東方神起 Live Tour TREE 2014 in Tokyo Dome

I saw 東方神起 perform in Tokyo Dome!!!!!!! I'm a huge fan :)
Tohoshinki (that's their Japanese name, their official international name is TVXQ; more on that here) debuted in Japan in 2005. Originally, this group was made up of five members but since 2010 there are only two (it's a long story). All of the members are Korean, and TVXQ actually made their first debut ever in South Korea more than ten years ago. They then advanced into Japan, so they release music in Japanese. They're one of the first Korean singers who went to Japan, and one of the few who started at the bottom and worked their way up, which paved the way for more K-Pop groups to be able to easily debut in Japan, as a part of Hallyu (the Korean Wave). Therefore, they learned Japanese and can speak it quite well (I have no idea what they're saying much of the time). There's an official fan club in South Korea, called Cassiopeia, but Japan also has its own fan club, which is called Bigeast. Sadly, I am an international fan (neither Korean nor Japanese) so I can't join either of those :(
Anyway, Tohoshinki first performed at Tokyo Dome in 2009, with five members. Then things happened, and they made a comeback in Japan with the remaining two members in 2011 with their album Tone. In fact, these last three years they've had a big long tour in Japan every spring. Their next Japanese album Time was released last year, and their latest album Tree was released in March. (See the pattern there... with the letter T)
Luckily, I am in Japan SO I CAN ACTUALLY GO TO THEIR CONCERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FINALLY!!! This is meaningful to me because normally I live on the other side of the planet and am therefore unable to attend anything, also, most fans think highly of their Japan tours, and also, who knows when the next one will be... As male South Korean citizens, they are subject to conscription. The oldest member is already 28 (international age, not Korean), so he can't put it off for much longer. People are speculating that if he doesn't enlist at the end of this year he'll have to sometime next year. In addition, the last song on their newest album is titled "Goodbye For Now" T________T

I live in Osaka and they'll be holding several concerts here, but I just had to travel to Tokyo so I could attend their concert at Tokyo Dome. Tokyo Dome is very large and also special so I really wanted to experience a concert there.
I've seen TVXQ perform twice before, but not at their own concert (rather, at festivals), so in the past I only saw them perform a few songs. Now, I can finally attend their full-length concert, on a Japan tour!

My day was not going well, however. For some reason, my bank card has stopped working so I can't withdraw any money anymore. It's really important to have cash on you in Japan, so I don't know what I'm going to do... I really need to withdraw money sooner or later. That changed my plans concerning merchandise. I decided I would only buy the official light stick, which I need for the concert, and buy all the other merchandise I want next week when they come to Osaka to perform. That's actually the better idea because I traveled lightly when I went to Tokyo and it's more logical to buy tons of stuff when they sell it here in Osaka. I also ended up buying the large bag in Tokyo though because I received flyers and didn't want them to get damaged.
So I showed up early to get in line for merchandise and to check the place out. Unfortunately, the weather was horrendous!!! It was pouring rain. It was windy and cool as well. The weather was awful. I got completely wet. It reminded me of the typhoons here last summer. All I did was stand outside with an umbrella and somehow my feet, coat, arms, pants, and underwear got totally soaked. I might as well have jumped into a giant puddle. It was also difficult to take pictures due to the weather. After I bought my light stick, I still had a few hours. Although I hadn't planned on it initially, I decided the best thing to do was to return to my room, since my clothes were completely wet, especially my shoes, pants, and sleeves. I was able to change my socks and underwear, but didn't have any spare clothing to replace my wet pants and jacket. So I sat there for a while trying to dry my clothes with a hairdryer. I was worried about having to spend the concert wearing my wet clothing. Needless to say, I was in a bad mood. Even worse, water had somehow gotten into my handbag, all the way to the bottom, so my passport, and more importantly, my concert ticket got soaked. I was really frustrated and mad :(
My concert ticket was thankfully still intact, though wet, and my pants and sleeves weren't dry yet either but it was time for me to return to Tokyo Dome for the concert.

I have some pictures. Please don't copy them or remove them from this post.

I got there early and saw them setting up this merchandise stand. There were already people in line. Actually, there were three different places for tour merchandise: an area for premium seat ticket holders (pictured here), special merchandise for fan club members, and then the normal line

A notice about a surprise fan light project!! More on this later.

In line for merchandise...

Everyone, once they reached a certain part of the line, received a yellow plastic chip. You can only make one purchase per chip. I think that's because you get a special receipt with messages from the members when you spend more than 5,000 yen, and if you want more than one special receipt you have to make another purchase which has to be separate, meaning the buyer needs to get in line all over again. It's a way to ensure that people can only make a purchase at one register after waiting in line once. I don't think I explained it well. I hope you get what I mean...

Several fans puts signs of support for TVXQ in the windows of the Tokyo Dome Hotel! I saw perhaps half a dozen, and was able to photograph the larger ones that weren't so high up

So many fans were wearing merchandise from past Tohoshinki tours and even fan events! I envy them. I wish I could have gone to those concerts too. It would be cool to create a collection of tour merchandise over the years. A lot of it is wearable because aside from t-shirts, jackets and bags and keychains are sometimes sold. Also, some merchandise (from this tour and past ones) is exclusive, since it's for fan club members or premium seats.

Right after the merchandise tents there's a tent where you can pre-order Tohoshinki's next single

The tent for Bigeast merchandise! I can't buy anything there because I'm not a member of the official fan club

The regular merchandise on display. Sorry, my umbrella got into some of my photos

the large bag I bought

flyers

About the actual concert itself:

• Well, Tokyo Dome is huge, but every single seat was taken and every single person had an official light stick. The fan club color for TVXQ is red, so during the concert the whole audience is made up of tens of thousands of little red lights, creating a red ocean for TVXQ. You can see what this looks like in this video!
• For this tour, TVXQ were originally going to perform at Tokyo Dome three times this week, but a fourth day was added. I went on the second day.
• When I had my bag checked before I went in, I was asked if I have a camera. I did have my digital camera with me, since I wanted to take pictures outside the venue. I know they're strict about no photography during concerts in South Korea and Japan. At concerts in Korea I saw plenty of people get caught, having security staff erase the pictures or videos taken during the concert from their phone, and being kicked out of the venue right away. Therefore I'm unwilling to take risks. I've found that it's nicer actually, since I'm not busy with my camera during the concert and can just enjoy the moment. However, with these beautiful seas of light I really wish I could take a picture or two of the audience! I'm actually really mad at myself that I didn't do that in Tokyo Dome, since I had the perfect opportunity and probably wouldn't have been caught. >:(
• Anyway, they saw my digital camera in my bag, so I actually had to give it up to some staff who would store it. I had to stop by there after the concert to get my camera back. It was well organized and quick though, so I didn't mind.
• Where do I begin... um, the concert was really good!!!! The singing was great and it looked awesome and it was entertaining. I hardly have any experience going to concerts in which the performers aren't Korean, so I'm not sure what this is like outside of K-Pop, but I'm always impressed by the stage set up and decorations and special effects. I've seen some really cool things during concerts, including interesting uses of screens, fireworks, water, and architecture
• The tour is called Tree so of course trees and leaves were depicted throughout the VCRs (those videos shown between some performances)
• I could go into more detail about outfits and songs and other things like that, but that will be apparent anyway when they release the DVD
• This concert lasted for about three and a half hours
• Yunho and Changmin are really good at making certain faces or doing certain gestures or whatever that come off as flirty or something like that. I don't know how to describe it but I know what I'm referring to. Every time they did things like that screams would briefly erupt (though they didn't constantly engage in blatant fan service like Jaejoong did on his recent tour). They debuted a decade ago so I guess it makes sense that they've mastered being charming on stage.
• Speaking of things that got a loud response from the crowd, everyone around me went crazy over Changmin a few times. Like during one song, where there's the line "I want to kiss you". I got such an earful of screams lol
• Yunho. is. so. cute.
• No really Yunho kept being really cute!!!!!!! I don't think he really did that in front of fans before the group split. I really like HoMin's dynamic actually. The fact that Changmin is younger and that Yunho is the leader adds a spin to it.
• After Changmin left the stage to get ready for his solo performance, Yunho talked for a bit. Tohoshinki only ever speak in Japanese during their concerts in Japan. During this part, however, Yunho taught the audience a few words and phrases in Korean. The last thing he taught everyone were the Korean words for "cute" and "embarrassing", after saying that fans shouldn't call him かわいい (cute) but かっこいい (cool). He did it in such a cute way though!! After that it was time for Yunho to leave the stage, and I heard someone behind me say loudly "Yunho really is a cute person". haha
• Like I said, Yunho acted pretty cute and sometimes silly and dorky throughout the concert. He seems like such a nice person ^^ He came across as quite friendly, happy, and genuine.
• Meanwhile, Changmin was Changmin, and did none of that cute stuff. Though he did form a heart with his hands at one point, which got a reaction from the audience.
• Oh yeah, needless to say, they looked good. I liked Yunho's hair, and Changmin's looked fine too.
• During the encore, during the long ending to "Somebody to Love", Changmin poured water over his head.
• The whole audience took part in a special project for TVXQ! These are not unheard of, but every time there's a different surprise. Typically, when there are special projects like this, a different color from the official color is chosen to be switched to for one of the songs (this, for example, is from a concert last year). Every single chair had a glow stick taped to it (I don't want to know how long that took to prepare). During the encore, for the very last song, everyone was to turn off their red light stick and switch to the glow stick they were provided with. I was glad to see it went smoothly. Right before the last song, which is "Goodbye For Now", the screens facing the audience briefly turned black with "TREE" written on them. Almost instantly, thousands of people put away their red lights and started using their glow stick instead. The red ocean turned into a sea of white, with green letters in it. I knew we were spelling out a message, but I didn't know what it said. I was right in the middle of it after all. I only knew I was making up a letter, since my glow stick was green. It was at the very end that I could finally read the words when the screen showed the view from the stage, depicting the whole audience. The lights in the crowd spelled out: TOHOSHINKI FOREVER