Perfume’s Plasma tour performance of “Flow” (+ Prfm news on other shit)

With the airing of their Plasma tour set for January, Perfume have teased fans with what’s to come by releasing the full Plasma tour performance of “Flow” to YouTube. Although strangely (or maybe intentionally), this performance doesn’t give you any sense of what to expect from this tour visually. Except for it featuring ugly outfits. But that’s hardly a revelation.

I don’t know why so much of this performance was cut using almost entirely tight shots. It showed off the choreography nice enough from start to finish, but the performance felt so static because the camera didn’t move - which was one of the things that made the choreo in the music video pop. It would have been cool to have had Perfume perform on a slow moving turntable, to try and bring in the sense of movement the camera created in the music video. Most performers would find that disorienting, but this is Perfume. That shit wouldn’t phase them in the slightest after some of the staging setups and rigs they’ve performed with.

We also got no sense of the space Perfume were in. We got no long shots of the stage to get a sense of scale. We didn’t see a single shot of the audience. This coulda just been a rehearsal video for all I didn’t know.

I really do wish that Perfume’s team would shoot their concerts better. And grade them better too. This performance looked so washed out, which is something that’s plagued a whole bunch of home releases of Perfume’s tours and shows for years now. Perfume’s creative team put too much work into their shows for them to be shot with dead cinematography and bad grading. Perfume Live [Polygon Wave] was shot well enough, but that was by necessity to show the entire stage and the visuals.

“Flow” is a nice song. I’m down for any kind of “575” style throwback. But it is filler, and Plasma coulda done without the single version of it. However, I do like mid-tempofume, and would like to see them build out more of a repertoire of mid-tempos. Not only do they act as nice mood shifters in tours, but they also act as nice changes of pace in albums - provided they’re sequenced well, which Perfume’s albums rarely ever are. Perfume’s team may be under the impression that nobody wants slower songs from Perfume, but I don’t think that’s the case. As long as the song is good, it’s all good. Gimme more “Furikaeru to Iru Yo” (an underrated classic). Gimme more “I Still Love U”. Gimme more “Macaroni”.

In other Perfume tour news, they will release Perfume Live [Polygon Wave] on DVD and Blu-Ray on December 24.

Perfume Live [Polygon Wave] DVD cover | © Amuse Inc.

Nocchi being identifiable via a damn silhouette!? She’s a different kinda bitch, for real. I bet a-chan was like ‘But I’m in the middle, why is the silhouette not mine’, to which somebody said ‘Your silhouette? Iconic ja nai’. a-chan sat looking like shocked Pikachu. Kashiyuka titled her head like ‘Well, they ain’t wrong’. And Nocchi just shrugged and carried on playing Bayonetta 3 on her Nintendo Switch.

Primavera Sound 2023 | © Primavera Sound

Perfume will also play at the Primavera Sound Festival in 2023, after choosing to pull out of the 2022 Festival, due to what I could only assume were concerns over COVID still bussin’ in Europe and the invasion of Ukraine - both still very much a thing now.

Perfume will be performing in Barcelona on June 1st and Madrid on June 8th. Kyary Primavera Pamyu will also be there. So expect lots of selfie’s of a-chan and Kyary, and occasional group shots where Nocchi looks absolutely over it, because she can’t stand Kyary.

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🎛️ Perfume megamixes Cosmic Explorer megamix | LEVEL3 megamix | Game megamix
🎛️ Explicit versions of songs: Nananananairo | Fake It | 1mm
🎚️ A mashup: Whitney Houston x Perfume

🎧 Playlists: The Rest “P Cubed” | Perfume Pussy Poppers

💿 Single & album reviews: Plasma | Flow | Polygon Wave EP | Polygon Wave | The Best “P Cubed” | Future Pop | Cosmic Explorer | LEVEL3 | JPN | Triangle | Game | Complete Best