Puffy Still Rocks
I meant to talk about this earlier, but I picked up Super Mario Galaxy over the weekend and, of course, that ate up a lot of my time (I’m almost at 70 stars!). Anyway, what this post is really about is that I went to see Puffy AmiYumi in concert at the Key Club in Hollywood on Friday.
I saw Puffy once before when they played at the Wiltern two years ago with the Aquabats. The Key Club is a much smaller venue, so I was a lot closer to the stage this time. (I wasn’t that far away during the first concert, but it’s still not the same as having only one person standing between you and Ami.)
The other acts weren’t as amazing as the Aquabats - but then again, how many are? First up was Linus of Hollywood (MySpace, YouTube), who’s not bad but isn’t really my type of music. He was followed by pop-rocker Katy Perry (MySpace, YouTube), who recently signed with Capitol Records. I liked her voice and style, and she put on a pretty good show.
Puffy finally came on stage shortly after 10:00. We were warned beforehand that they weren’t allowing cameras, and I wasn’t going to take my chances, so I don’t have pictures, but you can see a nice gallery of the show over at LAist.
They kicked off the show with the energetic “boom boom beat.” I didn’t quite recognize the second song, and I couldn’t make out the lyrics, so I figure it’s off honeycreeper, since that’s the album I’ve listened to the least - possibly “Hayai Kuruma”? Anyway, the next song was “Nagisa ni Matsuwaru etc.” and that one was definitely a crowd-pleaser. A lot of people were getting into it and dancing along.
Ami and Yumi stopped to talk roughly every three songs, reading off their little notepads. They were as cute as ever, talking about their love of L.A., sharing a little anecdote about their tour, and talking about their GAP poster. I can’t help but love their personality.
At one point in the show, they performed “Mogura Like.” Two men came out in yellow hardhats to join in the “mogura dance.” I actually had never seen that particular music video before, so the dance was new to me. I tried to join along, but still ended up a bit confused.
Near the end, they played “Asia no Junshin,” and halfway through confetti started falling from the ceiling. Unfortunately, most of it seemed to be localized near me, so I ended up with tons of confetti on me, but hey, I don’t mind. They ended with “HiHi” and an encore of “Circuit no Musume.”
For the curious, here’s the rough set list, at least as long as my memory serves me right (the order may be slightly wrong):
- Boom Boom Beat
- Hayai Kuruma (I think?)
- Nagisa ni Matsuwaru etc.
- Closet Full of Love
- Kimi to Ootobai
- Radio Tokyo
- Kuchibiru Motion
- Tokyo I’m On My Way
- Teen Titans
- Mogura Like
- Youkai Puffy
- Oriental Diamond
- Red Swing
- Basket Case (Green Day cover)
- Asia no Junshin
- HiHi
- Circuit no Musume (encore)
Overall, an awesome show, well worth it. I definitely hope they come back soon, because I’d love to catch them in concert again.