After the first season of the K-On! TV anime had finished airing, and a crapload of music CD tie-ins had been released, the cast featured in a grand live event of music and fun in Yokohama Arena on December 30th, 2009. Six months later, the show in its entirety was released on DVD and Blu-Ray, and found enough success for the Blu-Ray edition to obtain a rank of #1 in the Japanese Blu-Ray music charts in its week of release.
Flash forward to November 2011, and that show has finally also been released in the form of a 2 CD live album. I’ll be having a look at the Limited Edition, which comes in a slightly more elaborate package than your regular CD album.
To begin with, the whole thing is kept in a clear, thin plastic case. Through the front side, you see the CD cover – which features the five HTT girls in their stage attire from episode #12 “Light Music!” – and through the back you see the cover of the special booklet that only comes with the LE.
The case opens up on the side, and lets the contents slide out sideways. Here’s a piece of cardboard padding that keeps the album in place and has the track listing printed on it, the aforementioned LE booklet, the CD booklet and of course – the album itself.
The LE booklet is, I believe, a partial reproduction of the official event book. It contains pictures, bios, a K-On! discography (listing CDs released up to the point when the live event took place, as well as the individual DVD/BD volumes of the anime), and more.
The CD booklet, as one would expect, contains the lyrics for all of the songs performed during the event, as well as credits and a few photos taken during the performances.
The album itself comes in a digipack. The cover features HTT as described above, and the backside has the track listing printed over a photo of the cast taken during one of the songs.
The disc configuration in the digipack is quite unusual, or at least; it’s unlike any digipack I’ve seen before. Instead of folding out multiple “pages” with each page holding one disc, there is a kind of plastic contraption with disc 1 on top that you have to open by unhooking it on the right side to get to disc 2 inside it.
The label on disc 1 features the outline of a guitar in red, representing Yui, while the second disc label features the outline of Mio’s bass in blue. That takes care of the two vocalists of HTT, but what about the rest of the band? Well – I’ll just mention that the “Come With Me!!” album consists of three CDs and leave it at that for now.
I’m not going to go into too much detail about the show itself – for that, see my review of the Blu-Ray release – but obviously, listening to it on a CD is a fairly different experience than watching it on video is. All of the music has been preserved on the CD version, but most of the talking between songs and audience interaction has been edited out. That is just as well, of course, it wouldn’t have made a whole lot of sense to include that in an audio-only version.
As a whole, I do think that the Blu-Ray (or, failing that; the DVD) is the way to go for maximum enjoyment of this live event (short of actually being there, of course). There’s just something missing when you’re not seeing the charismatic performers, the fun stage, the colorful lights, or the great big mass of enthusiastic people who make up the audience. But on the other hand, the CD version is sure to come in handy when you just want to listen to a few songs and go on with your day.
Track listing:
Disc 1: (48:27)
01: Opening
02: Cagayake!GIRLS
03: Introduction (Guitar)
04: Guitar ni Kubiddake
05: Introduction (Bass)
06: Heart Goes Boom!!
07: Introduction (Drums)
08: Girly Storm Shissou Stick
09: Introduction (Keyboard)
10: Dear My Keys ~Kenban no Mahou~
11: Introduction (Guitar)
12: Jajauma Way To Go
13: Death Devil Appearance
14: Maddy Candy
15: Lovely Sister LOVE
16: Coolly Hotty Tension Hi!!
Disc 2: (42:38)
01: MC “Junbi dekita?”
02: Curry nochi Rice
03: Fudepen ~Borupen~
04: Watashi no Koi wa Hotchkiss
05: Fuwa Fuwa Time
06: Don’t Say “Lazy”
07: Cagayake!GIRLS
08: Let’s Go!
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