Voice actor and artist Saito Souma’s last performance at his first tour ‘Saito Souma Live Tour 2021 “We are in bloom!”’ was held at Tokyo Garden Theater on May 23, 2021.
This was his first concert in about two years since his first concert “quantum stranger(s)” held at Maihama Amphitheater in February 2019. The stage was unique to Saito Souma, who has absorbed various genres such as alternative, shoegaze, guitar rock, and city pop, and expressed them as his own worldview.
When the show started, the tranquil space was filled with the gentle sound of piano and images of flowers and grass sprouting on the stage, which grew in time with the sound to create a fantastic forest. When a cube with the “S” logo appeared, Saito Souma appeared in it. As the ivy in the forest converged into the shape of the title “We are in bloom!”, he performed the first song “Fish Story”, which was his debut song and also the last encore song of the previous concert. The song started off reminiscent of the continuation of the journey from the previous show with the theme of travel.
In the first half of the show, he continued with songs as a singer, incorporating his vocal sound, vocalization, and emotional expression, which he has said he has acquired through playing various roles as a voice actor, into expressing himself rather than his roles. From the cheerful and joyful single songs like “Date” and “Yoake wa Mada,” he gradually moved on to the dark and mysterious expression with the feeling of being drawn into his unique worldview.
In the talk part, he expressed his gratitude to the people who have supported him and made him what he is today, his thoughts to the people who were supposed to attend the Osaka concert, which was the only one cancelled during the tour, and his strong feeling that he would definitely see them again.
He then picked up his guitar and started the intro riff solo to “memento”. As the single coil of the Telecaster tore through the space, he became the vocalist of the band, expressing his emotions explosively.
After “Epilogue” and “Palette,” the last song was “Isana,” which was the big piece on the album at over 8 minutes. The roar of the shoegaze sound and Saito Souma’s sweet, floating vocals enveloped the whole venue, and the story came to a finale. As if in response to the emotions, the outro was stretched out further and the performance reached almost 10 minutes.
Appearing on stage amidst unstoppable hand clapping, it led the audience into an encore with “Summerholic!”, a song born from his own experience of the garage rock revival.
After the lead song “carpool” from the album “in bloom”, he expressed his gratitude again and said that he wanted to make it the night that would lead to the next, not the end of the day, in the talk part. The word “next” he said many times that day showed his positive feeling to the people he had ever met.
At the end of the encore, he sang “I’ll save goodbye for next time” and closed his first tour with the last track “Saigo no Hanabi” from “in bloom”.
The show was streamed live and will be available in archieve until 11:59 p.m. on May 30.
Photographer for the concert: Hamano Kazushi
