Perfume give us a performance of "Mugen Mirai" and give us a taste of the opening ceremony wig snatch we coulda had

Perfume held their Polygon Wave gig on August 14th and 15th; marking their first performance with fans in actual physical attendance since their P Cubed tour at the top of 2021, which had to be cut short because Corona-chan decided that it was her time to tour.

The leak confirming Perfume were indeed once a part of the Tokyo 2020 2021 opening ceremony piqued more interest in this gig, which was already greatly anticipated by fans. And whilst we got a taste of what to expect in the leak, this gig was pretty much a case of 'So, here's what y'all coulda had'. I mean, look at this shit.

The staging. The setup. The screen displays and the graphics. The structures around the stage looking like a city. This gig was absolutely an adaptation of what Perfume were planning to give at the opening ceremony, which makes sense. Something which is further evidenced by the inclusion of ELEVENPLAY in the performances of "Polygon Wave" and "Fushizen na Girl".

But how!? Gather 'round and lemme tell you.

Mikiko was originally in charge of putting together the opening ceremony performance, who also happens to be Perfume's choreographer. And ELEVENPLAY is Mikiko's dance troupe who incorporate technology into performances, who were a part of the Tokyo segment of the Rio Olympics closing ceremony, which Mikiko was also responsible for. Her involvement in the closing ceremony is what got her the opening ceremony gig in the first place. ELEVENPLAY work almost exclusively with the Rhizomatiks who create all manner of crazy tech shit, and are responsible for all of Perfume's crazy tech shit too.

To say that ELEVNPLAY are the testing ground for shit Perfume do for their performances undersells the creativity of ELEVENPLAY, but it's also kinda true. 9 times out of 10, the crazy technology shit we get in Perfume performances were done first by ELEVENPLAY on a smaller scale. Members of ELEVENPLAY are also assistant choreographers for Perfume, and also act at stand-ins for blocking during music video shoots. For those of you who have watched the behind the scene footage of "Time Warp" and wondered who the 3 other women were on the set, they're members of ELEVENPLAY. Rhizomatiks lead guy Daito Manabe often learns Perfume routines and and it's members of ELEVENPLAY teaching them to him. So the Perfume and ELEVENPLAY connection has long been tight.

Not that you needed ALL of that to convince you that Perfume were 100% supposed to be a part of the opening ceremony and that parts of this gig are adapted from what would have been their performance. But, it's more info and context for those whoa re interested in.

Perfume's Polygon Wave gig will be available to stream on Amazon Prime in December. As I post this it's not been disclosed whether this will be for Japan only or global. But given that Reframe and Imaginary Museum were both released to Netflix globally, it'd be a strange look to lock the Amazon release to Japan only, but I'm fully expected for this to be the case. Because, Japan. But until then, we at least got to see one performance from the show, which was "Mugen Mirai".

This performance was incredible. It would have looked even better if the camera angles were better. I don't get why you would choose to keep going close with shots of one member of the group and hold them for so long, when there's a big ass screen showing visuals and two other members dancing. The camera work for Perfume gigs is like their outfits. Raggedy, but gets the job done. But I really do wish they'd hire better videographers and directors. They need the same dude who directed and handled the cinematography for Hikaru Utada's Laughter in the Dark. That shit was beautifully shot. My Lawd.

"Mugen Mirai" isn't a song I'm wholly fond of. But this performance sold it in a way that no other performance of the song has. The visuals really captured the energy of the song in a way I felt previous performances and the music video failed to.

But let's talk about this fucking stage setup. Perfume's tours for quite some time now have been showing that a-chan, Kashiyuka and Nocchi have BUDGETS. From the LEVEL3 tour Perfume was flexing money. Then the P Cubed tour with all of those damn screens and the moving cubes with screens was a reminder of 'Oh bitch, we still got the money'. But THIS?! The whole stage is a fucking screen showing visuals from start to finish!? It's Perfume looking into the camera whilst wearing the Future Pop dresses made of ¥10,000 notes. And this shit was in an indoor venue. Could you imagine it at scale in a stadium!?

Old Japanese men really denied the world a spectacular performance at the Tokyo 2020 2021 Olympics opening ceremony from some of the most consummate performers in the game, who have a team made up of the best creatives in the business. Perfume shoulda just renamed this tour the 'Fuck you LIVE Polygon Wave tour', because that's what it basically became as a result of them not doing the opening ceremony. Japan played themselves, but it's hardly the first time.

The full Perfume LIVE Polygon Wave gig will be made available on Amazon Prime in December, but there's no word on if this will be global or exclusive to Japan. But in light of Reframe and Imaginary Museum both releasing to Netflix globally, there's a high probability that Perfume's Polygon Wave gig will be available globally.