wanted with an encore of three songs: NANA favorites Kuroi Namida and Rose, as well as a cover of the song ANARCHY IN THE UK by the Sex Pistols. Then, the concert was really over and the audience showed their gratitude with thunderous applause and loud screams.

All in all, it was the best concert in a long list of lives I’ve seen during the last two or three years. I really recommend to everybody who has the chance to go to at least one of Anna's lives and see her energetic and charismatic performance with their own eyes. Anna T is definitely one of the very rare female Japanese rock artists nowadays worth spending your hard earned money on. Words can say a lot, but for this live, this atmosphere, this energy and her amazing show in general, it seems impossible to describe it and I strongly recommend you to check out one of her lives for yourself!


Setlist:

Scream
Taste My Skin

Lovin You
Take Me out
Somebody Help Me

You can have it all (new song)
Bubble Trip
sweet sweet song
in my hands

True Colors

LUCY
knock down
without you
change your life
Ah Ah
Slap That Naughty Body

Encore:
Kuroi Namida
rose
ANARCHY IN THE UK


JaME would like to thank Avex Entertainment Inc. for making this live report possible.