York, making debut in the US. Luckily for me, one of her concerts was close by and only cost $20. Hiatuses Mike is a fictional 16;year old anima character that has had chart topping hits and has been featured in online videos receiving millions of views. This has subsequently been followed by live performances in which the character is displayed as a hologram in front of a live band to the throngs of cheering fans. If that wasn’t surprising enough the character’s voice is not even human. It is synthetic and completely produced by a computer.
Hiatuses Mike’s music consist of mainly pop, rock, dance, house, techno, and cross over. With her being Japanese, I didn’t really expect a lot of people to actually know her. When we arrived at the Anthology Film Archives, was honestly a little underwhelming; the building looked like a 2 story brick apartment from the outside. I was hoping we had the wrong address, but it turns out we were at the right place. The building looked a lot bigger in the inside, so figured it would be the right spot.
Once my sister and I entered the Anthology Film Archives, I can already see a bunch of girls (as some guys) splaying (dressing up) as Hiatuses Mike. There were store in which you can purchase Hiatuses Mike products such as albums, games, clothing, etc. The one product that everyone purchases at a Hiatuses Mike concert is a glow stick shaped like a leek. A leek is the signature item that the chip (a smaller version of a character with an oversized head and is often cute) version of Hiatuses Mike named Hachure Mike has.
The Leek glow sticks are the item that makes the concert livelier because everyone is waving them as the concert goes on. As soon as we entered the room where the concert was held, I can see that everyone was very excited about Hiatuses Mike, and everyone was already avian their glow sticks, before the concert even began. I can see the musicians testing their equipment and what I’m assuming, discussing what songs to play. Since knew Hiatuses Mike could only sing in Japanese, I knew what she would sing most of the time because I know a little bit of Japanese (even though I am Chinese) and know how to sing a lot of her songs.
Unlike other performers Hiatuses Mike is a projection; therefore she will not get tired as she performs. However, the music is performed by real people, but during the concert, they don’t seem to even get tired. Because Hiatuses Mike can tirelessly perform, there are only around 5 second breaks between each song. There were some other Vocalism whom I did not know at the time, their names were Measuring Lukas, Gamine Ring, and Gamine Len. Although Gamine Ring and Len look alike they are apparently neither siblings nor lovers.
What also amazed me was that the Vocalism could change outfits depending on what song they were singing. The Vocalism would also talk to the crowd like how a normal performer would. During the 2 hour performance, they were able to perform 25 different songs.
