Fujifabric's last concert before their hiatus: LIVE at NHK Hall, Tokyo, February 6, 2025

About the artist

Fujifabric was formed in 2000 around singer and guitarist Masahiko Shimura^[1], who came from Fujiyoshida in Yamanashi Prefecture^[2]. Its forerunner, written “富士ファブリック” in Japanese characters, was a band he started with high-school classmates there^[3]. The group made its major-label debut in April 2004 with the single “Sakura no Kisetsu” (“cherry blossom season”)^[4][5], and Shimura wrote most of its songs^[2]. Among the best known are “Ginga” (“galaxy”) and “Wakamono no Subete” (“all about the young”)^[1]. The latter, a 2007 single^[6], has since been covered by Bank Band, Noriyuki Makihara and Kou Shibasaki, and Shimura's original recording was used in a mobile-phone commercial in 2018^[7].

In 2009 the band toured behind its fourth album, CHRONICLE (ten shows at nine venues), and then went out on a fifth-anniversary tour (ten shows at eight venues), which included a date at Penny Lane 24 in Sapporo on October 4^[8][9]. That anniversary tour turned out to be Shimura's last^[10]. He died on December 24, 2009, at the age of 29, and the band's year-end festival appearances were canceled^[11]. Footage of both 2009 tours was released in 2019, on what would have been his birthday, July 10^[9].

The remaining members, Daisuke Kanazawa (keyboards), Shinichi Kato (bass) and Soichiro Yamauchi (guitar), finished the new songs Shimura had left and released them in 2010 as the album MUSIC; its “Yoake no BEAT” (“daybreak beat”) became the theme of the TV drama Moteki^[1][7]. In 2011 the three decided to carry on, restarting that summer with Yamauchi as singer and releasing the album STAR in September^[12][1]. Their first single as a trio, in May 2012, paired “Tsurezure Monokurōmu” and “Ryūsenkei,” and the 2014 single “LIFE” opened the anime Silver Spoon^[1].

Why this was the last show

On July 3, 2024, partway through its 20th-anniversary year, Fujifabric announced that it would go on hiatus from February 2025. The statement was signed by the band and by all three members^[13].

According to the statement, in 2023, while the band was making its twelfth album, PORTRAIT (released in February 2024), Kanazawa told the others that he wanted to pour everything into that record, give the anniversary year all he had, and then leave the band. The members and staff talked it over many times, but his mind was made up, and they concluded that the band could not continue as it was^[13][12]. Kanazawa felt he had given the band everything over 20 years^[12].

The statement looked back on losing Shimura in 2009 and the decision in 2011 to carry on as three. It said the band had always held to the idea of being one that would never break up, and apologized to fans for the disappointment. After the hiatus the three would each take new paths, and they could not yet say whether those paths would lead back to Fujifabric; nothing was planned beyond February 2025^[13][12]. For now, it concluded, they wanted to give themselves completely to every remaining show and every remaining song^[14].

The anniversary celebrations were already under way. On April 14, 2024, the anniversary of the band's debut, it had played LINE CUBE SHIBUYA in Tokyo, and on August 4 it was due to headline Tokyo Garden Theater, a venue it had never played before^[5][12]. When those plans were announced in November 2023, Kanazawa remarked that younger bands increasingly named him as the reason they had taken up the keyboard^[5].

On November 1, 2024, the NHK Hall date was announced as the last headline show by the current lineup^[15][16]. Nine days later, in Yamauchi's home city of Osaka, the band shared the Osaka-jo Hall stage with Quruli and Asian Kung-Fu Generation. Natalie reported that Kanazawa sat in with Asian Kung-Fu Generation and Yamauchi joined Quruli for one song; in Fujifabric's encore, Quruli's two members and Masafumi Gotoh came out for “Wakamono no Subete,” the three singers trading lines. When Yamauchi began to speak about the hiatus, the applause stopped him; after a long pause he said Fujifabric was not going away and that he would keep making music and playing live. Quruli's Shigeru Kishida called Fujifabric, Shimura included, his comrades^[17].

The band's official mobile fan site, running since 2015, was scheduled to close on February 28, 2025^[4]. The official word was “hiatus,” not breakup. But the NHK Hall show was announced in advance as the last headline concert, Real Sound described it as the lineup's final stage^[18], and Fujifabric has not played under its name since^[19][20].

What is known about the day

February 6, 2025, was a Thursday. Doors at NHK Hall opened at 5:30 p.m., and the show began at 6:30^[15]. Tickets had sold out on the first day, and the concert was also streamed live^[18][21]. The back of the stage was lit red and the floor blue, and loud applause greeted the five musicians as they came on: the three members plus support players Daichi Ito on drums and Shinji Asakura on percussion^[22][23].

Yamauchi opened by singing “Portrait,” from PORTRAIT, and “LIFE” lifted the mood^[22][23]. “Ryūsenkei” (“streamlined”), “Akai Kajitsu” (“red fruit”) and “robologue” were all songs the band had not played live in a while; KimSuna of Fender News wrote that the playing carried something special and that the applause was louder than usual^[23]. “robologue” featured a keyboard solo from Kanazawa^[22]. After Yamauchi greeted the crowd came “Rakuen” (“paradise”), then “KARAKURI,” for which Yamauchi and Kato swapped instruments, and on through “Water Lily Flower,” “Burū” (“blue”) and “Light Flight”^[23].

Having played song after song without a break, Yamauchi teased the audience that they must be thinking the band was playing an awful lot of songs in a row, and invited them to sit down; Kanazawa poked fun at the way he put it. Kato, in his customary solo talk spot, explained that he had chosen his python-print outfit to swallow whole anyone who was feeling low^[22][23]. Kanazawa recalled playing the hall's pipe organ at past NHK Hall shows and how the audience's reaction had changed each time^[22]. At NHK Hall in November 2015 he had appeared at the organ, which sits at balcony level, to play “sing” in the encore, saying he had moved it there because opening the previous NHK Hall show on the organ had left him too nervous^[24]. Voices kept calling out “I love you” from the seats, and Yamauchi answered that the band had taught him what love was, and that he was proud it had grown up together with its fans^[23].

With the audience seated, the band moved into an acoustic segment: “Tsukimisō” (“evening primrose”), with Kanazawa on melodica, “Yoru no Naka e” (“into the night”) and “Oto no Niwa” (“garden of sound”)^[23][22]. Yamauchi said they had written a lot of good songs, and introduced the two support musicians^[22].

After Yamauchi spoke about what the past 20 years had meant, “Shō Taimu” (“show time”) launched the second half. “Sharī” and “Mirakuru Reboryūshon No.9” (“miracle revolution No. 9”) got the hall going, and Natalie wrote that a feeling of farewell spread through the room during “Green Bird”^[22][23]. In “Feverman,” Yamauchi climbed onto a riser for a guitar solo, Kanazawa answered with a ferocious solo of his own, and gold streamers came down at the end^[23][22]. After “Denkō Sekka” (“quick as lightning”) came “Tsurezure Monokurōmu,” with Kato stepping out to the edge of the stage^[22], a song from the trio's first single in 2012^[1].

The main set closed with a song that began quietly and built as the three came in^[23]. Yamauchi told the crowd that from today Fujifabric would be making a new start, and the band played “STAR”^[22], which shares its title with the trio's first album, from 2011^[1].

For the encore, Kato and Kanazawa came back first, and Yamauchi got a laugh by revealing that the two had been discussing the difference between a python and a bison^[22][23]. He fired up the crowd for “SUPER!!,” then thanked the crew, the support musicians and the fans, saying that meeting them all had given him the best life a band could have^[23][22]. The last song was “Hagan” (“breaking into a smile”)^[22][23][25].

As he introduced the members afterward, Yamauchi called out Shimura's name, drawing cheers and applause^[22][23]. Yamauchi thanked Ito, Kato and Kanazawa; Kanazawa thanked Kato, Yamauchi and Shimura^[23]. Looking back on 20 years, Kanazawa told the audience himself that this show was his last with the band^[22]. Yamauchi said that this was not the end of Fujifabric^[23]. The three put their arms around each other's shoulders and left the stage smiling, and the applause went on for a long time^[22][23]. The show had run about three hours^[23].

“Wakamono no Subete,” the band's best-known song, was not in the setlist that night. Three months earlier at Osaka-jo Hall, the band had played it in the encore with Quruli and Gotoh^[22][17].

What the show left behind

Replays of the stream were available until February 13^[22]. On February 28, the official fan site closed after nearly ten years, having launched on June 1, 2015^[4].

On May 15 the band announced a video release of the concert, which came out on June 25 in three editions: a limited Blu-ray with a 48-page photo book, and regular Blu-ray and DVD editions. It holds “almost the entire show, from the main set through the encore,” in the label's words, with all 23 songs in the night's order, plus FAB CLIPS 5, a disc of five recent music videos^[25][21][22]. In June, Real Sound wrote about it alongside new releases of the last concerts of Thee Michelle Gun Elephant and Blankey Jet City, calling it a culmination of the band's work and a record that closes its history^[18].

Yamauchi was the first to move on. In March he announced session concerts with Kosuke Saito, Sansai 2025, for May at Namba Hatch in Osaka and KT Zepp Yokohama^[19]. He opened his own fan club in May and staged a live event of his own at EX THEATER ROPPONGI in Tokyo on July 9. The next day, Shimura's birthday, he posted birthday wishes on X with a recording of himself playing Fujifabric's “Sunny Morning” on acoustic guitar^[26]. He made his major-label solo debut the same month^[20] and scheduled a birthday concert, OCTOBER SONGS, for October 25 at Showa Women's University's Hitomi Memorial Hall in Tokyo^[26].

From August 2026 he toured nationally as a solo artist for the first time, eight shows in eight cities behind his album A. At the final show, at Zepp Shinjuku (TOKYO) on September 27, he told the audience, according to the Daily Sports newspaper, that although the tour was ending, he wanted to take the first step of a new journey with them that day; he also announced headline shows in Tokyo and Osaka for January 2027^[20].

In Shimura's hometown, the songs are still heard. Fujiyoshida has long switched its public-address chime to “Wakamono no Subete” and “Akaneiro no Yūhi” (“madder-red sunset”) around his birthday and the anniversary of his death, and since December 22, 2021, Shimoyoshida Station on the Fujikyu line has played “Wakamono no Subete” as trains arrive from one direction and “Akaneiro no Yūhi” from the other^[2]. In July 2025, five months into the hiatus, it was announced that the city's 6 p.m. chime would play “Wakamono no Subete” every day for the week of July 7 to 13^[19].

As of November 2026, no return has been announced. A September 2026 report on Yamauchi's solo tour mentions the band only as having gone on hiatus the previous February^[20]. Yamauchi's words at NHK Hall, that this was not the end, and the line in the hiatus statement saying no one could yet tell whether the members' new paths would lead back to Fujifabric, are both still waiting for an answer^[23][13].