Newly formed unit “The MONSTERS” with Katori Shingo (35) and Yamashita Tomohisa (27) as members, showed their first performance during SMAP’s Tokyo concert in Ajinomoto Stadium on October 14th. Yamashita appeared as a “surprise” mentioned during Katori Shingo’s solo corner, performing the theme song of TBS drama where they co-star, “MONSTERS” (Starting on October 21st, Sundays 9PM). They both sang while receiving cheers from an audience of more than 50,000 people.
The moment the two silhouettes appeared on stage, the whole stadium rumbled, wrapped in a great cheer from fans. Katori and Yamashita were wearing a blue and black costume. While exchanging fierce dance moves and matching their breathing, they sang their drama’s theme song “MONSTERS”. Usually, during the solo corner of this SMAP tour, Shingo had to dance this song always matching the images projected on the screen until they finally performed together for the first time, perfectly aligned and without prior notice to the 55,000 overjoyed fans. Yamashita talked about his first appearance in a SMAP live concert, “More than a usual live, I was double nervous, couldn’t even sleep yesterday and during rehearsal my mind just went blank”. Despite that, fans were beyond excited.
Composed by the 2 of them, Katori Shingo talked about the said song, “We had to put this idea into our own words and create a theme song. One of my favorite phrases is ‘aoi heart’, we kept thinking about what color comes to mind when you think of a monster? and the words just came out as ‘blue heart’, we both felt excited about the idea”.
Yamashita was inspired by Katori’s attitude, “I was really stuck when we had to finish the song and on top of that, I had to learn a lot of new things and kept thinking my own self so far wouldn’t be enough.” to which Katori said, “It’s not about expecting others to tell you what to do but you have to suggest your ideas and make it your own”. Before going up on stage Katori said “This is where The MONSTERS start”, performing like a scene out of a drama.
About the future, “If we can work together even after the end of the drama it would be great, I want to tour too, though it might be a little too early. We should just keep making music on our own and see where it takes us”, Katori said jokingly.
[Nikkan Sports] [Sanspo] via jenewsdaily