WhiteA - Final Live Tour 2020 Countdown: 3 days to go
Before they part with their fans, they are going on their "Final Live Tour", which consists of 2 concerts, "White -memory-" (March 20) and "As -message-" (March 25). While these are separate events, there will be a distinct red thread connecting the two, although you will still be able to enjoy them individually of course. But according to the guys themselves, 'some things will make more sense if you've seen both'. What they mean remains to be seen.
Since the title of the first concert is memory, I will share my memories of WhiteA in this blog post.
When I talk about getting into "Underground Idols" (or "Basement Boys") I often get asked about how I got into them. Each case kind of has a different story, a different gateway. So let me start with the case of WhiteA.
I had stumbled over WhiteA on YouTube but had not really paid further attention to them at that point (their music videos had popped up in my recommendations, I think because "Yukidokei" features one of the actors from a Super Sentai Series). It wasn't until caught a glimpse of them at an event in Machida in early 2019 that I started to become a fan.
The first song I heard from them was called "Fire Burning", the titular song of their one-man live that followed soon after. Unfortunately it has remained a "live only" song until now.
What caught my attention was the rap actually. Which isn't very usual for me because to be honest, I am not super into rap or hip hop music. Or wasn't, should I say? Although Japanese style rap and hip hop is very different from its western counterparts. At least the tracks I have heard so far.
The line that stuck with me was Junya's:
"My enemies wanna see me fall but I won't"
I don't know why but that really struck something in me. So I found myself watching the rest of the performance and it sparked my interest.
Unfortunately, I did not dig any deeper at that point because you know, real life got in the way but it was once again YouTube that brought things back to me. Or actually a mixture of my students and YouTube.
Turns out that one of the WhiteA members, Kouki, is attending the same university as some of my (now former) students so some of them were checking out things on YouTube and TikTok. I thought that it looked familiar and sure enough, I recognized the faces of the boys in the videos from the event I had happened to pass by a while back.
A few days later I had watched all their available videos and tuning in to watch the daily(!!) updates on the "ShiroA Channel" became part of my nightly routine. I had also downloaded their entire discography from iTunes.
I really wanted to see them live but my schedule was hard to arrange and their lives did not quite fall onto doable dates for a while. Then, there was also the problem of me being a complete 'noob' when it came to going to "Underground" events, considering I had been in the butai, tokusatsu circuit and then the 'regular idol' circuit for years before that.
But - you know where this is going - I did eventually gather enough courage to go and meet them in person. And I do not regret it.
I will talk in more detail about going to those kinds of events at a later date.
Long story short, meeting the guys in real life was one of the best experiences I've had in terms of 'fandom life' and I recommend the "Underworld" (haha) to those of you, who prefer smaller and and more intimate fandoms, where involvement and appreciation are worth more than in larger fandoms.
I hope this wasn't too tl;dr.
Thank you for reading.
Questions and Comments are welcome!
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