Berryz Kobo Concert Tour 2009 Aki Medachitai !!

Berryz Kobo has been turning out consistently fine concerts for years now, and this one is no exception. Is it their best? Probably not, but I would need to see the others again to compare. Besides, I had a problem with it that I'll address below. But overall, it has so much good stuff in it that I don't hesitate to recommend it to other BK fans. It opens with my all-time favorite song of theirs, the rousing "Ryuusei Boy," a recent B-side which gets the concert off to a great start. Some old favorites, including "Munasawagi Scarlet" and "Very Beauty" (performed as a solo by Momoko) are mixed with a lot of material that's fresh to me. I counted twelve songs I hadn't heard before. Chinami even gets a solo (her first?) and Yurina and Miyabi get a duet. The costume changes are all very nice. The biggest surprise here is their performance of "Dschinghis Khan." Right in the middle of it, the girls stand on stage in a line and proceed to perform it "a cappella" (without musical accompaniment). Risako sings the lead, handling all the lyrics, while Momoko, Maasa and Yurina sing back-up and, in a refreshing and clever touch, Miyabi, Saki and Chinami do "beatbox" sounds into their mikes. It's an imaginative approach to a number they've performed many times, but the real revelation here is Risako Sugaya, who shows more and more vocal power as she gets older. She belts out the lyrics, while toning it down for the chorus. She's got a difficult job and she performs it admirably. I really enjoyed listening to her. She is showing extraordinary potential and stands out as that rare Hello! Project performer who seems to grasp the use of her voice as a means of self-expression. My chief problem with the concert is that they do all of their strongest material in the first two-thirds of the show. I kept waiting for them to do my other big favorite of theirs, "Dakishimete, Dakishimete," a high-energy dance number that would really have perked up the concert's last half-hour, which includes some of their weaker songs ("Rival," anyone?). But they never do it. The girls are in peak form throughout, but sometimes the difference between a great concert and a very good one can be one song. The concert lasts 104 min. and the DVD has no extras. The credits sequence includes baby and childhood photos of each of them. You can see their strong characters already forming at an early age.