My experience at the London concert:
I came around 16:00h which still was rather late, the VIP line in front of me was rather large, at first there wasn't even space in the barriers they had set up. It seemed like a 3rd or 4th row position at best. Once we were let in (30 minutes or so late) the line for the hi-touch formed and it was the longest of all the concerts I have been to. At some points of the day I was thinking maybe it would have been better to choose a different city with less people but those doubts would soon be completely gone.
For the hi-touch I gave Rina an envelope with 5 photoshopped photo prints, I told her it's one for each member and one for the whole band. (One picture of Haruna sitting under the sorting hat in Hogwarts, one with Haruna setting Mamis food on fire with Harry Potters magic wand, one of Rina having her own gallery replace whatever is in the Van Gogh museum, one where everyone in one of the pictures from Mexico last year is Tomomi and for the whole band a picture of Yellow where they sit on the bench with a note saying "Thank you for another great EU tour", except the background has been turned to red and the "YELLOW" text changed to "RED".) I have updated both censored and uncensored galleries I have posted
here.For Haruna I bought some things I think she will like a lot. I went to Kings Cross station and into the Harry Potter fanstore Platform 9 3/4. There I bought:
-Harry Potters magic wand replica in Ollivanders box (I wish I knew who her favorite character was, they offer wands of many different ones but Harry Potter is a safe choice)
-Plush key chain of Hedwig the owl
-Golden snitch key chain
-Round key chain of Hogwarts sigil
-Round key chain of Gryffindor sigil (I don't know if this is her favorite house but it's the safest choice)
The vip line being long it was already pushing it to say what it was (staff were tapping me on the shoulder to move along) so there was no time for them to look at anything. I just gave her the bag and told her it's Harry Potters magic wand and some keychains.
Once I was through the hi touch we were told to stand in rows in front of the stage. There were many rows in front of me but they left the sides open so I went to Tomomis side. I ended up in the second row directly in front of her and my view was excellent.
When they started playing I was very surprised at the sound of the venue. I have two ratings for it:
1. Without earprotection : way too loud and very harsh sounding.
2. With earprotection (made specifically for listening to loud music): One of the best sounding concerts of my life.
Obviously I had earprotection so it was incredible. The balance between instruments and vocals was just perfect, the bass was super punchy and clear (I also stood close to the speaker which helps) and for the first time ever I could listen to "Stamp!" live the way I like it, with me being able to feel the bass physically. The only song that suffered from this strong bass was chiisana honoo. Everything else worked brilliantly, the jam session was also the best sounding. By the time they played "Image" it was clear that this concert is the winner for me in this tour. It was the perfect (personal) tour finale. The MC was also the best and I loved how Mami talked so effortless in english. The pizza balloons were such a cool idea. Picking two songs I liked the most is hard because they were all outstanding, one of them would be "Stamp!", the other I can't really choose.
I met multiple people I knew again, sadly I could only talk to them after the concert because I didn't want to cut in line.
After the concert SCANDAL came out pretty early. They were far away but we waved to them and they waved back.
