Cute Concert Tour 2010 Spring - Shocking Live -

C-ute is now down to its five strongest members and this is the first concert DVD with the new grouping. And it's a great one, arguably their best concert performance ever. The numbers are lively and the dancing is energetic. While singing and dancing skills vary from one girl to the next, their ability to work together to get out there and entertain us and put on a great show is never in doubt. There are six costume changes, all markedly different from each other and all beautiful. In the third one, they come out in men's suits and ties, looking as cool as can be, especially Mai. They even introduce themselves with male names. (Chisato, in English: "Hello, my name is James," Mai in Chinese: "Nihao, Jackie dai yu!") Each of the five girls gets a solo, the first C-ute concert I've seen where this happens. I enjoyed each of them. Maimi's "Lonely Girl's Night" is the best, of course, and was performed on the Shocking5 album. Chisato and Mai do a great job with familiar songs from the C-ute repertoire. I had a slight problem, though, with the choice of songs for both Airi and Saki. Airi has two solos on the album. "Zansho Omimai Moushiagemasu" would have been better suited for this concert, but she does "Aa Koi" instead, which is difficult for her live because it has instrumental passages that require her to dance during them and she's simply not that good a dancer on her own. The song they give Saki, "Aishiteru Aishiteru," has too many difficult notes and she doesn't always hit them. Saki is the group's best dancer and would have nailed the dance parts of "Aa Koi," while Airi, still the group's best singer, would have nailed the difficult notes in the other song. Despite this minor quibble, I enjoyed them both anyway. Airi and Maimi do a great duet together (in their men's suits) of a song called "Image Color." The other three, Saki, Chisato and Mai, do two trios together, including a delightful song from the album, "Kimi no Senpou." There are 8 songs from the Shocking 5 album performed in the concert, plus another 15 to make 23 total. Chisato and Mai give breakout performances here and are rapidly becoming stars in their own right. If I have a serious complaint, it's that the DVD crew continually ruins our view of the dance routines, with frequent cuts to closeups or extreme long shots, when what we REALLY need is a steady, clear view of the girls' dancing!