Halcali on the cover of Zipper!

Exclamation marks are few and far between on this blog, but I almost felt one pop out of the top of my head when, boarding the subway train for work I saw a big picture of H and Y hanging down from the ceiling advertising the new issue of Zipper. Scan back a few posts and you'll notice that Halcali have been regular fashion models inside the magazine for a few months. The cover is an obviously significant step up. Seeing a band toiling away in what felt like a neverending world of obscurity with Sony suddenly back on the front cover of a nationwide magazine should be enough to imagine that there's still hope for Halcali to be able to get people mentioning their names buying their records again.

What a good time for the next single though, wouldn't you agree?

MTV Countdown Show set


Here's the set as it was broadcast on MTV Japan. Without access to the set-list, I don't know if this is the full (albeit edited for TV) set, or if they're were more songs in the set that MTV just cut out completely. Hopefully it was the latter, and the 'medley' included more than just a couple of the early singles. No Wakakusa Dance?
Watching the set, I kept thinking back to that 2ch poster criticising it by saying that Halcali didn't put enough effort in on stage. Even in a set as short as this, there are parts where I have to say that I agree with him to an extent. With nothing else on stage, these kinds of gigs rely 100% on performer input, and standing perfectly still and staring at the stage doesn't do much to enliven Tip Taps Tip.
If you're a newcomer to Halcali and you want to see proof that these girls have genuine talent though, just take a look at this performance of Twinkle Star.

Twinkle Star
(medley) Girigiri Surfrider
Electric Sensei
Tip Taps Tip