J-Pop Summit 2016: Day Two Report (July 24, 2016)

J-POP Summit Day 2 started off in a similar fashion to Day 1 (A recap of which can be found HERE) with the high-energy workout song "Domobics" courtesy of Tokyo Performance Domo! (A special unit made up of Tokyo Performance Doll and NHK mascot Domo.) By this point attendees would have heard this song both on the main stage and several times from the NHK booth and I am not ashamed to admit that it had grown on me and both myself and many in the audience had memorized most of the call-and-repeat parts to the song. Check it out HERE if you're interested in seeing what the fuss was about.

Day 2 offered several other events before the main concert of the night. The Odottemita winners were brought out and I am very pleased to mention that two of the members of the special GARNiDELiA award were none other than Heidi and Tiffany of A-to-J Connections who were also attending as press. In a very cool twist their winning performance of GARNiDELiA's "Gokuraku Jodo" was accompanied by none other than MARiA on vocals! Besides this other contests and events were held both on the main stage and off and the day's Q&A Session featured GARNiDELiA.

Another highlight of J-POP Summit 2016 was a J-POP Drag Queen contest presented by Mitz Mangrove, a famous drag figure in Japan. Besides Mitz Mangrove, the show also featured some well-known local San Franciscan drag queens, including Heklina. While some might think this was a little out-of-place for a show of this type, it can't be denied that this show featured some amazing, and unique, performances. Here's hoping that we see other creative programming in future events and perhaps see this particular event return next year.

Tokyo Performance Domo

GARNiDELiA Special Q&A Session

Special GARNiDELiA Award Odottemita winners, PRiSMiX

Mitz Mangrove, Heklina, and the competing drag queens

Now onto the music for the evening. YANAKIKU is a high energy J-POP duo and they have performed at J-POP Summit before and have probably become something of a fixture for the event. This doesn't mean that they're not always a treat to see though! Those in the know could have found them throughout the event at the Japan Travel Pavilion area and the Iichiko shochu booth. Photo ops with both YANAKIKU and special giant shochu bottle props were also available at the latter. They took to the stage and performed many of their popular songs such as "Ninja no Iroha", "Hello World" and "Golden Gai", some of these performances featuring the aforementioned Iichiko shochu props. Their set really took off with arguably their most well-known song, "Fujiyama Disco". This song got everyone moving and dancing along with the duo and YANAKIKU proved to be the perfect way to kick off the night's concert.

Next up was a performance by WORLD ORDER, a group made famous the world over thanks to their videos on YouTube. Producer and leader Genki Sudo was present as a guest performer with the group as well which was a welcome plus. It's hard to write about WORLD ORDER's performance as words honestly can't do the group justice. Also, due to their unique brand of performance (meaning that the songs pretty much just faded into each other) I regrettably can't tell you exactly what songs were performed as I was not only somewhat unfamiliar with them, but do to their personas on stage they did not break up the performance with MCs or anything that would help differentiate one song from another. That being said you can catch a sample of them (and I know they performed this one during their set) HERE. Seeing them on YouTube and seeing them in live onstage are two completely different things though and I reiterate again that I could write paragraphs and still not properly convey how amazing their set was. I'll admit that I assumed their live performance wouldn't be as intricate as their recorded ones, but I was very quickly proven wrong. They were sharp and on point, and there were more than a few moments that had me gasping in shock at the sheer unbelievable-ness of some of their moves. That being said I must sadly say that I felt this performance needed some sort of break to help the audience digest what they had seen; the breakneck pace of their performance made it hard to really appreciate the crazy stunts as they just came one after the other.

Last up for the evening, and J-POP Summit itself, was Silent Siren. A four-piece band known as "Saisai" to their fans, they brought a unique presence to the stage. J-POP Summit is no stranger to having bands perform on their stage, but Silent Siren would be the only full band to perform at this year's show. Perhaps due to this fact there were quite a few difficulties getting them set up on the stage and a long set-up and sound check followed WORLD ORDER's performance. The slightly long wait proved to be well worth it though as the group really brought the crowd to life with some of their rocking songs like "Cherry Bomb" and their cover of ZONE's "Secret Base ~Kimi ga Kureta Mono~". While the band is a four-piece of guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards, keyboardist Yukarun spent just as much time at the front of stage getting everyone hype as she did behind her keyboard. Elsewhere the group provided the top-notch performance one comes to expect of a group headlining an event like J-POP Summit and it's pretty cool to note that they have already announced a return to the US in October for a short solo tour! It's safe to say that they won a lot of fans at this performance.

With that J-POP Summit comes to a close, but we plan to bring you more coverage as it becomes available and you'll definitely catch us on Silent Siren's upcoming tour! Until next year's J-POP Summit!

-Manuel (alavic_222)

For More Information on J-POP Summit:
http://www.j-pop.com/