Miyavi Virtual Live
Woot! Despite covid, or maybe even because of, I got to see my current fav musician, Miyavi, perform live from Tokyo! So awesome!!!!
The venue was super awesome. It was done at teamLab Planets, where he performed in a mirrored room with lights hung down the walls. It made for amazing effects throughout the show. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. Puts my memories of the ol’ planetarium laser Pink Floyd to shame…
Sad to say, it’s been a good while since I’ve been to a live concert. I think U2 was my last show, in 2017 as they came through Minneapolis to do Joshua Tree. Prior to that it was Prince, both with Christy. It’s become really expensive for big acts, not to mention loud. (Is that my age or have they really gotten louder?) On top of that, there just hasn’t been much that I’ve really wanted to see, and especially with Christy being in Madison, I have no show buddy.
Anyhow, especially with no large gatherings due to covid, a live show was the last thing I expected to add to my weekend. However this one was done virtually, so the entire audience was remote and everyone was safe. Pretty cool idea, really. He did a live show virtually earlier this year,Miyavi Holy Nights JP Tour, to replace his Japan tour, so I figured if this was similar it’d be pretty cool. I must say it was SO much better, but I’m getting ahead of myself…
This became something of a 24 hour adventure, as I just happened to check Twitter, not something I do often, last night and saw the posts for the show. Woot? I hemmed and hawed over it for a few hours, then decided as the cost was less than I spent on my last takeout order, it was ridiculous to be this silly about it. So just after midnight, tickets bought!
The next morning was all excitement, but I still had a day of work - a big day of work, as the students were wrapping up their client project scope docs. Fortunately for me, that made time pass quickly. Over lunch I set out to find the Chromecast which I thought was here, but of course never got setup again after the move. I looked all over and finally found it mixed into some mixed cabling in the TV cabinet. In an end of day lull, I also managed to get it connected and was all setup to stream to the TV and the rockin’ soundbar just in time.
I was all ready to go as it went live, but I should have known after having internet woes all day that things wouldn’t go smoothly. I thought the stream might buffer after a bit, but it was pretty choppy and laggy. The chromecast was definitely not going to work. Even with that off however, it seemed that everytime I got into the music it abruptly halted to buffer. Still, I have to say, I was still enjoying it, and that says a lot.
To brighten things up, Miyavi was live on chat with us which was fun. I guess it was actually recorded ahead for streaming. Makes sense, as there were several cameras, including some drones, and I’m sure the ahead of time work made for a better show than randomly hopping camera to camera. One of the drones crashed about midway in, after one of the songs too. It was quite cute. “Are you OK?” he asked it. ^.^
Worst disappointment came at the end as my stream, which was running about 15 min behind by the end of the show, just cut off abrubtly mid-song as the hour was up and the live session ended. It was nearly a mortal wound! I was revived quickly, however, when the staff followed up and said that they would restart the stream shortly and leave it up for the next two days.
Woot! This made me so very happy. I didn’t expect this, but did see other shows had done it. So I had been holding onto hopes throughout. I wanted to believe that at some point my internet service would be kind enough to let it come through smoothly… Eventually I would win that battle, but it meant waiting until after midnight to get it to stream cleanly. Not an ideal time for blasting out a living room dance party, especially not with the windows open. Still, I was able to head to bed happy and content, having seen the whole show unchopped, even if that was somewhere around 3 AM.
Enough of the adventure. Let’s get on to the show itself…
In addition to the awesome venue, the music was all I hoped for and more. Totally rockin’, I absolutely love the way this man plays guitar. He played some of the new tracks from his Holy Nights album, as well as some older favorites…
Firebird was particularly screamin’ and absolutely amazing with the lighting effects. He also did a killer arrangement of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. My current favs Other Side and Under the Same Sky were superbly done too. The final piece was also the best arrangement and performance of What’s My Name which I’ve ever seen. I have a soft spot for that one, as it was the first video I saw, making me an instant fan.
I’m sure it wasn’t quite as much fun performing without the audience. No applause, no screaming fans… Had to be a bit of a let down, but you certainly wouldn’t have known it watching him. His energy ran through the whole show, and he did his best to be conversational and connect over the musical breaks. (I also did a little happy dance each time I picked up some of the Japanese.)
He’s so confident and yet sincere. It was quite cute to hear him talk about the power of music, which he truly makes me believe in. While I love his music, I think the thing that always continues to win me over is his spirit and positivity. One of the things that he mentioned at the end resonated well with me given all that’s happened and continues to happen in my world. “No matter what happens, I wanna be myself. I wanna just keep doing what I do. That’s also my responsibility as an artist, as a human being.” It’s easy to get lost in feeling down, but I also want to keep being myself and not let go of those things that make me me.