Perfume LIVE 2022 [polygon wave]

January 10, 12, 13, 15 2022 @PIA ARENA MM

The newest Perfume is the best Perfume. The latest stage was the most impressive and joyful performance. This was another proof that Perfume can make progress like they always have even when social distance put us apart.

I went to PIA ARENA Minato Mirai, thirty-minute walk from home. Cold days in Yokohama in January. But the crowd was very warm in line entering PIA ARENA. To prevent infection, there were few voices among the people in the hall. Then, we started clapping loud as usual abut a few minutes before the show began.

The concert opened with a short script accompanied by music called “System reboot”, followed by “Fushizen-na girl” (“uncommon girl” or “unusual girl”), which is the song I’d loved for long since it was only a short part of medleys in the previous tours’ setlists.

This show was already online by Amazon Prime. I had already seen the sea of laser lights of infinite colors on TV. But, once those scenes are regenerated before my bare eyes in PIA ARENA, I could not tell if it was a dream or real.

The question whether it is a dream or real was presented in the poetry just before “Perfume’s Okite”, which means Perfumes’ Principle (or Perfume’s Rule). Precisely speaking, Perfume’s Okite was not included in [polygon wave]. But, a short form of Okite was performed as an interlude accompanied by their dance just before “Future Pop”. In the interlude, the members speak like inner voices.

Is the dream a lie or real?

Black hair, black eyes, black shadow.

Your voice, my voice, our voice…

Your existence, my existence, our existence…

Your presence, my presence, our presence…

Make myself me.

There and here, here and there.

I make myself me.

 

We don’t know who wrote these words. But they sound like the girls’ inner voice. I think that these pieces of poetry keep the Perfume members’ minds away from the current pandemic situations. Then, they don’t have to talk about how they deal with the difficulties that our society is currently facing, in their talk section of the concert. At the same time, the poetry includes the statement to ask “what we can do.”

I remember “what we can do” is repeated in the concert since JPN tour in 2012 after the devastating east Japan earthquake. Back then, the concert did not have the poetry section like the one in [polygon wave]. So, the members, especially A~chan had to express their attitude towards the live performance in the talk section about the nation’s hard time by her own words.

No one could find it easy to speak before thousands of people about your attitude towards what you do as an artist or whatever your job after such devastating events happened in 2011. In the first half of JPN tour, A~chan spoke aimlessly repeated “we just do what we possibly can.”

As the number of infected has increased in Japan, the members had to speak like they did in the first half of JPN TOUR, if the poetry section did not address their attitude towards on behalf of them on the stages. But the poetry expressed the uncertainty covering the society and our minds. Then, Perfume can concentrate on their performance. 

The last song of the concert, Mawaru Kagami (spinning mirror), unnamed at the time, also describes their and fans’ feelings, as followings:

Our long dream

From deep, like floating

Struggling, looking up, swimming.

A round bundle, a mirror-ball.

The light where you stay.

Reaching out my arm, clapping my hands.

It’s alright, alright.

Saying your voice, pushing me by back

As I stand on the stage today.

 

We stay in the darkness, looking up from water.

Struggling, dreaming, swimming.

A round bundle, a mirror-ball.

Spinning mirror, our sigh.

It’s alright, alright.

Saying your voice, pushing me by back

As I stand on the stage today too.

Spinning mirror.

 

At the closing, three girls say:

We are in a dream.

There and here, here and there.

Together.

See you at the next stage.

 

Yes, we are in the dream that Perfume created and captured us within. We will be in the dream again with Perfume at the next stage.