It is not often that something related to a Kyoani work has an event in Yokohama, so when I found out that Sound! Euphonium The Kitauji High School Concert Band 8th Regular Concert (『響け！ユーフォニアム』公式吹奏楽コンサート～北宇治高校吹奏楽部 第8回定期演奏会～) will be taking place in Yokohama, I decided to try balloting for a ticket. And was lucky enough to get one for the afternoon performance (there was also an evening performance on the same day).
I have only attended a Kyoani-related concert once, and that was the Violet Evergarden Orchestra Concert 2021. It was again a rainy day today, but the rain wasn't that heavy so I managed to get to the venue (Kanagawa Kenmin Hall) after riding an hour on Vivi, my little 50cc scooter.
There wasn't any banners or such but I knew I was at the right place because I was greeted with this scene.
There was still close to two hours to go before the concert, but there was already a crowd. People were queuing to buy merchandise.
I decided to see what was on exhibition at the gallery instead.
An hour before the concert, we all started queuing to enter the concert hall. My seat was on the second floor.
This was the view from my seat.
I was in an audience of about 2,400 people, it seems.
The concert started with a euphonium player playing "Moonlight Serenade", kind of the season 3 of the TV series. We then had TRUE singing "ReCoda" and the band playing "Disco Kid". It was like watching episode 1 of season 3. The concert's MC was the Kitauji Quartet: the voice actresses for Kumiko, Reina, Sapphire/Midori, and Hazuki.
Other pieces performed include "Koi" and the cello players performing "Salut d'Amour" as a duet, like in the TV series. The band also performed "Polovtsian Dances". They also performed the songs that the school band played at the national finals: "Scherzando" and "Hitotose no Uta: Suisogaku no Tame no". TRUE sang "Soundscape" and the band also performed "Neiro no Uta" but the quartet didn't join and sing. There was also a duet (trumpet and euphonium) performance of "Ai wo Mitsuketa Basho". Of course, no Sound! Euphonium concert can end without a performance of "Hibike! Euphonium", the piece that gave the series its name.
The concert ended with TRUE singing "Dream Solister", the opening song for season 1, taking everyone right back to where it all started.
When the concert ended, there was already a lot of people waiting for the evening performance. I wanted to join the queue to get the booklet with the concert's program, but it looked like at least an hour of queuing so I gave up, as the weather forecast said it would be pouring at night, and I wanted to get back before it started raining again.
The car park had more cars this time.
Personally, not being a hardcore fan of the series, I didn't find the concert as enjoyable as Violet Evergarden Orchestra Concert 2021 (which I truly enjoyed). But I was really impressed by TRUE; she really took all the attention whenever she comes onto the stage. Maybe if I had watched the TV series several more times and can recall the scenes where each song played, I would have found the concert more interesting.
The Sound! Euphonium 10th anniversary event is going to be held in March 2025 in Yokohama too. But I think I will be giving it a pass. I don't feel like a hardcore-enough fan of the series to be truly able to enjoy it. 😅
PS. The ticket came with this.
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