Erina Mano First Concert Tour "Introduction - Hajimete no Kando -"

Erina Mano's first Concert Tour "Introduction Hajimete no Kandou" was recorded in Sept. 2009, three months after her Debut Concert "Prolog - Otome no Inori," which I've also reviewed here. (I still don't understand why one is a "Debut Concert" and the other is a "First Concert.") The newer one is longer (85 min. vs. the Debut Concert's 67 min.) and has more songs (13 vs. 9 in the earlier one). It also has better production values with very nice settings, lighting and stage design and three tasteful and very beautiful dresses for Ms. Mano (in yellow, red, and white). She plays the piano for three numbers and the keyboard for several others. She gets up and dances with six Hello! Project Eggs in several others. She has greater confidence as a stage performer throughout this one, despite a mishap which I'll describe later. There are MC segments featuring Noriko Kato, an attractive woman who served the same duties at the earlier concert. One of these segments is titled "Recitation Play: Perpetual Days," which features Erina and Noriko reading from big books and, of course, isn't subtitled. It's eleven minutes long and slows down the proceedings considerably. On repeat viewings, you can just skip it. Mano sings 12 of the 13 songs, while S/mileage (a group consisting of 4 of the Eggs) sings their song, "aMa no Jaku," without her. (It's a delightful number.) The twelve Mano songs include seven that she performed at the earlier concert, including her "indie single," "Mano Piano," her "debut single," "Otome no Inori," and my favorite of the bunch, "Hajimete no Kei Ken." Since I consider this a better concert than the first, I must say I don't mind her repeating these songs. The mishap I referred to earlier occurs during the piano bit at the end of the third song, "Lalala-Sososo." She flubs a note and winces and finishes the solo, looks up, starts to cry and buries her face in her hands. She stands up and faces the audience, wipes away the tears and apologizes. Frankly, I'm not sure any of the wotas in the audience even noticed the flubbed note, but once they saw her distress they started applauding and chanting her name, "E-ri-NA!" in a game attempt to cheer her up. The special features include an audio commentary by Erina in which she laughs about the flub, and about two minutes of rehearsal footage and four minutes of backstage footage. Not enough if you ask me.