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Dream Power Live 2003 -
Report by Elton Suzuki
I went to the John Lennon Super Live 2003 on Thursday, October 2nd. The venue is Saitama Super Arena located in outskirts of Tokyo, Japan, which is the same venue as the one of last year and two years ago. Yoko came to the venue this year, too. My seat was in the 2nd row from the stage. It was WAY under the nose of the stage. I could see Yoko up close and very clear from my seat. No need for binoculars.
Many Japanese artists sang and performed one after another. But it took each next band a few minutes to replace the previous band. While most of the Japanese artists were too young not to be alien to me, there were some seasoned ones. One of them was Yuya Uchida.He is the singer who sang the Japanese song called "Welcome The Beatles" in the Beatles Budokan Concert in Tokyo, 1966 as the warm-up gig. In the JL Super Live, Oct. 2, he sang "Rip-It-Up --Teddy Ready" from the album, John Lennon Rock'N Roll.
Another seasoned artist was Ryoko Moriyama. She has a long career, too.She told the story on the stage that back in 1969, she had had a recording session in London. She had asked Yoko Ono to write a song in advance for the recording session. John helped Yoko with the composition of the song.The title of the song was "Will You Touch Me?". After several years, she coincidentally came across with Yoko in Akasaka,Tokyo. She spoke to Yoko then and thanked her for the song. Apparently on the spot Yoko couldn't remember about the recording session, though. I don't know whether she was in John's company then or not. For Ryoko didn't mention that on the stage. Ryoko Moriyama sang the song in the concert. And then she sang one more song, "In My Life"alone playing the acoustic guitar. No cable was plugged into her acoustic guitar to pick up the sound of the acoustic guitar, but a microphone was used. Thanks to the REAL unplugged style, the sound of the acoustic guitar was really good.
They closed the concert with last three songs, "Instant Karma","Imagine", and "Give Peace A Chance" after all the artists went back onto the stage to sang them together. As the whole concert, from the scratch, Yoko didn't show up on the stage until she joined them in the middle of "Instant Karma". She was wearing a black jacket and black jeans. She was in good humour on the stage.
The concert was 2 hours 45 minutes long, but it took some time to change bands on the stage. I felt the length of the concert was not so long as I expected. It was really good to see Yoko that up close. (The End)
The concert will be aired on Hi-Vision Broadcasting on Friday, November 14. But I believe it'll be aired on public air wave and on broadcasting satellite, too, in the end of this year as last year and two years ago.
Revolution ( ISSA, Something ELse, Shingo Oshiba, Do As Infinity )
Help! (Seiji Kameda, ISSA, Do As Infinity, Yuzo Otsuka, Takahiro
Konagawa)
Come Together ( Ditto )
A Hard Day's Night ( Ditto )
Eight Days A Week ( Ditto )
Nowhere Man (Something ELse)
This Boy (Something ELse)
Tell Me Why (ZONE)
Girl (ZONE)
Will You Touch Me? (Ryoko Moriyama)
In My Life (Ryoko Moriyama)
Rip-It-Up --Teddy Ready (Yuya Uchida)
Recitation of the Japanese translation of the lyrics of Imagine (Masahiro
Motoki)
No Reply (Tamio Okuda)
Rain (Tamio Okuda)
Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey (PUFFY)
Beautiful Boy (PUFFY)
Mother (Shingo Oshiba)
Watching The Wheels (Shingo Oshiba)
Love (Gackt)
Oh My Love (My Little Lover, Sokabe Keiichi)
Strawberry Fields Forever (My Little Lover, Sokabe Keiichi)
Across The Universe (My Little Lover, Sokabe Keiichi)
Tomorrow Never Knows (My Little Lover, Sokabe Keiichi)
Instant Karma (All the artists )
Imagine (All the artists )
Give Peace A Chance (All the artists )
Elton Suzuki reporting from Japan.
