My Experience at the SOS Brigade Invasion Tour at AX

Amanda Liu July 1, 2007

I just got back from AX after a very long day. So how was the SOS Brigade Invasion Tour? Basically it was a wonderful mess. The performances were wonderful but the AX staff screwed up. Think of a top-class restaurant with the best gourmet food but a 2 hour waiting and horrible service. That’s basically what this was. WARNING: EPIC POST AHEAD.

Apparently AX can’t do anything right. Hence the concert started two hours late from schedule. I, along with many other people, stood in the hot sun for two freaking hours. Luckily, I made friends. Hey, it’s only at AX when high schoolers can talk to 40 year olds about Claymore. Anyways, I eventually went inside and got my premier seat. Which was in the front AND middle. It was SO worth the $30.

It took them a while to start the concert. There was a lot of stalling with commercials and audience screens. The audience cheered, clapped, and even did several waves (both inside and outside of the arena) from boredom. They also messed with the light colors and DVD player a few times. That’s why we were totally unprepared when a small figure was in the darkness. A second later, I realized it was Yuko Goto.

Yuko Goto started the show with “Koi no Mikuru Densetsu”. There’s not too much to say except that she sang even more off-tune than the recording. But the more she sang off-tune, the more the audience cheered. Oh and she was wearing a cute skirt if you were wondering.

After she was done, she thanked us with suprisingly decent English. And by decent I mean she could carry a converstation. Patricia Ja Lee was the host along with this random translator that didn’t really help. Then Stephanie Sheh, the really short English VA, came out and both Yuko Goto and Stephanie Sheh did on-the-spot voice overs for Mikuru. I admit, I could care less so I found it a bit boring. When this was all over, they introduced the next guest, Aya Hirano.

Aya Hirano performed “Bokuen Desho? Desho?” as the next song. To be honest, this wasn’t that great of a performance. She used this weird vibrato in her voice and she sang with a faster tempo than the song resulting in an utter mess. Oh and she was wearing these really short shorts.

After Aya Hirano finished, they did another voice over thing. This time it was with Wendee Lee. I thought Wendee Lee was Asian. I was surprised to find that she was this middle aged white lady with blonde hair. Oh well. Also, Aya Hirano talked a lot but the translator was useless so I didn’t catch much. All I got was that she apparently lived in the States when she was 3 and spoke good English but she forgot it all. No kidding, she was the worst out of the three.

Next, Minori Chihara came up and performed two songs from the Yuki Nagato Character CD that I did not know off. Either ways, both songs were pretty good but I liked the first trance one better (anyone know what its called). She kinda had the Yuki Nagato act going on too by looking at the ground and moving her arms robotically. But it was a good performance with strong vocals.

Afterwards they did another voice over. However, this time it was with Johnny Young Bosch who’s the English VA for Itsuki. It was pretty funny since basically she did her lines with Johnny just gruniting for like two lines. It wasn’t fantastic but it was at least enjoyable. And prepared us for the highlight of the concert.

Aya Hirano came back after that and performed “God knows….” and “Lost My Music”. Thankfully, she performed much better on these two songs. At first, God knows… was a little shaky but she got better. She even managed to hit the high notes perfectly which surprised me. Then she performed Lost My Music flawlessly. I have to say that I enjoyed this the most, but I’m biased because I have always loved those two songs more than the rest combined.

After that Patrica Ja Lee introduced the two other actresses from the ASOS Brigade (I forgot their names). Then she introduced the dance contest winners. Soon, everyone came back up there and danced to “Hare Hare Yukai”. Aya Hirano, Yuko Goto, Minori Chihara, the English VAs for the Haruhi dub, the ASOS Brigade, the dance contest winners, and even the translator. Oh and I say dance because it was so obvious that they were lip-synching it. There were no mikes.

Then the audience screamed for an oncore and got one. It was “Hare Hare Yukai” again. This time it was the TV version. Aya Hirano, Yuko Goto, Miniori Chihara all had head set microphones this time but they lip-synched it again. I know this because when Aya wanted to speak she couldn’t be heard and had to use the big microphone.

So basically, that wraps up this concert (if you managed to make it this far). There were a shortage of mikes, numerous mike problems, DVD problems, and a million other technical difficulties. So yeah, AX fails even if the actual content was good. It was a fun concert even if it was a tad on the expensive side. Now it’s 11:32 P.M Pacific Time and I’m off for bed. I have a wedding to go to.

Tags: SOS brigade

Category: The Artists

I believe myself~

19 Responses to “My Experience at the SOS Brigade Invasion Tour at AX”

Kuro-tan
July 1st, 2007 at 3:09 pm

The Nagato Character Single I think had the best songs out of any of them, but I believe the one you’re referring to is “Yuki, Muon, Madobe Nite.”
Maiku
July 1st, 2007 at 3:31 pm

Did you see if there were people recording the event?I’m hoping this will be in an ASOS Brigade episode.
moyism http://moyism.com
July 1st, 2007 at 3:34 pm

Well sounds like it was a blast, minus all the technical difficulties. I can only pray there will be photos and/or videos of this awesome event somewhere in the coming days.
Mike http://animediet.animeblogger.net
July 1st, 2007 at 4:09 pm

They were very strict about the no-camera policy this time–fisking people, checking every pocket in every bag. So it’ll be hard to find non-official recordings, I think.

Personally, I found most of the vocal performances disappointing, mostly because I found it hard to listen to off-tempo singing for an extended period of time. Some of it is, I think, due to the fact that they used a karaoke style cuing system rather than a real band….Only Chihara/Yuki’s performance really impressed me, to be honest. They’re all great dancers, though.
Maiku
July 1st, 2007 at 5:09 pm

^Sorry if i wasn’t clear enough. What i meant was if it looked like perhaps someone was doing an official recording.
omo
July 1st, 2007 at 9:42 pm

People always record those things.
We normal people getting a copy is a different story.

Glad that it was good despite the AX screw. Actually made me feel better for not being able to go, lol.
random passerby
July 1st, 2007 at 10:23 pm

Epic concert is EPIC.

Anyway despite all the technically related mishaps that littered the event, this was still good shit overall. Nice post btw.
houkoholic http://www.seiyuu3.net
July 1st, 2007 at 10:56 pm

I’ve been preaching that Chihara Minori is the best singer out of the 3 for ages, I’m happy now that more people can know what I said is true.

It’s a shame that she doesn’t get more spotlight though because she doesn’t have the hype machine behind her, she’s very under-rated.
Bikushou
July 2nd, 2007 at 3:10 am

About the waiting time before the concert: From what I heard, the seiyuu had felt nervous before concert start and asked for more time to prepare. People with tickets who were able to enter the Arena at that time were requested to be kicked out.

-

I was VERY disappointed with the event. With that much hype and anticipation, an event shouldn’t be as unorganized and horribly planned as the SOS event was.

Several minutes were wasted because things went by untranslated and misunderstood.. the host of the event spent a few minutes overall just saying “Ummm” because they weren’t sure what was going to happen next.

I think this was most evident during Minori Chihara’s stage time.. The audience did not understand the majority of the interview, and the host ended up making noise WHILE CHIHARA WAS SPEAKING. It really is one thing to have an event go bad because of inorganized planning, but it’s something else to have to feel awkward watching an honored guest stand on stage and not know what’s going on.

I really am disappointed with the way AX handled things there. As if this wasn’t enough, I had been looking forward to the SKIN concert on Friday.. but much to my dismay I was forced to miss the concert because we had to wait in line for six hours in order to register and get our admission badges.
Amanda Liu http://
July 2nd, 2007 at 8:07 am

Wow…That’s a lot of comments. Let me just respond to everyone at once.

There was a VERY strict no camera policy as someone said. If you had a camera, you weren’t allowed in. Nevertheless, I saw two people taking pictures but they got their camera taken away. So maybe there was a chance that it got recorded. Personally, I had a camera and had no way of putting it away so I hid it in a jewelry bag and therefore was safe.

Chihara Minori IS a very talented singer. And her songs WERE good. But I personally found Aya’s performance of God knows… and Lost My Music to be the best. Then again, I’ve always leaned towards to those songs (and her singing talente) the most. You have to remember Chihara Minori didn’t have any really high notes to hit. Aya did and she hit them perfectly. Though I have to admit I was really mad when she sang Bokuen Desho? Desho? off-tempo but it got better.

AX was the worst this year. None of the staff (besides the info booth) knew about anything and I was pointed into different directions by 10 people. So it should be no surprise that they had so many techinical difficulties. My high school was more on top of things than them. The host and translator sucked too. I also wished they had a real band but with the way things were going I was just glad that they sang more than two songs.

Well it’s interesting to hear how so many people were there too. Oh and to whoever said this was a good post, thank you.
Kabitzin http://www.seaslugteam.com
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:23 pm

Great post, and it was fun to read your candid analysis of the event. If the AX staff was so disorganized, it’s hard to know if the singers were thrown off their comfort zone by all the craziness. Hopefully everyone will learn from their mistakes, and the next go-round will be much smoother.
Brian Chan http://
July 3rd, 2007 at 3:32 am

Wow I wish I lived in the LA area, AX (despite its organizational flaws) seemed like a fun event. Where else could you see the seiyuu cast of Haruhi outside of Japan but in AX? You guys even get a 1-hour Haruko Momoi concert!! Ahhhhh!!! I hope they’ll be back in Japan so I can catch a glimpse when I get there.

In response to who’s the better singer, I’d have to houkoholic that Chihara is definitely the better vocalist; Aya-sama is no slouch by any means, but she yells her high notes and doesn’t seem to have a handle of her “instrument”, that is, her voice, yet. Time will tell, she has tons of potential.
Amanda Liu http://
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:25 am

Kabitzin>Why thank you ^^. I don’t know what happened with AX this year but I can’t blame them too much since the staff is like made up of volunteers. I hope they’ll get better in two years because next year I can’t make it =(. Also, I think the singers were probably scared because everyone was screaming like heck and the arena was HUGE.

Brian Chan>I know I’m pretty lucky but there are other conventions too ^^. AX is a little overhyped. Besides, I actually didn’t do much besides see this concert because I was only able to go there on Saturday from 1 P.M to 7 P.M. And I spent two hours just trying to hunt for my badge holder, ticket, and friend.

Man there seems to be a lot of Chihara fans here @.@.
crycyr73
July 4th, 2007 at 3:43 pm

I just have to say that the off-tempo part was not Aya’s fault, but because of the slow video. It is supposed to be faster, but whoever made or played the video, made it too slow. She had to compensate for that and it made her look bad. DAMN THEM. Messing with sweet Aya!
ed
July 6th, 2007 at 2:11 am

They picked some weird songs to play. The first song was difficult to sing AND sounded terrible. Why play that at a concert? I could tell that Goto was a decent singer, but singing off-key, even if it’s intentional, still sounds bad. Chihara’s songs were sung well, but weren’t very melodic, and I didn’t enjoy them that much. Hirano’s songs should have sounded good. Maybe she wasn’t used to singing on stage like that. I don’t know if the videos were really slow… it sounded to me like she was trying to bring out her voice more, but the songs were moving too quickly for her to do that. On the slower song-the last one-she did well.

All the junk in the middle was just annoying to listen to. It wasn’t very entertaining, except maybe Bosch ad-libbing it on stage while Chihara looked on in horror. Their script sucked; it seemed like half of it had to be improvised. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about voice acting enough to hear them do it live. I wanted music, and there was pittance of that.
ed
July 6th, 2007 at 2:14 am

Oh yeah, you guys catch Bosch waving his arms around during the dance? That was hilarious.
Amanda Liu http://
July 6th, 2007 at 7:31 am

crycyr73> I don’t care whose fault it is. It doesn’t change the fact that it sounded bad. The song should have not off-tempo.

ed> Yes, the crap in the middle was boring and annoying and I ended up sleeping through half of it. Goto’s song is one of the most important songs of Haruhi so like it or not she has to sing it. I didn’t like it either. And yes I saw Bosch acting like the idiot that he is during Hare Hare Yukai and I laughed off my head off.
Bata-kun http://bata-kun.animeblogger.net/
July 7th, 2007 at 3:42 pm

I so wish I was able to attend the concert. I also feel sorry for the people that waited in line Sunday. I would have done the same, but Momoi Haruko-san’s panel was during that time too. Yes, Momoi-san was my reason to go down south, but I can’t forget about the S.O.S. Brigade as well. –’

I’ll rant off my AX experience in a few days.
jill http://57890976
July 8th, 2007 at 8:43 pm

wow the S.O.S BRIGADE is so cool!!! i wish i could join!!!i am a huge fan of aya hirano she is so cool and she has sang so much songs!!!! so much songs for such a young age!!!!! my fav show that has her in it is THE MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA thats an awsome show!!!

the ax is soo cool!!!
im speachless!! @.@