SOPHIA in Los Angeles

An old classical song filled the large venue with fans waiting for SOPHIA to appear. It was the third day of the largest anime convention in the US, Anime Expo. Fans filled the bottom level of the newly built Nokia Theater. Suddenly the lights turned off completely with absolutely no light. When the lights slowly turned back on, three members of SOPHIA walked on stage- drummer Akamatsu, guitarist Toyoda, and bassist Kuroyanagi. When those three casually stepped into their places on stage, vocalist Mitsuru ran out on stage to greet the audience with an abundance of energy. However, as soon as the lights came on, fans realized their keyboardist, Miyako, would not be joining them.

As soon as the vocalist stepped to center stage, SOPHIA started singing the first upbeat song, Boku wa koko ni iru. The large venue was beautifully built, with amazing lights and two large screens on either side of the stage. On these screens, they were planning clips of their lives as well as the PV to go with this song. The screens even had lyrics translated into English subtitled on the screen.

It wasn’t until the second song, Aoi kisetsu, when Mitsuru started to get really active on stage. He was the first of the band members to move around on stage, running over to the left stage for awhile. This got the other members to start moving around as well. With this second upbeat and catchy song, the audience started to get really excited along with the moving band members. Kuroyanagi decided to slowly switch sides of the stage to see fans on opposite sides.

The first MC came up after these two songs. Mitsuru started out with saying "Thank you" in English. Then he said his English is bad and he will use a "translation machine." He turned on something on his waist saying something and a voice over a loud speaker translated it to English for him. This way he was able to teach the audience the movements for their next song, KURU KURU as well the explanation for this song. Moving his hands in a circle he explained that this song means that everything goes around in a circle.

The next quick MC was Mitsuru introducing the band members and making everyone scream their names -- including their absent keyboardist Miyako. After this quick introduction, the band went into GJ escAPE and then quickly into Yes attention. This song was a fun number as it had fun anime style images to go along with the English lyrics of “I love! Let’s play?” With the lyrics up on the screen again, a lot of people sang along with the vocalist. The band members seemed to really enjoy playing this song - Kuroyanagi even showed a rare smile.

When this song ended, Mitsuru yet again spoke to the fans using the translator machine. He said they are known for being the longest talking in Japan. Meaning they talk a lot, which Mitsuru did. He went on to talk about sweat. He tried to get everyone energized by saying he’s sweating and everyone is sweating. Everyone should sweat with their loved one. However, this didn’t go very well with the seemingly confused or grossed out American fans. Moving on, he spoke about how they are a really hard working band as well. The band members have other jobs besides being in SOPHIA.

Pointing to himself, Mitsuru said he’s also an actor, golfer, and lawyer. He turned to Akamatsu, and said besides being the drummer for SOPHIA he also worked at McDonalds, InNOut, and Yoshinoya. Following up on these statements, he introduced the next song, Hard Worker.

This song seemed a bit different from all of the other songs so far. It was a bit harder yet more electronic than the rest. The song’s PV and images from stage played on the screens. However short clips of Miyako playing were also shown on the screens at random times during the concert. It really gave the illusion that he was there playing and having fun with the rest of the band. For the next song, STRAWBERRY & LION the full PV played, and a lot of the audience seemed to be more interested in it than the band. When Kuroyanagi noticed a lot of heads turned toward the screen while doing a scan of everyone and seeing everyone’s reactions, he grinned. He even started to move around more to get people’s attention back to the stage.

Then the lights flashed off completely. The sound of a piano started to play and their song ALIVE began. This ended up a solo somber piece as a single bright spotlight shone upon Mitsuru. The vocalist sang against the backdrop of Toyoda’s guitar. The whole presentation was beautiful as the instruments slowly came together to complete the song.

The lights dimmed for another MC, and there was a spot light on the band members. This was a very meaningful MC as Mitsuru talked about Miyako. He explained that the band usually has five members yet that day they only had four. That was the first time the band had played with only four members in the fifteen years of their career as a band. After it was already decided they would come, Miyako got diagnosed with a serious disease. He had really wanted to come. However he was watching them live at the moment, Mitsuru said, and told everyone to call out for Miyako. The next song was dedicated to the keyboardist.

Kuroi boots ~oh my friend~ started with a keyboard sequence and Mitsuru brought out a tambourine. He started to dance around playing the tambourine to the retro rock song about an interesting friend. The next song that was played was Machi -15th anniversary ver.-, a newer simpler, instrument-focused song from the band. The last two songs, brother & sister and BANDAGE, really let the audience have a lot of fun with their extremely catchy sounds. Despite the long show, the audience kept on moving to their music, smiling and having fun.

Suddenly the lights went out and there was a short break. Once the lights came back on, Mitsuru came back on stage and made a show of how he had another job - Kamen Rider, which is actually true. Mitsuru has a part as Kamen Rider Eternal in the new Kamen Rider movie, “Kamen Rider Double Forever: A to Z/The Gaia Memories of Fate”. As they were at an anime convention, this was a huge hit with the crowd. Mitsutu quickly disappeared for a second and came back out as Kamen Rider. Dressed up and with new found energy he performed the encore song, little cloud, as Kamen Rider. In the last few minutes of the show, the band took a picture with the audience and Mitsuru shouted "See you next year!" as he walked off the stage.


Set list:

1 -boku wa koko ni iru-
2 aoi kisetsu

MC

3. KURU KURU
4. GJ escAPE
5. Yes,attention

MC

6. HARD WORKER
7. STRAWBERRY & LION
8. ALIVE

MC

9. kuroi boots ~oh my friend~
10. machi -15th anniversary ver.-
11. brother & sister
12. BANDAGE

EN
13. little cloud