Our Love and Peace shirt and that cardigan are both quite fly.

Hopefully the Our Love and Peace shirt doesn’t actually print with “OBODY CAN UNDERSTAND LIFE STORY” on the back. Also, the Kim Deal shirt with “Please shing”.
Borderline case is pretty adorable too.

[quote="Mafu"]Hopefully the Our Love and Peace shirt doesn’t actually print with “OBODY CAN UNDERSTAND LIFE STORY” on the back. Also, the Kim Deal shirt with “Please shing”.[/quote]

The Runners High shirt is lookin' pretty good! These ones are pretty silly though - I wouldn't bet on "OBODY" getting fixed.

Also, Sawao:
Stop trying to make "PLWS" happen
[img]https://i.imgur.com/ClKBe4V.png[/img]

I think the Kim Deal shirt looks pretty bad tbh even without the typo, and the Runners High shirt is cool but why is it brown and not red with white text like the cover?

I'm a bit dissapointed they didn't revive some of the classic 3rd Movement-era shirts like the [i]Blues Drive Monster[/i] tee that Manabe wore.

[quote="GoldenRhino"]The Runners High shirt is lookin' pretty good! These ones are pretty silly though - I wouldn't bet on "OBODY" getting fixed.[/quote]
A long time ago there was a Flag Star shirt that said "Frag Star". I wanted to buy it until they fixed the error.

[quote="Spike"]I'm a bit dissapointed they didn't revive some of the classic 3rd Movement-era shirts like the [i]Blues Drive Monster[/i] tee that Manabe wore.[/quote]
YES.

Come to think of it, new pillows merch is always disappointing. They could make so much cool stuff. WHY [language removed ] DON'T THEY? This was a big opportunity wasted.

I like the Our Love and Peace shirt. The No Self Control shirt would be better without the "plws" and the awkward text over the picture.

[quote="Spike"]I think the Kim Deal shirt looks pretty bad tbh even without the typo, and the Runners High shirt is cool but why is it brown and not red with white text like the cover? [/quote]
It looks dark brown in the mock-up photo, but the RUNNERS HIGH shirt is black. I’ll show when I purchase the sweet, sweet thing.
Overall, I like more of these designs than the Vol.1 shirts.

[quote="Mafu"]Overall, I like more of these designs than the Vol.1 shirts.[/quote]

Agree.

yeah the PLWS slightly dampens the We Are Friends shirt that I got, if it just said "team the pillows" like previous models or just "the pillows" it would have been perfect. On the other hand, my hair is so long it's closer to my butt than the top of my head at this point, so it's not like anyone is reading what's on the back of my shirt at any given time anyway.

I like the Runners High and Sawao Wasao. Borderline Case is ok but not sure I'd get it. I don't like the tour shirt and the dodgy print shirts.

They actually did fix the text on the Our Love and Peace & Kim Deal shirts. The images on the official site have also been updated. http://pillows.jp/p/information/goods-info/5037.html
When I have more time, I want to write a detailed report about the show last night.

Can't wait to hear about it, Mafu! I hadn't looked at the set list for this tour before today, but that's cool that they're playing Galatea (the b-side from Boku no Tomodachi) for the encore. That song's really awesome, perhaps even better than the A-side, and I'm curious to know how they pulled it off live.

It looks like the only thing that could've been better about this show was losing Perfect Idea as a closer. How did that go over with the crowd? For whatever reason, it seems to me like the home crowd (the Japanese) really like those goofy, closing tracks from the last 10 years or so, i.e. Poison Rock'n'Roll, Doggie Howl, Locomotion More More. I'll be honest, I never really liked any of those songs all that much, Perfect Idea included. Primer Beat is really the only outlier there in the last 10 years.

Wonderful Sight, however... that would've been quite the closer. But regardless, it's a minor quibble and I'm sure that show was a 10/10!

[quote="Son Goshin"]Can't wait to hear about it, Mafu! I hadn't looked at the set list for this tour before today, but that's cool that they're playing Galatea (the b-side from Boku no Tomodachi) for the encore. That song's really awesome, perhaps even better than the A-side, and I'm curious to know how they pulled it off live.[/quote]
Agreed, Galatea is freaking stunning. I love how it starts off with this deceptively simple groove but transforms into something rlly transcendental by the end. Dat xylophone too

[quote="Son Goshin"]It looks like the only thing that could've been better about this show was losing Perfect Idea as a closer. How did that go over with the crowd? For whatever reason, it seems to me like the home crowd (the Japanese) really like those goofy, closing tracks from the last 10 years or so, i.e. Poison Rock'n'Roll, Doggie Howl, Locomotion More More. I'll be honest, I never really liked any of those songs all that much, Perfect Idea included. Primer Beat is really the only outlier there in the last 10 years.

Wonderful Sight, however... that would've been quite the closer. But regardless, it's a minor quibble and I'm sure that show was a 10/10![/quote]
Everyone seems to love Perfect Idea. It's the perfect crowd pleaser. Sawao does his hand-mic routine, going all around the stage, it's a high energy song, etc. I love Perfect Idea, personally. I never get tired of seeing them play it live. What's not to like?

Also, I'm happy with getting Nightmare over Wonderful Sight. Maybe it's just my opinion, but... Wonderful Sight is a really uninspired song. /ripcord

Alright, I wrote this thinking of making it into a site feature (something to accompany terra's 15th anniversary report), so some of the details might be a bit redundant and similar to my other reports (ticket detail, etc.). I might edit it for the site later. Anyway, here's my report:

[b]Live Report: 2018.06.08 at Zepp Tokyo
RETURN TO THIRD MOVEMENT! Vol.2[/b]

This concert was a memorable one.
This tour was the second in the "RETURN TO THIRD MOVEMENT" series. For volume one, they performed the songs from the albums Please Mr. Lostman and Little Busters. For volume two, they would perform the songs from Runners High and Happy Bivouac. These are some of the most beloved albums from the pillows, so tickets were in high demand.
Getting tickets was an event in itself. For those of you unaware, the ticket system in Japan usually consists of "ticket lotteries" that you enter for a chance at being able to purchase the tickets. All of the tickets are numbered and you have to wait until your number is called before you can enter the venue. In order to enter the very first lottery, which offers the best tickets, you need to be a member of the pillows' official fanclub; "What's Pillows". About one year prior, I was barely able to get a ticket for the RETURN TO THE THIRD MOVEMENT! Vol.1 tour. I didn't want to take any chances of missing this one, so I became a member of the fanclub in January. When the fanclub lottery opened, I put in my request for tickets and was chosen for the second to last show of the tour at Zepp Tokyo.

Zepp Tokyo is located in Odaiba, which is a man made island in Tokyo Bay. It's a popular tourist destination that has some nice shopping malls and tourist attractions, such as the scale model Gundam. Several events are also held in Odaiba. On the day of the concert, ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION was performing at the nearby Zepp DiverCity. Just across from there, I could hear rehearsal music outside the Cirque du Solei tent.
Zepp Tokyo was scheduled to open at 6PM with the concert starting at 7PM, so I wanted to arrive early. I ended up arriving in Odaiba just past 3PM and headed to the venue. When I got there, the line for goods was already getting pretty big. It rapidly grew after I entered the queue and they started selling merchandise a bit past 4PM. I bought a couple shirts.
I would be joined by my brother; Tafu, and my friend; Tidusauron. After getting goods, I found Tafu chatting with the vocalist of a prominent pillows cover band on the bridge that overlooks Zepp Tokyo. We went to find a good coinlocker to stash our bags. Right after that, we found Tidus standing right in the middle of Odaiba's "Palette Town". As we approached him, he was holding out earbuds and asked us to guess which song he was playing. With the concert in mind, my guess was Carnival. It turned out to be... Stand Up and Go from the Pantomime EP. Tidus was goin' old school.
We roamed around Odaiba a bit, looked for something to eat, chatted with a tourist, then waited outside Zepp Tokyo as they began to let people into the venue.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/L3oL157.jpg[/img]
[b][size=85]Outside Zepp Tokyo, just before they started letting people inside.[/size][/b]

Zepp Tokyo has a capacity around 2,500 people and our ticket numbers were A300. Those allowed us to enter the venue pretty early. We paid the required 500 yen drink charge, I got a beer, then we went in and checked out how close we could possibly get to the stage. The A300 fanclub tickets turned out to be... very, very good. We easily got right up to the front with only two rows of people in front of us, in front of the Manabe area. We were among some of the craziest and most hardcore fans.

The music playing on the venue speakers was The Breeders. Sawao's signature black and white Squire Cyclone and Manabe's blue Sago Seed Rutile guitar were set up on stage. A bit past 7PM, the lights dimmed and Salon Music's "Stompin' Wheel" started playing. Everyone cheered and pushed to the front, then pillows came on stage.

The opening song was Sad Sad Kiddie, which started with the pre-recorded, robotic sounding "dizzy my future, silly my way" from the beginning of the studio version of the track. An interesting thing about Sad Sad Kiddie is that when Sawao sings it live, he changes the lyrics a bit. It's an "uncensored version". Instead of "I know you. You get on my nerves", he sings "I [b]kill[/b] you. You get on my nerves." Instead of "Will you leave behind the lost words? Just a few steps to tell", he sings "Will you leave the [b]fuckin'[/b] lost words? Just a few steps to [b]hell[/b]". Instead of "I know you. You are not my type. If I were you, I want to hide", he sings "I [b]kill[/b] you. You are not my type. If i were you, I want to [b]suicide[/b]".
White Ash would follow and then Sawao spoke to the audience.

01. Sad Sad Kiddie
02. White Ash

[b]Sawao: Long time no see. Tonight is 'RETURN TO THIRD MOVEMENT! Vol.2'. It was 19 years ago in 1999, we released RUNNERS HIGH and then HAPPY BIVOUAC. We’re gonna play all the songs from both. I don’t know what we were thinking, releasing 2 albums almost at once. Let’s step back in time together tonight.[/b]

03. Instant Music
04. Juliet
05. NO SELF CONTROL

[b]Sawao: I say “oh yeah” way more than I remembered in NO SELF CONTROL… I’m surprised. RETURN TO THIRD MOVEMENT! Vol.1 was full of hopeless songs, so we’re moving on from that. After Please Mr. Lostman and Little Busters, I wanted to write more hopeful songs with more of a “tomorrow will probably be better than today” message; kind of like seeing the light through the darkness. The next song is about blowing away the world of darkness and feeling the light; Midnight down.[/b]

06. Midnight Down
07. Bran-new lovesong
08. Boderline Case
09. Wake up, Frenzy
10. Let's see if that's true or not
11. Paper Triangle
12. RUNNERS HIGH

For Paper Triangle, Manabe pulled out a screwdriver to get that unique guitar effect. Just before the heavy part of the song, he chucked the screwdriver off to the right side of the stage. Sawao also provided some vocalizations to the song. The energy was very high for Runners High, with the audience singing along loudly.
At this point, the entire RUNNERS HIGH album had been performed. Sawao took off his cardigan and comically threw it on the ground. Continuing the with rock star shtick, he turned to Arie and said "isn't that something for you to clean up?". Everyone laughed, then Arie apologized, scooped up the cardigan, and handed it to a stage-hand. The concert then continued on to the album Happy Bivouac.

13. Happy Bivouac
14. Crazy Sunshine
15. Advice

The performance of Advice was probably the craziest that the crowd got during the concert. Everyone was jumping up and down. Advice has become a staple as an encore song, so it was cool hearing it played in the normal set-list. After the song, Sawao commented "that's not a song for a 50 year old!", then he spoke about some of his influences.

[b]Sawao: When the pillows formed, in the late '80s and through the early ‘90s, we were influenced by English guitar rock. From the latter ‘90s we discovered American alternative music and I fell in love with it. Nirvana, Pixies, Pavement, Ben Kweller, Weezer... we became influenced again by bands like those. In 1999 we took those influences.[/b]

16. Carnival
17. Our love and peace

[b]Sawao: What's next... It's "Arie whoa yeah" time![/b]

18. Backseat Dog
19. Kim deal
20. Funny Bunny

The audience sang the first chorus for Funny Bunny. After the performance, Sawao jokingly called Funny Bunny an Ellegarden cover, referencing their popular cover from the Sychronized Rockers tribute album. He continued, "occasionally, we also play BUMP OF CHICKEN!" (in reference to BUMP OF CHICKEN's Hybrid Rainbow cover on the same album). Then, he introduced the band.
Arie was the first up. He spoke about all the venues that they have played and how he was disappointed about not being able to play Budokan. Sawao replied:

[b]"It’s diverging from the topic, but our 30th anniversary is next year, right? Since the Tokyo Olympics will happen in 2020, they won’t let us play at Budokan from September of next year. We were really aiming for Budokan, our manager and I… but when Arie heard that we can't play there, he hung his head so low…"[/b]
He then imitated Arie and everyone laughed. Manabe talked about giving his all until the end and Sato talked about food.

21. RUSH
22. LAST DINOSAUR
23. Beautiful Morning with you

After Beautiful Morning with you, the pillows left the stage. Salon Music's "Chilled in Tacoma" played on the speakers and everyone clapped in unison for an encore. The mohawked roadie set up new guitars; a red and white Squire Cyclone for Sawao and a purple Sago Seed Rutile for Manabe. After a bit, the pillows came back on stage.

[b]Sawao: Of the 23 songs we’ve played tonight, this next one is our newest song. It's a kind of song like, “20 years after making Strange Chameleon, and we’re still singing songs like this?”. [/b]

Encore:
24. Galatea
25. Nightmare

After Nightmare, Sawao spoke to the audience again:

[b]"Actually… Next year is our 30th anniversary! As I mentioned earlier, we can’t do Budokan... but, we’re going to play somewhere much bigger than we usually do, so come!"[/b]

After they left the stage again, Runners High played on the speakers and everyone sang-along. Tidus belted out a cover contest worthy performance right next to me and was singing with a random Japanese fan at one point.
After a while, they came back again for a second encore. This time, they were all holding cans of Sapporo Beer. Sawao pulled out a piece of paper that had some notes. It had details about the new album; "Rebroadcast", and the album tour. He told us that the new album will be released in September and that the tour would start in November and run through March. Then, he spoke about the upcoming American tour:

[b]"It’s not of much consequence here, but next month we kick off our first tour in USA in 7 years. Every city is sold out already. I don’t really understand the American system, but apparently they can change the venue if the demand is high. For example, if we did that in Japan, it would be like changing to from Quattro to Zepp Tokyo. But even with the upgraded venues, it’s already all sold out. Why are we suddenly so damn popular!? Last time we went to US, there were like 200 people at max! I wanna tell you something... The smallest place we'll play has a capacity of 700 people. Blitz can hold around 700 people. But this tour had our highest turnout ever.
I got really tense about the American tour. The MCs and everything has to be in English. My English is pretty bad, so I went back and watched videos of myself doing English MCs and remembered stuff like “long time no see”.
This time around is the first time we’ll be traveling by car.
Manabe: We became pretty important, I guess? We’re going to be on something like an American tour bus.
Sawao: I haven’t seen photos of it or anything. But Cartoon Network, who is sponsoring everything, is arranging all that. It feels like we’re rock stars or something. It’s really weird. So as to not cause too much hassle we told them we’re not stars or anything, so they don’t need to do so much for us. They said “it’s been long established that you’re rock stars!”.
We’re not rock stars in Japan, but we’re rock stars in America.
Please lend me your powers so I can convey my feelings to the American Busters who’ve been waiting for us for so long."[/b]

Sawao grabbed the microphone off the stand for the "hand-mic" performance of Perfect Idea. During the performance, both Sawao and Manabe stood right in front of us and everyone tried to reach toward them. When Manabe played the solo, Sawao took the opportunity to chug a beer.

Encore 2:
26. Perfect Idea

After the performance, Manabe threw his pick to the audience. Throughout the night, he threw his pick several times. It came very close to us a few times, but usually ended up being knocked to the floor with people scurrying around on the ground to find it.
Everyone clapped in unison, hoping to convince the pillows to come back for one last encore. After a bit, they came back on stage one more time.

Encore 3:
27. I THINK I CAN

After I Think I Can, the pillows would leave the stage for the last time and the crowd starting exiting Zepp Tokyo. On the way out, we took a minute to look at the congratulatory flowers that were set up for the pillows and looked around to see if we could find any busters that we know. Everyone was meeting up in their little friend circles and I could hear people talking about the show and speculating about the 30th anniversary; "do you think that they will play Tokyo Dome?", and such.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ZRiOyfP.jpg[/img]
[b][size=85]The crowd disperses after the concert.[/size][/b]

Tafu, Tidus, and I took a few minutes to talk about the concert that we had just experienced together and then I was off in hopes of making the last bus to get back to my home in the Chiba countryside. I woke up the next morning with a headache and pretty bad dehydration, but it was worth it. I'm already looking forward to "Rebroadcast" and the tour that will follow, but for now... I highly recommend that the western fans try to see them at the upcoming American tour. This is a hell of an opportunity and it would be a shame to miss out.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/DMAQRw1.jpg[/img]
[b][size=85]"Rebroadcast" tour date pamphlet given out as we left the venue.[/size][/b]

[quote="Mafu"]We went to find a good coinlocker to stash our bags.[/quote]
Did you find any...babies...in there?

[quote="Mafu"]"Since the Tokyo Olympics will happen in 2020, they won’t let us play at Budokan from September of next year. We were really aiming for Budokan, our manager and I… but when Arie heard that we can't play there, he hung his head so low…"[/quote]
...that's the reason??? Screw the Olympics, man!!!!! Peace among nations? Whatever. I'm officially boycotting and protesting dat shit.

But seriously, I feel for Arie. Mighta been his only chance to play Budokan, possibly the most revered stage in Japan. At least it happened once for the other guys and Jun.

[quote="Mafu"]Encore 3:
27. I THINK I CAN[/quote]

Awesome.

A few pictures I snapped.

[img]http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m181/Tidusauron12/IMG_20180608_172117.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m181/Tidusauron12/IMG_20180608_213853.jpg[/img]