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My usual partner in crime had booked her trip home only a couple of days before the show was announced (since we both assumed it was too late for any announcement of that kind), but I didn’t have to go alone, as a friend from Singapore, Zel, was going to be in town. (For 2015, I helped 5 folks from Singapore, 1 from the Philippines and 2 from Hong Kong get to GR shows — not too bad! Wonder what new countries await in 2016.) We met up at Kudanshita station around 8:30 and walked over to the Budokan, where a substantial line was already wrapping around the building. Saw a friend from Shizuoka on our way into line, and met up with a nice RG wearing a cow kigurumi who had messaged me over the break to see about meeting. The day was crisp and clear and I’m surprised we didn’t sunburn during the 4.5 hours we were in line. We got to listen to a very lengthy rehearsal (over an hour), including 059/21, バラライ, メモリーズ and Punky Funky Love.

We had a couple of hours to kill after getting out of the goods line, so we wandered back to the station and found a family restaurant. Back at the Budokan, we only had to wait about 10 minutes before going inside. Our seats for the first show were 2nd stand, dead center, 8th row up. Not too bad, really, great view of the stage. My first two visits to the Budokan, including G6 (where I was 13th row floor), it seemed huge. Now after YokoAri, TamaAri and Osaka-jo Hall, the Budokan seems positively tiny.

First up was the Rodeo Club special, which was part variety show, part live and all awesome! It started with Kiiyan and e-zuka in sweats, sitting at a table going over the set list for the countdown live and getting into an argument over the inclusion of Can Do (e-zuka wanted it in the list 3 times). e-zuka left the stage in a huff, leaving a bewildered Kiiyan alone. He leaves too, and then e-zuka comews back, now apparently at home and watching late night tv. (And cutely cursing Kiiyan:  ちくしょ 記章!). He sees an informercial for an entertainment robot (Enta-kun) and decides to replace Kiiyan for the countdown live. He calls up, says to deliver Enta-kun ASAP.

Cue “Enta-kun” showing up wearing a white body suit, black pantsu over it, shiny red knee-high boots and a bizarre helmet. e-zuka had a giant remote that activated Enta-kun, so he tried it out, making amusing beeping noises whenever he pushed a button.  First he made Enta-kun lift one arm or leg at a time … then making him do the Glico Man pose … and then taking a phone call so that Enta-kun is left to balance like that a while. Poor Enta-kun! e-zuka makes Enta-kun walk forwards and backwards, then skip forwards and backwards (that last is really impressive!). Then talk, and then sing and then MC like Wakamoto Norio, which leads to some mad R trilling on Enta-kun’s part.  Whenever “at ease,” Enta-kun assumed a sassy pose, hands on hips, left knee bent to the side. At some point Enta-kun’s “Enta-kun” belt buckle falls off, so e-zuka puts it back in place … upside down, so he has to fix it again. And then he decides he needs to see if Enta-kun can dance. First there’s tap dancing, which he does nicely. Then cossack dancing, which ends up with a very out of breath Enta-kun on the floor, pulling off his helmet and going “e-zuka-san, it’s me, Kishow!” They make up, e-zuka grabs an acoustic guitar, Kiiyan urges us to stand up as the PA system starts playing Can Do, but they stop just before the vocals. (Kiiyan complained during the countdown live, and then later to Joy that his legs hurt from the cossack dancing. No doubt!)

 In another segment, they played these “anonymous” videos where people whose identities are hidden tell their true thoughts about Kiiyan and e-zuka. Kiiyan’s stand-in in the videos is a guy in a Lakers jersy … Val’s stand-in looks like he’s got a punch perm made from a broom. And in certain situations, they superimposed a cutout of the appropriate face (e-zuka or Kiiyan) over the double.

So first up was a hairdresser working on Kiiyan’s hair before one of the shows, and he’s looking at nothing but pics of yakiniku on his ipad mini while she’s working. I can’t remember if he said anything to her about it, but probably, so when he goes on stage, she hurriedly finds another staffer to go get some yakiniku for him. But then after the show, they present him with it and he’s all “Eh?”

And then comes TKT-san, who gripes that on one tour, they presented e-zuka a birthday cake … and he proceeded to sing Happy Birthday to himself. Much to everyone’s disgust. Kiiyan kept calling Takita TKT-san for the rest of the shows.

And then came Val-tan … whose gripe was that every time he turned around, no matter where they were, Kiiyan was using his wonder core exercise machine. Or doing some other exercise. And indeed, on stage, Kiiyan starting exercising in his chair, like in the Memories making of video.

There was one other confession video, probably about e-zuka, but I can’t remember what it was about for some reason.

They then played the New Year’s GuraP episode, and officially announced the blu-ray release.

Somewhere in between those segments was a full Granrodeo mini-live, where they treated us to songs they hadn’t played live in forever. So I *finally* got to hear ネジレタユガミ and 月に猫, leaving just Rain Beat as the only official GR song I haven’t heard live. It was nice to hear 059/21 live for the first time since G6, and Love in Shelter for the first time since “Can you do the summer?”. I hope it’s not another 5-6 years before they play ネジレタユガミ again, as it was amazing.

And then came the present corner, where they wheeled out two sets of goodies to be given away to some really lucky audience members: four of Kiiyan’s jackets (from Kiiyan Sanpo, Rock Instinct, the recent dress up Rodeo Club episode, and one other), a shirt and pair of slacks for e-zuka, plus four pieces of handwritten music (Infinite Love, Not for Sale, Soul Crazy and one other — I wanted these so badly I could taste it; 3 of my absolute faves), and the big prize, one of e-zuka’s guitars.

For the clothes and the music, Kiiyan and e-zuka were drawing ticket stubs from a box. Quite a few folks on the 2nd floor won, but not us. And then, for the guitar, they took turns drawing cards from a box that listed an item or other directions, and those in the audience who had that item, or otherwise qualified, could stand up and be verified by a staffer. Last person standing wins. The first item was a penlight/flashlight, which I had, but didn’t dig out, since the second one was you had to be named Iizuka. And lastly, you had to have mikan with you. A lucky girl on the 2nd floor won. After that, Kiiyan decided to give away his harmonica at this point, and a guy won for having vitamins and wearing another artist’s t-shirt (Love Live)

And then it was time for them to magically change into Gyuuho. But staff were cheeky and had a camera set up backstage with a staffer holding a fan over the lens, only giving us occasional peeks at the disrobing process. As it was, we nearly got a lot more of e-zuka than we needed to see, as he was in the act of dropping trou. The Gyuuho set was wonderful. They opened with Infinite Love, after which Takita and Val, wearing dark brown/black cow suits with horns came out to join them. Ushiyama objected, saying the stage belonged to Gyuuho, but Ushizuka pointed out that Takita-kun and Val-tan were his sempais. And so we got Crack Star Flash, Sea of Stars and シャニムニ with all four, after which they left the stage, encouraging us to call for an encore. Of course we did, and they came back out to play an original Gyuuho song, ぎゅっとしたほっ! Hope that ends up on CD somewhere, because, of course, it was wonderful.

After they left the stage, we watched a short video about the three seasons of Rodeo Club … but no teaser about DVD or another season, alas. And then the lights came up and it was time to hunt down food between shows.

Back at the Budokan, we were again in quickly. This time we were to Takita’s side of the stage, 1st stand, row 8 again. Still a great view of the stage. Got to meet up with Pol, a very nice, very talented Rodeo Girl from Korea, who showered me with goodies. So sweet! The show was fantastic, of course, and Kiiyan was super high tension, bouncing and dancing all over the place! I can only imagine what he’s going to be like after months off stage. Good mix of songs (you can see the setlist), lots of energy, tons of fun.

I’m pretty sure the guys had planned to play Punky Funky Love before ロデドの第九 just before midnight, but probably ran out of time. They had rehearsed it, after all. Turns out there are new lyrics to ロデドの第九, which I didn’t notice until Zel was watching the lyrics on the big screen and started laughing, and then I did too.  (the original was written for the Ro-gumi and year 7, so I really should’ve expected new lyrics) Because … there’s a 2 line shoutout to foreign fans! Though it’s not quite what those of you dreaming for an overseas’ GR tour want to hear….

I’d like to think that Nancy and I did our part to get that shoutout, and thanks to Kiiyan for thinking of kaigai fans enough to actually write to them in a song. And I’ll just have to import more fans for next summer’s tour!

During the 5 minutes or so leading up to the actual countdown after ロデドの第九, Kiiyan was trying to creatively kill time. He made e-zuka, Takita and Val talk, he spent almost a full minute engaged in crotch-grabbing (his own, but still facepalm-inducing! plus, he dared BS Next to air his antics), and accidentally spilling his water all over, and getting down on his hands and knees to wipe it up while he encouraged Takita to talk about o-souji (big year-end cleaning).  Sebastian (the comedy duo from Daigo’s TV show, who had been filming outside all day and were front row for the live) reminded them when it was time to count down, and so we did! They wrapped up with Go For It!, modern strange cowboy and バラライ (in which Kiiyan was dancing like he had his G10 dancers with him). They also announced the new single (Bungo Stray Dogs OP) and a summer tour!

All in all — 29 songs across 3 sets makes for an amazing day and a perfect way to ring in 2016! Here’s for making this an annual thing, please.

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