Arashi to livestream final concert before hiatus on New Year’s Eve
Last year, Arashi made the painful decision to announce their indefinite hiatus that will commence in 2021. A string of events and activities has since been carried out to pacify all the heartbroken fans, such as setting up their unprecedented social media accounts, making their music available on streaming sites, and even a global tour, including a stop in Singapore, for press conferences and meeting fans. The wildly popular J-pop idol group also has an ongoing Netflix documentary, and recently concluded their Arashi Festival concert (Arafes).
The final milestone, literally happening on the last day of the year at 8pm (JST), is a livestream of their concert called This Is Arashi, which is based on their latest album of the same name. Similar to the no-live-audience Arafes concert, the This Is Arashi concert will be streamed online through a dedicated site. However, this concert will not be pre-recorded – this means that fans get to really spend Arashi’s last day with them in real time virtually, ending the year with a bang!
The tickets, priced at 5,800 yen (about S$74) each, are available for purchase on Johnny’s Net Online till 31 December, 7:30pm (JST). Arashi has set up a special Twitter account for this concert too. From now till the day of the concert, Arashi will also be releasing a series of informational videos called “Everybody Get Ready for This Is Arashi Live!”. The introductory episode and first episode are already on YouTube, although they seem to be targeted at Japanese fans as there are no English subtitles.
In the introductory episode, Satoshi Ohno said, “While looking forward to the livestream on 31 December, we will be announcing gradually through this programme, how to prepare for the concert.” In total, it has been revealed that there will be 10 episodes.
The first episode talks about getting ready for the tickets. Two points were listed out: Arashi advised to purchase the tickets as soon as possible, and a “watch together” function will be available for the fan club members.
Although international fans tend to have a disadvantage relative to Japanese fans, at least we can still purchase (with the help of parcel forwarding services) the official concert goods — available till 15 January 2021, 11pm (JST). Interestingly, Arashi has included reusable face masks as part of the lineup, which are selling at 1,800 yen (about S$23) for a pack of two designs.
Aside from that, all 11 songs from the This Is Arashi album will be available for streaming and download from 11 December too.
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