K-ON! Live Event "Let’s Go!"

In the last year of 2009, K-ON make a live concert which certainly suprise their fans (especially me :D).  The live concert took place at at Yokohama Arena and already released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 30th. It was near the end of this live event that the surprise announcement for a second season was made. Most of Houkago Tea Time’s songs were performed to a karaoke backtrack with the seiyuu only pretending to play each of their characters’ instruments, but they did learn how to play a couple of songs themselves (of course i appreciate their hardwork).

The HTT with  "Cagayake Girls"

When the concert start, they started it with "Cagayake Girls Song", the fans suddenly become crowded. Haha, there's commonly when there is concert right?? The five girls wear a HTT jacket with each color of it. Toyosaki Aki-san a wear pink jacket, Hikasa Youko-san wear a blue jacket, Satomi Sato-san wear a yellow jacket, Kotobuki Minako-san wear a light-pink jacket, and Taketatsu Ayana-san wear a green jacket (i think that was their character color, don't really know). Aki-san deserves a lot of credit in this concert, since she not only sang the majority of the songs, but was also the MC for it. 

 

 

Seiyuus of the HTT welcomed people who watched them

Aki-san sing  "Giita ni Kubittake"

(Hirasawa Yui Character Image Song)

As per the above, Aki-san looked like a complete natural on the stage and this performance was a prime example of that. She looks very tall among other personel too, since her hight is 169cm . I just loved her hand gestures and constant smile, with her mad air guitar looking really cute and Yui-like. She was also pretty easygoing with her exit line of “There’s a lot more on the way!” (Mada mada tsuzuku yo!) too. This was definitely one of my favorite character image song performances of the concert.

Youko-san with  "Heart Goes Boom!!"
(Akiyama Mio Character Image Song)

Out of all the character songs, Mio’s were naturally some of my favorite ones, so watching Youko-san perform one live was quite a treat. If Aki-san have a unique voice than Aki-san have a sweet voice (in my opinion :P). Youko-san's outfit wasn’t very flashy or revealing, but the zettai ryouiki she highlighted with her black stockings more than made up for it. I thought she looked pretty cute, especially when she gave the crowd a bit of fan-service with Mio’s “moe moe kyun”. One of the most great things about Youko-san is that she similiar a lot with Mio’s personality, such as her nervousness and overly emotional nature, which is seen later on.

Satou-san with  "Girly Storm Shissou Stick"
(Tainaka Ritsu Character Image Song)

  

Satou-san probably had the goofiest-looking outfit thanks to that extra frilly dress she had to wear. Well to tell the truth, I was never much of a fan of this song, but in the live performances, Satou-san made it very Ritsu-like, so that was fun to see. Her move is sometimes made like childish one that made her looked cute. 

  Minako-san with  "Dear My Keys ~Kenban no Mahou~"
(Kotobuki Tsumugi Character Image Song)

  

Firstly the piano one was undoubtedly the most soothing. I probably could have kept listening to that piece, but seeing Minako-san come out in that light-pink dress made me quickly focus on her instead. She is undoubtedly one of the prettiest in the group and amongst seiyuu all together. As the youngest cast member at only 18 years-old, Minako-san was surprisingly one of the least nervous out off the entire group. Incidentally, she’s the only seiyuu with the same last name as her character — Kotobuki (though their different written in kanji).

  Ayana-san with  "Jajauma Way To Go"
(Nakano Azusa Character Image Song)

Of all the girls,  Ayana-san came off the most nervous to me. I think because it looked like she was really concentrated on her dance movements and singing. She didn’t look like she was going with the flow that’s for sure, but I commend her for giving a good performance regardless. Her voice is very Azusa-like too, let alone her "Nyaann~" which is seen later on.

Asami-san with  "Maddy Candy"
(Yamanaka Sawako Character Image Song)

METAL!! DEATH DEVIL! Maybe there is first phrase that i want to shout when i see Asami-san sing. She had the whole heavy metal, headbanger, “Catherine” look going on too. I loved how she pretended to play her guitar with her teeth too, in pure crazy Sawa-chan fashion. She even came out with the mask and cloak seen in the first season, and of course had the actual outfit on underneath. They even brought in a special heavy metal guitarist just for her song. Metaaalll!!

"I’ve been waiting for you bastards to show up!”

"YEAHHHH!!!!!"

 

"Scarryyy....sensei so scaryyyy"

The next part of the concert was a fairly long MC, but introduced Ui and Nodoka’s seiyuus, Yonezawa Madoka-san and Fujitou Chika-san, for the first time. I didn’t bother including most of it since it was all about a “Call and Response” game (if you can even call it that), where each of the seiyuu said part of a character line and had the crowd follow up. Yui’s one just so happened to be the “Un Tan” from playing castanets, which turned out to be pretty amusing because a lot of people actually brought one. 

The best laughs came from Asami-san coming out dressed like Sawako as a prim and proper teacher with glasses, and later taking them off to become her other self. It was pretty hilarious how she complained about the crowd’s response being too damn quiet the first time around and all other seiyuu acting all scared of their teacher shortly after. Youko-san had the knees buckling just like Mio would too, and later went on to make a sales pitch for Blu-ray reservations. “I’ve been waiting for you bastards to show up!” (Omaera ga kuru no wo MATTE IMASHITA!”) Really awsome!!!

Madoka-san with  "Lovely Sister LOVE"
(Hirasawa Ui Character Image Song)

It was during the Call and Response that Aki-san able to keep things entertaining as the MC, some of which was simply calling Madoka-san her imouto in Yui’s voice and wishing her good luck for her character song performance. As the very capable Ui though, Madoka-san didn’t have any problems whatsoever in giving a very cute one.

Chika-san with  "Coolly Hotty Tension Hi!!"
(Manabe Nodoka Character Image Song)

To tell you the truth, I hadn’t listened to Ui or Nodoka’s character image songs unlike the other, but Chika-san deserves a lot of credit for giving a very crowd pleasing performance of “Coolly Hotty Tension Hi!!”. Her voice surprisingly is very good too (must have the song:D). She wasn’t even the most emotional one among other, as a lot of the girls were bawling their eyes out uncontrollably at the end.

“That Day in the Light Music Club” (Aru Hi no Keionbu)

This “Day in the Light Music Club” episode involved talk about the group breaking up due to their differences in musicianship after reading about how another band did the same, which naturally drew some wary reactions from everyone except Yui who suggested it. Sawa-chan on the other hand liked the prospect of Yui finally coming over to “her side” of the music world and how she might have two bands to go to for tea parties. After Yui added how she’d be with Azusa forever and become “Old Age Tea Time” (Rougo Tea Time) together, the idea of renaming their band came up when Ui asked where “Houkago Tea Time” came from.

 

As a name Sawa-chan gave them because they couldn’t decide on one themselves, Yui figured something more upscale would help their image, which a vote where Mugi comes in as the unexpected tiebreaker led to some good laughs. This isn’t the first time Mugi joined in on one of Yui and Ritsu’s “interesting” propositions, but the names thrown out were even better. On top of Yui’s “The All-America” (Za Zenbei) and “Explosive Laughter” (Daibakushou) ones, Mugi suggesting the rice angle with “Rice Riots” (Kome Soudou) proved to be good stuff. If it were up to Mio, it’d be “Chocolate Melody” though, which was cute because it was just what I’d expect from her, but hilarious when Yui put the “Rice Chocolate” spin on it, much to Ritsu’s frustration. Naturally, Sawa-chan has the best suggestions, throwing out “After A Beating Bloody Time” (Oudago Bloody Time). That was easily one of the funniest ones next to “Za Zenbei” with the way Yui suggested it. Unsurprisingly, nothing changed when talk about a theme for them involved tea, snacks, and fluffiness. Things end off with the start of the Light Music Club’s live performance getting announced and everyone rushing off to give us just that.

HTT with "Curry Nochi Rice"

After all the character image songs, it was nice to finally see Houkago Tea Time back together as a group. Aki-san introduction about how they never touched any instruments in their “Rajion!” radio program performances led to a nice jab (tsukkomi) by Satou-san asking if they’re just a comedic band. For most of these performances, it was all about Aki-san vocals since none of the girls were actually playing live, but it wouldn’t be the same without them all on the stage together with instruments in hand.

HTT with "Fude Pen ~Ball Pen~"

Fude Pen ~Ball Pen~ turned out to be one of the nicer performances because Aki helped sing a bit of backup for Youko-san, which sounded really nice live. This is definitely one of my favorites HTT songs from season one, so I was really looking forward to hearing it. It would’ve been pretty cool if this was one of the songs they learned to play, but I’m not complaining when they took the time and effort to learn a couple. I absolutely love Youko-san vocals. Vivaaa!!

HTT with "Watashi no Koi wa Hotchkiss"

(Live music performance!) 

The crowd reaction to Aki-san announcement that they were actually going to perform a song live was pretty awesome to say the least. After hearing how they tried to keep their practicing fun with their characters in mind, I could already get a sense of some of them starting to feel a bit emotional (e.g. Satomi). Their performance is more than passable for amateurs and pretty impressive at the same time, since Minako-san is the only one that I’m aware of with any sort of musical background. (Her mother is a piano teacher.) Anyway, My love is stepler is one of my collection song of HTT, so when i saw their performance, "Hey, i think they not like amateur after all" LOL :P 

HTT with  "Fuwa Fuwa Time"
(Live music performance!)

Much like Fude Pen ~Ball Pen~, I loved the sound of Youko-san singing backup to Aki-san this time around. They even went so far as having instrumental solos part way through, with Minako-san showing everyone up with her piano skills. Youko-san wasn’t too bad on the bass either, while Satou-san looked like a natural on the drums. The girls all facing one another giving it one more go was right out of episode twelve, so that was pretty cool to see. I have no idea how Aki-san held up as well as she did compared to everyone else, but it was easy to pick up her shaky voice when she laughed about it. It was kind of funny how they messed up their group bow, but it did help lighten the overly emotional mood.

HTT with  "Don’t say “lazy”"

(Encore)

It wouldn’t be right without a performance of “Don’t say ‘lazy’” and saving it for an encore was befitting given its popularity. The crowd was so into it and Youko-san sounded pretty damn awesome, making it the perfect song to satisfy the encore chants. This is still my favorite song from K-ON. The band Scandal is also perform this song once.

 

 

Season 2 Announcement!

When Aki-san say that they have something to tell to all of us, i already think that they will announce a K-On! Second Season and my guess is right after all. When the screen said that K-On!! will go to second season, the people suddenly become crowded. Wuiiiihhh!!!!

 HTT with "Cagayake! GIRLS"

(Encore)

For this encore performance of “Cagayake! GIRLS”, though the girls looked like they really tired and tried to end on a happy note, but most of them couldn’t help but get caught up in the moment of it all. Still they do the best to sing this encore.

Minna-san with  "Let’s Go!"

(Encore)

Though they already tired cause the previous performance, they still did all get through it and gave us a pretty good group performance of “Let’s Go!”, which this live event is titled after. Somehow, everyone’s voices were fine again when they had the support of the entire group, with Asami-san bringing out the Sawa-chan craziness  again. God damn she’s awesome. Anyway, I really enjoy these concerts, because i can hear any of these K-On! songs performed live. Wuoohhh, i hope their second live concert will more great either!!!

  "Moe...Moe....Beammm"