Today, the B’z LIVE-GYM Pleasure 2008 -GLORY DAYS- tour has begun. As of this moment, the first hour of the concert has already passed in the Kobe Universiade Memorial Stadium (according to wallpaper). 4 of my friends are there… Ooh, I’m so jealous!
Anyway, you can get those 2 wallpapers right here: http://bz-livegym.com/special/
Asahi Shimbun Publications is planning to release a 400 page photobook to celebrate B’z 20th anniversary. This 400 page book contains photos from a variety of occasions, demonstrating the past 20 years of B’z. You will see a lot of familiar as well as unfamiliar photos. It includes 326 pictures taken by photographer Sachiko Kume. The book will be in B5 format and will go on sale on September 19th at a suggested retail price of 4900 Yen(~$44/~30€).
If you would like to pre-order it already, you can do it here: http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4022586893?ie=UTF8&camp=247&creative=1211&creativeASIN=4022586893
Today, the official goods for the B’z LIVE-GYM Pleasure 2008 -GLORY DAYS- tour have been announced!
As, unfortunately, I’m not able to go to Japan to see the concert(will explain why later), I’ve already told my friends what to get for me. :P
Anyway, if you just want to have a look at them, or know what they are, I translated them all for you.
Finally, the sample for Glory Days has been added to the B’z 20th Anniversary Special Website. If you personally can’t wait to go all the way to the website itself, here are the direct links to the sample in both Real Media and Windows Media format.
http://sound.being.co.jp/sound/bmcv-8024/d2-t15.asx (Windows Media)
http://sound.being.co.jp/sound/bmcv-8024/d2-t15.ram (Real Media)
Looks like my thesis has been proven wrong, and Glory Days is not the Ending SE for the arena part of the ACTION tour. Guess we will have to stay tuned for more information.
Also, if you visit the bz20th.com’s front page, you will see one of their TV commercials, which now seems to include Glory Days as background music. Furthermore, Glory Days can now be downloaded by people in Japan for use as ringtone(i.e. Chaku Uta).
The results of the T-Shirt requests have been posted. The catch is, that only the T-Shirt ranked at #1 will be resold. In other words, ONLY the B’z LIVE-GYM ‘99 BROTHERHOOD T-Shirt will be reprinted and resold at the Pleasure tour arenas.
The top 10 are as follows:
#1 B’z LIVE-GYM ‘99 BROTHERHOOD
#2 B’z LIVE-GYM Pleasure ‘95 “BUZZ!!”
#3 B’z LIVE-GYM ‘96 “spirit LOOSE”
#4 B’z LIVE-GYM #00 “OFF THE LOCK”
#5 B’z LIVE-GYM in Taipei 2001
#6 B’z LIVE-GYM Pleasure ‘92 “TIME”
#7 B’z LIVE-GYM in Hong Kong 2001
#8 B’z LIVE-GY ‘98 “SURVIVE”
#9 B’z LIVE-GYM ‘94 “The 9th Blues”
#10 B’z LIVE-GYM ‘93 “JAP THE RIPPER”
People who would like to check out the new versions that are included in B’z The Best “ULTRA Treasure” can now do so. You can listen to a sample of every song except Glory Days and Itsuka Mata Koko De(Bonus track on 3CD version).
You can listen to the samples on the B’z 20th anniversary website here:
http://bz20th.com/treasure/index.html
Update(08/16/2008):
BLOWIN’ -ULTRA Treasure Style- is now available for download as a Chaku Uta(ringtone for mobile phones) on i-mode, EZweb and Yahoo! Keitai.
Furthermore, radio stations in Japan will start broadcasting BLOWIN’ -ULTRA Treasure Style- on August 18th.
Apparently, it has been decided that people will be able to buy t-shirts of older LIVE-GYM tours during the Pleasure 2008 tour. But, they are not going to just sell every t-shirt out there, no, they’re going to ask you, the fan, to request your 3 favorite designs. Those with the most requests will be reprinted and sold at the Pleasure 2008 tour venues. The deadline for the requests is August 18th.
Here is how you are going to request your 3 designs:
1) Go to http://www.bz-livegym.com/reproduct/
2) Note down the RED NUMBER of your favorite designs
3) Fill in the form at the bottom:
- Nickname:
- Prefecture(just choose a random one):
- Age:
- Sex: [male] [female]
- T-Shirt No. 1: *Insert red number here*
- T-Shirt No. 2: *Insert red number here*
- T-Shirt No. 3: *Insert red number here*
4) Click SEND!
Now you just need to hope that those 3 will be the top 3!
Good luck to us all.
Today, the final tracklisting for B’z The Best “ULTRA Treasure” has been released.
The final tracklisting will be as follows:
[DISC 1]
01. BLOWIN -ULTRA Treasure Style-
02. Wonderful Opportunity
03. Mou Ichido Kiss Shitakatta
04. TIME
05. Koi-Gokoro
06. RUN
07. Sayonara Nanka ha Iwasenai
08. Gekkou
09. Koi Ja Naku Naru Hi
10. Don’t Leave Me
11. LOVE IS DEAD
12. Haru
13. MOTEL
14. YOU & I
15. Yumemi ga Oka
16. Kienai Niji
[DISC 2]
01. Brotherhood
02. Swimmer Yo!!
03. Happiness
04. ONE
05. F-E-A-R -2008 Mix-
06. Nagai Ai
07. ROCK man
08. DEVIL
09. New Message
10. Arakure
11. Yuruginai Mono Hitotsu
12. Pierrot
13. BURN -Fumetsu no Face-
14. Home (E. Style)
15. Glory Days
After reading the latest press release from BARCO “Japan’s hottest rock band takes magic carpet ride with Barco’s Creative LED“, I found out that it is indeed Mark Fisher who is doing the stage set design for B’z LIVE-GYM 2008 tour. Mark Fisher used to design stage sets for the Rolling Stones and U2 which underlines the quality and detail he puts into his work. Also, Mark Fisher was designing the stage set for B’z LIVE-GYM 2006 MONSTER’S GARAGE tour. But the real deal is that Mark Fisher is using Barco’s LEDs to create a giant carpet-like LED screen, mounted on the stage, above the band playing their music.
Aside from Barco’s press release, a few other websites report about this press release. If you would like to go into further detail(with pictures) about Mark Fisher and his magic LED carpet, please click the link below.
Japanese B’z takes magic carpet ride with Barco’s LED [fibre2fashion.com]
The 4th week’s sales data for B’z The Best “ULTRA Pleasure” has just come in, and sales dropped again, putting B’z The Best “ULTRA Pleasure” at position 6 on the weekly chart. So far, B’z The Best “ULTRA Pleasure” has sold 782,133 copies. This week, an additional 34,188 copies have been sold, accounting for a total amount of 816,321 copies sold. We’re slowly getting close to the 1 million mark. Wonder if B’z will be able to sell that much CDs till the end of the month?
Previous rankings on the weekly chart are:
| Week | Ranking | Sales | Total Sales |
| 1 | 1st | 560,857 copies sold | 560,857 copies sold |
| 2 | 4th | 153,212 copies sold | 714,069 copies sold |
| 3 | 5th | 68,064 copies sold | 782,133 copies sold |
| 4 | 6th | 34,188 copies sold | 816,321 copies sold |
Source: Oricon Ranking