SCANDAL held their event ＜Band Yarouyo!! Vol.5＞ on March 16 at SHIBUYA-AX. We will be reporting on this event that was held for the fifth time this year.

As it has been announced that SHIBUYA-AX would be closing on May 31, 2014, this would be SCANDAL’s last live concert at AX. Unlike the past versions of the event, which were held under a battle of the bands format, this time’s ＜Band Yarouyo＞ was held as a one-man concert due to the members’ wishes to perform as long as possible at this memorable hall for the last time.

The opening act for the event was KANIKAPILA, the grand prize winner of “The 4th SCANDAL Copy Band / Vocalist Contest”. Despite being an amateur band that look up to SCANDAL, their performance is nothing short of spectacular. After all, they were chosen out of 550 bands to reign on top, and their performance serves justice to that title.

The members of SCANDAL now step up onto the stage. The crowd welcomes the band with a deafening cheer.

“We wanted to see you! Let’s make this the best concert together!”

With those words from vocalist/Guitarist HARUNA, the show kicked off with “Runners high”, an up-tempo song released as a split single with T.M.Revolution in February. The show started off high right off the bat with the performance of the band’s newest song.

Keeping the momentum, the song was followed up with some more up-tempo tunes including “LOVE SURVIVE”, which features a memorable back-and-forth between HARUNA and TOMOMI, “Awanai Tsumori no, Genki dene”, a song that starts with MAMI’s guitar riff, and more. The powerful sound grasps a hold of the audience as they unite as one and begin surging like a wave.

“We were thinking of doing many special things today. Next would be a cover. The band that we will be covering is a band that we’ve always wanted to invite. We will be performing this song with the strong wish that they may some day come to our event.”

After this MC by HARUNA, to everyone’s shock, they began performing a song by TOKIO. The TOKO medley including songs like “Sorafune”, featured a tasteful, SCANDAL arrangement. There was no surprise here, since TOKIO has always had a strong band sound. The fans respond with a smile as guitarist / vocalist MAMI says, “We’d never even done a medley of our own songs”, and HARUNA expresses her wishes, “We never cover songs by men. I hope they would some day come!”

HARUNA announces, “In the past, we did a battle of the bands with Akaikoen and NEGOTO. Today, we’d like to invite two members from those bands as guests!” With that cue, the main composers of both bands, Maisa Tsuno, guitar / chorus of Akaikoen, and Misuki Masuda, guitarist of NEGOTO, step onto the stage.

“During an after party, we talked about leading all the girls’ bands among us three bands. We’re so close that we often go to karaoke together. From here on, we’d like to continue performing under this six-member lineup.” After this MC by HARUNA, the show by this “ultimate, one-night-only girls’ band” began.

After SCANDAL’s songs, “Shoujo S” and “Gegen no Tsuki”, were performed under the special lineup, they covered the “Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones, who had just come to Japan for the first time in eight years. This brought on the biggest cheer of the night. Drummer RINA expresses her joy, “After watching the Stones concert with the members, I thought I’d want to keep performing as a band when I’m seventy too! Since this was the first concert in a while, it felt like a long-distance relationship, but now that we’re here, I’m reassured that I love you all so much!”

After parting with the two guest members, another big surprise awaited the fans: two more new songs were premiered back-to-back. The first was the song “Departure”, for a studio live video of the song was uploaded to SCANDAL’s official YouTube for one day only on March 3, the day of SCANDAL’s indie debut and their first performance at Osakajo Hall. The song is about a new beginning and ending of a relationship that takes place in the spring. It is a bittersweet tune that suits the scenes of this season when the cherry blossoms begin to blossom. Fans had long wished the song to be released and as of March 12, it rose to the top of the USEN HIT J-POP ranking. The song and the lyrics were written by MAMI and the sound production was done by Seiji Kameda.

Without having much time to savor the moment, the next new song to be performed was “Rainy”. It had recently been announced that the song was written by SCANDAL as the image song for the Japanese version of the action-adventure movie “Shadow Hunter”. Their powerful performance showcases SCANDAL’s ever-increasing power as a rock band. The main portion of the concert came to a close with “EVERYBODY SAY YEAH!”

SCANDAL brought ＜Band Yarouyo!! Vol.5＞ to a climactic close with a performance of their major label debut single “DOLL” for the encore. With many surprises including a one-night-only, sextuplet lineup, the crowd was continuously ecstatic to be able to witness a very special show.

In June 2014, SCANDAL is scheduled to hold their second show at Osakajo Hall and a 2-day show at Yokohama Arena, which would be the biggest venue at which the band would perform. Since Princess Princess made the feat in March 1991, this would be the first time in 23 years for a girls’ band to reach those heights, with SCANDAL being the second in history.

Seriously, this is the second time that they wrote Kagen no Tsuki as Gegen no Tsuki, haha.