News

Just under two months since B’z made their triumphant return to the North American music stage following an eight year absence, they are now back in Japan and back doing what they do best. As support for only the latest number one studio effort from the band, the similarly titled “C’mon” LIVE-GYM tour kicked off today with a performance at Miyagi Sekisuiheim Super Arena.

B’z will play an encore concert at the venue again tomorrow night, and from there will move onto Sundome Fukui on September 24th. The arena portion of the tour will conclude on November 6th after seventeen performances, with the dome shows beginning on December 4th in Fukoka before wrapping up on Christmas Day at Tokyo Dome.

Setlist obscured beyond the break to avoid potential spoilers.

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News

B’z sales have been steady and strong, and even after almost 23 years, they still maintain a strong position in the charts. With the release of their new album “C’mon”, which debuted at number 1 in the Oricon Weekly Chart with 272,397 copies sold, they’ve broken the 80 million barrier in terms of total sales. Their total sales now amount to about 80,600,000 albums and singles sold – a first in Japanese history. They are at the top in Japan, with Mr. Children (54.9 million) in second place and Ayumi Hamasaki (49.5 million) in third place.

Will B’z ever stop producing music? No. Read on for the full article.

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News

B’z new album “C’mon” is in stores today, and 111,549 units have already been sold on the previous day. Unsurprisingly, B’z has done it again: They’ve earned the pole position on the Oricon Daily Album Chart. To celebrate the release of the new album, B’z has launched a special campaign:

Every copy of C’mon – be it the regular or the limited edition – comes with a small card that has an ID on the back. If you go to http://www.bz-vermillion.com/928live/, you can enter your ID by clicking on the button at the bottom.

Once you’ve entered your ID, you are automatically participating in a giveaway where you can win one of the few tickets they’re giving out for the PEPSI NEX special performance in Shibuya AX on September 28th. Until now, you were only able to get a ticket by buying Pepsi Nex and collecting points until you’ve got enough points to redeem them and earn your ticket. The deadline to redeem your code is September 6th, 2011 11:59PM.

That is not all, however. Once you redeem your code, you’ll also get special download contents. As I’ve found out, it’s actually just a wallpaper available for Android/iPhone/PC/etc which you can download in whatever format you prefer. I haven’t received my copy yet, so I don’t know what kind of wallpaper it is, but I’m sure it must be something good 😉

Oricon Daily Album Charts: http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/ja/d/2011-07-26/

News

A “C’mon” from us to everyone.
Once again, it[the album] is filled with a lot of songs I personally love to sing.
I hope it will reach each and every one of you.
And I’m looking forward to the day we can sing them together!!

Koshi Inaba

C’mon Japan!
C’mon!!
You really must listen to “C’mon”!!

Tak

News

B’z no… B’z no… B’z no LIVE-GYM ni youkoso!

B’z LIVE-GYM 2011 -long time no see- kicked off in Vancouver yesterday. Most of the people in the crowd seem to have been Japanese, but the overall concert was great, it seems. According to various voices on the internet, B’z also played some songs in English… and I don’t mean the songs we know that are in English, but songs that are originally in Japanese, sung in English. I’m going to keep the set list a secret, since everyone who’s not going will probably watch the livestream of the gig in Los Angeles.

Here’s also a video taken by a Japanese who films the queue in front of the Vogue Theatre. You can hear him say “mostly Japanese” as he walks along the queue.

And here are some impressions that have also been posted on the Official facebook page:

Feature

Hey people!

I got up at 5AM, just to listen to the interview with B’z on J-Wave… how crazy is that, huh? Anyway, as promised, I’m going to give you an overview of what they talked about in the interview as well as what Tak and Koshi revealed about it. Here we go!

Album recording

– They already started recording for the new album in May 2010, but that doesn’t mean it took them 1 year to record the album. They paused their recording, so they could focus on their solo projects.
– After their solo projects, they decided to take a break and then meet again to start collecting ideas for the album
– They didn’t decide on a theme at all, unlike they usually do
– After a while, they came to see what theme it’s going to be and started work with their staff
– When the big earthquake happened on March 11th 2011, they were already in the final stages of recording.
– The earthquake affected Koshi’s creative skills, so he wasn’t able to come up with any new ideas as the disaster concerned them.
– As for Tak Matsumoto, he was able to do the rhythm track for the last two tracks after the earthquake.
– They created two whole new tracks after the earthquake. New lyrics were written for only one of those two after the earthquake. One of them is on the album.
– The production process can be broken up into “pre-earthquake” and “post-earthquake” as it affected their work.
– It was hard for them to put the songs from these two stages together into one album
– After the earthquake, Shane and Barry quickly came back to Japan to resume recording (of the two songs)
– C’mon is the only track where Koshi changed the lyrics after the earthquake happened. The song would give off a different character that way.
– When Koshi thought about a fitting theme for the new album. The word “C’mon” came to his mind. As putting the songs on that album wouldn’t work, they also created a title song with the same name.

Tak’s and Koshi’s solo projects

– Nothing new to report here. They talked about how Tak won the Grammy and how they coordinated their solo activities.

Production of songs

– Tak didn’t have a stock of arranged songs, he created the album from scratch.
– Since Tak didn’t have any idea what the theme/concept for the overall album is going to be, he did the songs one at a time, independently
– Koshi started getting ideas for the lyrics during arrangement
– Koshi tries to get the image of the song first, and then writes the lyrics for it; It also happens that he draws from previous ideas he came up with, but remained unused until now
– Sometimes they talk about the album while having lunch; but otherwise rarely talk about the album outside of the studio
– As the riff is very important, Tak starts out with the riff and then does the melody.
– Koshi also saves ideas for lyrics on his mobile phone (sends himself E-mails)
– Tak talks to Koshi about what image he had in mind when composing the song. Koshi then goes on to write the lyrics for it

About the song “Pilgrim”

– “Pilgrim” is the first song that was produced for the album in 2010
– Tak says the song was originally one of his acoustic guitar demos
– Koshi says he was thinking about the 4 seasons as they come and pass and got his first idea for the song when he saw the cherry blossoms

About LIVE-GYM 2011 -C’mon-

– They’re having frequent meetings concerning the planning for LIVE-GYM 2011 -C’mon-
– Tak reveals that the performance in Tokyo Dome will have its surprises
– A writer called their first live performance a “LIVE-GYM”, and they went with it. “GYM” has a physical meaning, of course. Since Koshi is always running around… 😛
– Tak is heading to the gym to get ready for the tour

About LIVE-GYM 2011 -long time no see-

– This tour is different from the Japanese tour
– Tak says they’ll play known songs 🙁 (so like LOVE PHANTOM, BAD COMMUNICATION, etc.)
– Koshi is looking forward to the tour as also the audience is different from the one in Japan
– The livestream of the performance in LA is Pepsi’s doing. Koshi says “Sasuga Pepsi” XD
– Tak says there will be a lot of people to watch B’z for the first time

Songs that were played on the show (in order)

1) C’mon
2) Don’t Wanna Lie
3) Sayonara Kizu Darake no Hibi yo
4) Pilgrim
5) ultra soul 2011