I went to a concert of the Three Tenors at the National Kasumigaoka Stadium. The expensive seats were 75,000 yen. My wife was not feeling well, so we went by taxi, but the area was jammed with people getting out of the taxi and running towards the stadium. We decided to get off just before the stadium and walk.
When I tried to buy a program at the venue, there was also a long line. The stores selling T-shirts and other items at the stadium were empty, and although there were more vendors there, they didn't seem to think about selling programs. Meanwhile, the person selling the programs was frantically handing over money while fumbling bills.
While I was doing that, the first song started. Just as I was about to enter, a staff member shouted from inside the venue, "Please wait until the interval between songs!" From inside the venue. I groaned. After the first song, the staircase I was guided to was one step off, and the staff member seemed quite confused.
The program said that the acoustics were perfect, but the acoustics were terrible. It was like listening to a shortwave radio broadcast. The distance to the singers was so short that even the slightest movement of the singers changed the degree of pickup. The sound was distorting and terrible.
However, art is a great thing. Well, even the old SP reissues are great performances that move the listener, and the Three Tenors were amazing.Encore: "Like the Flow of a River"It seemed like she had some difficulty singing the lyrics, and it was an incomplete performance (and the audience didn't sing along even though they were told to do so).
However, the lady sitting next to me, with her daughter who was about high school age, was delighted and shouted "Oh, it's the unknown!" Perhaps because of this, they sang the last medley of the second half of the program (Bernstein's Maria Tonight...) from the beginning again, and the encore lasted for nearly an hour, which made me think that these people really love to sing. (Although, when I heard the lady say to her daughter, "You know, they're giving us so much!", I got the feeling that they were just following market research that showed that Japanese people are satisfied with a longer encore.)
So, here's the conclusion.
As expected, great performers are great. No matter how poorly the venue is run, no matter how many sandwich vendors are marching around asking, "Would you like a beer and a sandwich? Would you like a beer and a sandwich?", no matter how bad the acoustics are, they can move people with the power of their art.
By the way, I also saw the broadcast on July 7th, but the live version was better!