I recently had the pleasure of attending Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP Ball at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. (after some drama involving the resident national sports team necessitating the concert to be rescheduled earlier in the week, but that’s another story).
For this performance, I elected to take a seat rather than join the standing room only crowd on the floor. Unfortunately, this had more of an effect on my experience than I would have liked, as you can see in the above photo; even if not for the constant presence of what I would later discover to be Lady Gaga’s camouflaged piano, the distance my ring-side seat offered was not optimal for this opening set, directly blocking my vision of the glass screen Miku herself occupied. There were three screens on stage, but unlike many prior events, Miku never strayed from the center screen, limiting her freedom of movement greatly. The two remaining glass screens to the sides of Miku were used largely for background animations, with live backup dancers behind them, making up for Miku’s confinement.
Despite the apparent lack of a live band, I was nevertheless impressed by the arrangements of the music offered, which still differed greatly from the versions of the songs I had previously heard online. The audio was definitely a high point of the performance, though not having seen Miku in concert before, I found myself wishing to experience the live accompaniment other shows have featured.
Miku’s opening set was brief, with very little interruption between music; pausing only to quickly address the crowd (specifically calling out Washington, D.C.) and for quick costume change animations. The songs performed were as follows:
- Glass Wall – Guitar Hero Piano Zero feat. 初音ミク
- 二次元ドリームフィーバー – PolyphonicBranch feat. 初音ミク
- Story Rider – エレキP feat. 初音ミク
- ワールドイズマイン – ryo(supercell) feat. 初音ミク
- Yellow – kz(livetune) feat. 初音ミク
- Tell Your World – kz(livetune) feat. 初音ミク
I am definitely looking forward to the upcoming MIKU EXPO in Los Angeles and New York City. Based on what I saw here, I think it’s going to be wonderful.