Ladybeard covers your faves and knocks out his haters at Japan Weekend Madrid!

This past weekend, I had the pleasure to assist on behalf ofARAMA!JAPANtoMadrid Japan Weekend, one of the most important Japanese culture cons of Spain. The event was bustling with cosplayers, dance groups, illustrators, merchandise sellers, videogame lovers and much more. And what would be a Japanese cons without guest international stars to bring Japan extra closer? One of them was the Idol-Metal, Kawaii-Core superstarLADYBEARD, a true beast on the stage that left no-one indifferent, covering all your faves and knocking out all his haters.Todaywe are sharing a Live Report on theconcerthe gave on Saturday, andtomorrowwe will share our report of theQ&A panelhe held! Don’t forget to also checkcolor-code‘s Live Report!

LADYBEARD‘s concert was humoriously scheduled just after theFINAL FANTASY – DISTANT WORLDSteaser concert, as the full orchestra is visiting Spain next April. The audience enjoyed the soothing and delicateFinal Fantasycompositions sat on the ground, some even laid back onto their backpacks. This calm ambient was shattered when the Japan Weekend Madrid presenter appeared on the stage to mention a couple of things to the audience, refering to the cataclysm that was going to take over the con:

“Before the concert starts, please stand up as this concert is going to be quite energetic, but also please separe yourselves from the stage, as LADYBEARD’s concerts usually get a bit out of hand and we have to put some security fences surrounding the stage, just in case. Finally, LADYBEARD has asked us to tell you that he prefers you to enjoy his concert and leave mobiles and cameras away.”

For me, it seemed quite normal: leaving a bit of space between the stage itself and the crowd wasn’t that strange and was quite logical(the fact thatcolor-code‘s concert had us literally touching the stage was what truly shocked me!), though the truth behind this decision was something different that we wouldn’t discover ’till a bit later into the show. After that announcement, the stage screen showed LADYBEARD’s logo and the crowd started to call for the superstar who, several minutes later, appeared on the stage introducing himself with the timeless, neutral-kawaii,“Watashi no namae wa LADYBEARD desu! Aaaahaha!”while running at full speed greeting fans, though without futher ado, he stopped and screamed“Let’s dance! ¡Música por favor! (Music, please)”and the iconic 80s bop“Valentine’s Kiss”came through. This time, it was quite different from the version he already recorded withShiori Tomita: the cover was more akin to theKokusho Sayuri‘s original version, though it didn’t leave out his frequent full metal parts. Following it, he then performed his cover of“Onegai! Cinderella”fromTHE IDOLM@STER. This performance was remarkably good as the previous song had already broken the ice and the crowd was in the perfect mood for hiskawaii-core, clapping loud and screaming their souls out: no wonder why, towards the end of the performance, he jumped down the stage and hugged a couple of fans! I’d probably choose this track as my close second favorite song from the whole concert, as the following one was crazy good.

After these two killer tracks, LADYBEARD took a short break to introduce himself in Spanish and asked the audience to follow his three greats principles:Sing, Dance and Destroy. The already hyped audience couldn’t contain itself when he announced he was just about to debut a brand new original song on the stage for the first time ever, and even made LADYBEARD ask the sound techs“Raise the music up on the stage, they are very noisy, thank you!”before performing it.“LADYBEARD Airlines”, a sweet, electronic, metal, kawaii, insanely catchy track with an extremely tiring (and surely dizzy) dance routine, an omen warning us about the fact that LADYBEARD is far from ending, and new material has been already composed.

(aramajapan)