Sakanaquarium Hikari Online was the first online concert by the Japanese rock band Sakanaction. It was livestreamed on August 15, 2020, for members of the band's fan club, and again to general ticket holders on August 16. The online concerts were organized after the cancelation of the band's 2020 tour, in support of their seventh album 834.194 (2019), as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The band worked with art director Yusuke Tanaka with the goal of transforming online concerts — which had become commonplace during the pandemic — into a new genre of media, rather than a replacement to in-person performances.
Hikari Online was filmed at the Chiba studio of set design company and was performed entirely live. The setlist, consisting twenty songs across two hours, was divided into two segments: the former deep and mid-tempo, and the latter upbeat. The transition between the two acts was marked by the main stage moving to a second set. The staging also included smoke, laser lights, various lightning techniques, and real-time visual effects by the creative collective Rhizomatiks.
Japanese music publications praised Hikari Online for Sakanaction's artistic exploration of the online concert. Commercially, the August 16 show for general ticket holders was watched live by around 60,000 people. A video album of the concert was released to Blu-ray and DVD on March 17, 2021, and its limited editions included a bonus documentary.
Background
The Japanese rock band Sakanaction released their seventh studio album, 834.194, in June 2019, and performed an accompanying tour, Sakanaquarium 2019: 834.194 – 6.1ch Sound Around Arena Session, between April 2019 and June. Equipped with over 300 additional speakers to improve the sound quality of the venues, the final show at the Portmesse Nagoya attracted over 100,000 people in attendance. A second touring effort for the album, Sakanaquarium 2020: 834.194 Hikari, was originally scheduled with 23 shows, spanning from January 2020 until April, with three additional shows in May. This tour was sold out and went underway in January as intended, until restrictions implemented amid the COVID-19 pandemic caused remaining shows from February to be delayed and ultimately canceled.
Conception After the cancelation of their tour, Sakanaction opted to perform an online concert in its place, as did many other artists amid pandemic restrictions. However, in the description of Oricon's Yūichirō Fuse, the increase of online concerts had made it clear that they were insufficient replacements to in-person shows, which led several artists — including Sakanaction — to reconsider the unique possibilities of live performances tailored specifically for screens. Frontman Ichiro Yamaguchi's opinion was that online concerts would eventually reach a point where viewers would grow unenthusiastic and only watch them while wishing for a return to in-person performances; instead, he hoped the industry would begin to view online concerts as a new media genre. He said their goal was to invent a completely new kind of experience, but compared their approach of a "live music video" to Stop Making Sense (1984), a concert film by the American rock band Talking Heads. According to lead guitarist Motoharu Iwadera, they were uninterested in the typical online concert of simply performing as usual but without an in-person audience ("If we were going to do one, we might as well do something only possible [in an online concert]") and drummer Keiichi Ejima said they wanted to put a "spin" on it.
Art director Yusuke Tanaka, who had directed several music videos for the band, reprised his role as the general producer for the project, following his involvement in both of the previous 834.194 tours. In an interview with , Tanaka explained that the concert's basis was to create something alike a two-hour live music video and that the band wished to retain the general setlist and concept from the canceled tour, while creating something only possible through an online concert. He described planning the setlist as directing a music video for each song.
Preparation and broadcast Originally, Yamaguchi's wish was to perform the concert in September; however, he recalled that staff members expressed concern that pandemic restrictions might be loosened by then, which would allow for a standard concert to be held instead. Although that would not be the case, the project was as such hastened to August. To raise funds for their staff, the band organized a made-to-order box set containing their previous live video releases, which was opened to pre-orders in June 2020, and Santen Pharmaceutical — for whom Yamaguchi later became a brand ambassador — also sponsored the project. In 2024, Yamaguchi remembered the total budget as having been around million ().
The concert was filmed at the Chiba studio of , the set design company usually involved with the band's stage productions. The fact that the concert would only be viewed from a screen eliminated the need for a technical rehearsal and a run-through focused on the camerawork was held instead. This rehearsal was only attended by Yamaguchi, whilst the other band members gave real-time feedback by watching the video feed from their homes. Another rehearsal was held the day thereafter, attended by all members, in which they played the full set twice: the first as a soundcheck and the second as a dress rehearsal. The sound production for the concert was handled by audio engineers Sachio Sasaki and , both regular members of Sakanaction's live staff, who tried to replicate the acoustic space of the Makuhari Messe. To try and reproduce the surround sound of Sakanaction's tours in a livestream, they utilized a 3D sound system developed by KLANG:Technologies, a German firm, which allowed them to place different instruments within a circular interface to render a three-dimensional mix. It was the first time the system was used in a Japanese livestreamed concert, and also the first usage by a Japanese rock band.
The online concert, titled Sakanaquarium Hikari Online, was announced on July 17, 2020, followed by a trailer uploaded to YouTube on August 1. Its usage of KLANG:Technologies' three-dimensional sound was announced on August 8, together with a Twitch livestream by Yamaguchi, in which he explained its functions. Two runs of the concert were held, livestreamed to , , , and Line Live: the first show was on August 15, available only to fan club members, and the second was on August 16, accessible to all ticket holders. The concert was performed entirely live — camera cuts, on-screen captions (such as credits), and visual effects were all added in real-time. A team from the creative collective Rhizomatiks designed and operated the real-time visual effects during the songs "Wonderland" and "Music", and in the control room, Uramoto mastered the audio live by adding equalization and compression through the mixing console.
Stage production and concert synopsis
Overview
Shows of Sakanaquarium Hikari Online ran for around two hours and featured a setlist of twenty songs, divided into two acts: the former more deep and mid-tempo, and the latter more upbeat. The band were clad in white and the staging included smoke, laser lights, various lightning techniques, and visual effects. The lack of an in-house audience allowed the production team more freedom in planning the lighting and lasers. For example, they were able to shine lasers more freely without fear that it would hit the crowd, and could shine light from in front of the band to cast shadows on stage, which would have been unfeasible in a regular concert since the audience would have been standing from the position of the light source.
Apart from a few ideas from Yamaguchi, Tanaka was given full creative control over the concert's production. Planning around the band's setlist, Tanaka wanted the former half of the concert to feature a more "visual" style in the lighting, with "objective" camera angles, and the latter half to be more reminiscent to typical live shows, with the cameras on lower elevation to emulate the eye level of an in-house audience member. The main stage was constructed on casters to make it capable of moving backwards approximately twenty meters, which would be done midway through the concert as a way to tangibly separate the two segments. Different sets were built at the front and back of the studio: the stage in its starting position was surrounded by three walls, creating an enclosed space, and featured a dense lighting setup; when the walls were removed and the stage backed up, it would reach a second set with a lighting system similar to actual live venues.
Synopsis
Sakanaquarium Hikari Online opened at the studio's outside roadway, where Yamaguchi stood alone and watched the concert livestream on his phone. Equipping his earpiece, he slowly walked to the studio as music was faintly heard in the background. When he opened the door to the inside, the intro to "Good-Bye" — which had conversely been the closer for the canceled tour — was already being performed. Yamaguchi joined his fellow band members, waiting inside, to finish the song within orange lighting. After this opening, described as already climactic by Natalie, colorful neon lighting was used consecutively for the next two songs: "Match to Peanuts" with pscyhedelic liquid light art, and "Kikitakatta Dance Music, Liquidroom ni" with lasers. The color coordination switched to a contrasting white for "Eureka", which was accompanied with projected monochrome footage of a cityscape. After these slower city pop and dance songs, the tempo rose towards the outro of "Eureka", which led into "Native Dancer". This velocity continued into "Wonderland", which was decorated with buggy visual effects.
The concert fell back into a slower pace and calmer orange lighting with "Ryūsen". The song led into "Chabashira", illuminated by a Japanese floor lamp, on which keyboardist Emi Okazaki played a simple piano accompaniment and bassist Ami Kusakari an upright bass using a bow. The following "Nylon no Ito" was backed with footage of a night sky, light rain fall, and a young woman. The concert reached its halfway point with "Boil". The performance of the song started off simple, but as Yamaguchi faced the camera in the final chorus, the walls surrounding the band were removed and smoke filled the screen. The stage was moved backwards to the second set as the concert entered its latter half.
After reaching the second set, Yamaguchi stepped off the stage and spoke to the audience; he mentioned the cancelation of the summer's rock festivals and asked viewers to have a good time, even if "just for today". He stepped away from the main stage to Snack Hikari, an elaborate recreation of a karaoke–snack bar in the corner of the studio, where he was joined by customers and the hostess in singing and dancing to "Kagerō". Yamaguchi returned to the main stage in time for the next song "Moth", which featured blaring lasers. It was followed with a series of upbeat tracks: the band were accompanied by traditionally-dressed dancers for "Yoru no Odoriko", followed by "Identity", where the live chat reached its peak according to Natalie, which then transitioned instantly into "Tabun, Kaze". "Rookie" then saw Iwadera and Kusakari fervently banging on snare drums.