In light of all the recent, rather opinionated discussion as to the quality of Sawao's voice and how it has changed throughout his career... I'd like to bring an interesting idea to light.

Post links to your favorite vocal performances of Sawao. It doesn't matter what time period it comes from, but it must be LIVE, not studio. If someone posts a link to a PV they shall be immediately shot.

My reasoning behind this is simple: I just want to see how people interpret and digest Sawao's voice through the years; God knows that Sawao's voice has changed a heck of a lot since the pillows started up in 1989.

I don't mind if you post more than one video, but please, let's try to keep it below a dozen; we're trying to be specific. In analyzing the results, we can deduce when the pillows had a "bad day", or a year when Sawao just could not sing. This will be an interesting thread, I think.

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Since I started the thread, I'll go first: LIVE Girlfriend 1995

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ISLJ8hHM20[/url]

I was pretty damn impressed with these vocals. It's too bad we don't have any other lives from 1995 to compare. We don't even have any other performances of Living Field songs.

This is very interesting indeed. I think we might have a good thread in the making.
Here was when I absolutely adored Sawao' singing. I was impressed at his voice at
the time, when I realized what it was like back then. And how it is now.
In this video he sounds very young, and very entergetic.

Wonderful Sight Live (2002)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWvvnYXezCM

Edit* I wanted to also add this one, it doesn't fit well with 2002 but
I felt it was necessary to point out the year, what we argue to be the "golden era"
In this one, Sawao is flawless in his singing. It will always be my favorite Hybrid Rainbow live

Hybrid Rainbow (Bubbletowns Happy Zoo DVD) 1997 Live

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg2ZDtRskq8

I'd say that Girlfriend live video is a fantastic example of Manabe's live guitar work, but not of Sawao's vocals.

Gonna go with this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7bfctv99HM

Especially in the first verse, listen to the way he nails every single note and has really great vibrato. I think that this is currently my favorite videotaped performance of Hybrid Rainbow. I know a lot of you think that the HWTBHZ performance is better, but seriously compare the two:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg2ZDtRskq8

The Wake Up! tour one has FAR better vocal technique. The only thing I like better about the Bubbletown one is the initial CAN YOU FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL!!!!

I'm going to go with the Marekenshin's Hybrid Rainbow. That into was godly. I prefer that one to the Wake Up! Stand Up! Go! Take.

I'm going to watch all of my videos and try to decide which are my favorites, I really need to watch them all. I've accumulated hundreds of live videos that past year.

LITTLE BUSTERS from Hello, Welcome to Bubbletown's Happy Zoo DVD (1997).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLn4CoUP ... re=related

Period.

@Aukm0el: I have to disagree for the same reason that I disagreed with the Hybrid Rainbow from that DVD, and the same reason I will disagree with any song from that performance or era in general. His vocal technique is atrocious. No vibrato, he's singing from the back of his throat and straining unnecessarily as a result, and just generally doesn't sound like he knows how to sing beyond hitting notes in a sequence. Great performance, but lackluster vocals.

I dunno though, I'm quite fond of the Hybrid raindbow on the Wake Up tour.
Very fond actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7bfctv99HM

We get that his vocals have gotten better through Wake up stand up!
I believe that this part of the arguement is over. Mare really did compare the two and
by doing so, made some of us realize our flawed conception of his "godly voice"
Sure the chorus was great but he did strain and never hit all of the notes like he did in
the most recent live.
So stop relinking what we already have. Find yourselves some new live vids that convey
his vocal ambiguity and find a good solid ground to mark as his "godly voice era"

Here is one video thats different and not another Hybrid Rainbow live.
He did very well with Sono Mirai wa ima, no strain, just good ole' fashion ROCK!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2u8yjgXaK8

Another great live performance and one of my absolute favorites

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iNZJOlROts

[quote="Rick Lee"]I dunno though, I'm quite fond of the Hybrid raindbow on the Wake Up tour.
Very fond actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7bfctv99HM[/quote]

lol, way to link to the EXACT VIDEO I POSTED EARLIER and missing everything.

@Brye: Pretty tight vids there, but again, compare it to Sawao's vocals on the one that I (and subsequently Rick Lee) posted. The Last Dinosaur vid is pretty darn good, but his voice isn't in top notch shape, there are definitely parts where you can hear that he's been singing for quite a while and his tone is a little thin. As for the Spiky Goose one, as much as I love that song, he still has a problem with going to the back of his throat a lot of the time, especially on the medium-high notes that he has to hold out. Frankly, anything from that era suffers from that problem. He just didn't really know how to sing for quite a while.

Yeah I guess your right on this one. He really has improved though with his vocal
abilities, I guess I'm being blinded by the song and not the voice.
I'll try to find a vid that really points out his strong points, I know theres not a lot
of Live Performances that could hint towards a good vocal performance, but I will try.

@ Rick Lee: Come on man, read the thread before diving head first into Fail territory.
I've learned the hard way and so have many other IM'rs

Yeah you've learned the hard way, especially when you say you agree with me and then post a video that exemplifies EXACTLY what I was criticizing (re: Spiky Goose).

I didn't say it was top notch vocal talent, I just said it was one of my favorites.
But yeah, I won't make the same mistake again. There was this one video I saw a while ago,
that I can't even remember what song it was. But Sawao did a great job singing wise, during that time someone
put up a video showing how bad his singing was, then someone linked a video to a live performance and shot him down.
I think it might have been the One Life HWTBTHZ live, and I think thats cheating this one.
We argued in a past thread that it was dubbed, so I don't think it would qualify.
Still if its allowed I would like to at least link it so that any IMer who hasn't seen it yet could witness
one part of the "Golden Era"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuQ3BkhYIO8

This One Life performance was not dubbed (Or at least to my knowledge)
and was a very good performance, he strained a little bit, but kept it very solid.
What do you think Mare?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09K6Klwma6c

The second one has live vocals, but everything else is just the studio track. With the first one, it sounds better than most of the songs from that live, but still has that problem where he's straining his voice far more than necessary due to singing improperly...look at the way his neck tenses up every time he sings. Just watching that makes me flinch a little bit thinking how bad that is for his vocal chords.

As for the second one, it's a single shot performance where all he has to actually worry about is the vocals, so in addition to not being tired from other songs, there's a lot of stress that he has to specifically focus on singing well, so it turned out a lot better than most things from that time period.

I'm not saying he was a terrible singer in the past, just that he had no grasp on proper vocal technique, and as a result, his live vocals lately have been far better than in the past as a direct result of him learning how to sing correctly, even though his vocal chords aren't as young as they once were.

tbh I like the old lives better than their new lives.

Back in the day it was so much more raw and the performances were so close the source of their inspiration that the emotion driving it felt more raw and genuine. With all the vibrato and polish of sawao's vocal style today, hybrid rainbow often feels more like fanservice than something he wants to sing.

I mean in this rendition of hybrid rainbow, it just reeks of fanservice. They heightened the tempo, all the flare is rehearsed and Sawao's barely sweating. It gets old.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y91xOB07klM

wheras in this one, his voice spirals out of control on the can-you-feels and you can see in his eyes for the last chorus he's just totally not there. No matter how many times I watch the video, it's fresh and feels like something that could never be re-created.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg2ZDtRskq8

sawao's rough vocal style felt genuine and fresh back in the day. These days well, they're a little like a circus act at times. I mean, that happens with most bands when they get fame. There's still alot of great performances by them but, people refer to when you're in a fit of inspiration as being "hot" and alot of times when they play older songs whose inspiration is lost in the past, the songs just fall cold.

Of course he was hardly sweating, he just cleaned up and came back out for the encore.

And it's kind of hard to speculate how into the song a performer is. He might be just as into the song in one performance as he was in another, but it's entirely possible for him to feel it in a different way, especially with a song like Hybrid Rainbow. On that first one you posted, listen to it as he gets towards the second chorus, there's obviously plenty of emotion there. Hybrid Rainbow doesn't always have to have a serious/sad feel to it, it can also be upbeat to reflect the hopeful nature to the lyrics.

Then again, that's just how I see it.

On the other hand, I wish they would play the song a little bit slower more often when they perform it live, and I think that often times there's not as much dynamics to it as there should be.