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In July 2024, Ado kicked off her roughly three-month-long Profile of Mona Lisa tour with a performance at Osaka’s Osaka-jo Hall. On October 13, she ended the tour with a grand finale at Kanagawa’s K-Arena Yokohama.

Opening for her at each show on the tour was Phantom Siita, an Ado-produced idol group whose concept is “retro horror.” Their unique performances made a tremendous impact on audiences.

2024 was an exceptionally busy year for Ado. She embarked on Wish, her first world tour, with 14 performances attended by a combined audience of over 70,000 people. Then there was Heart, two days of shows at Tokyo’s National Stadium attended by over 140,000 people. These were followed by the Profile of Mona Lisa tour.

 Ado’s stage performances are well-known for her performance from within a box, but her shows go beyond just her extraordinary voice. In her dance performances, she expresses a flurry of emotions—refined, manic, joyous. This dance is a defining part of Ado as an artist. The same was true for the October 13 show. Following the opening movie that played on the screen behind her, the box seamlessly rose from below the stage. Of course, Ado made her appearance in the box.

 In her performances, Ado’s shouts and screams richly express the full range of negative emotions, such as anger, sadness, fear, disgust, pity, frustration, and jealousy. She began this show with “KokoroToIuNaNoFukakai,” a song written by her emotional rudder, utaite mafumafu. She poured out her emotions in the song’s shouts. The audience clapped along through “Backlight” and “Show,” a testament to the audience’s high expectations for Ado. Her voice, bigger than ever, and the lush backing band rose to meet and surpass those expectations. She effortlessly rapped the dense lyrics of “Fleeting Lullaby.” If anything, it seemed like Ado was seeking out new challenges to take on. In “Rebellion,” she turned the band mic towards the audience, and vocal effects adorned her voice on “Kagakushu.”

 The love ballad which began streaming in August 2021, “Aitakute” was featured in the film Kaguya-sama Final: Love Is War. At the time, Ado had yet to perform a solo show. Just as life experiences provide people with greater depth and impart a greater sense of persuasiveness to their words, the variety of emotions Ado has experienced since then gave her voice a more layered and solid feel—a reality that spoke straight to the heart. She playfully danced as she performed “Faking of Comedy” and then continued with the rhythmical “Hungry Nicole,” which she accented with cheerleader dancing and twists. Just like her unpredictable life, Ado always delivers fresh discoveries through her songs, presenting the audience with pure and unvarnished truth.

The focal point of the show was “RuLe,” which got the whole floor moving to the music. The moment the intro began, the audience erupted in cheers. It was immediately apparent that this was one of the moments the crowd had been waiting for. Although it was impossible to make out her facial expression from her silhouette, Ado sat on a chair in the box, suddenly breaking out in laughter, the very embodiment of someone who has achieved the mental state of transcendence. It was her most frenzied performance, as she swung her hair around and unleashed a sense of pent-up rage, almost palpable in every fiber of her being. Her voice, coming from deep within, was overwhelming, expressing various personalities. As the song ended, she stood atop the chair and then fell to the floor. This was no longer just a song, it was an overpowering theatrical performance that left the viewer so rapt that they dared not blink. Ado spoke to the audience, saying “I believe that if, by serving as a sidekick, my existence can help others, then I can come to love myself.” As she sang, her vocalizations were so powerful it was like she had transformed into a wild beast. She easily accomplished what no ordinary person could do. And, seeing that, the audience could not help but feel their own pent-up frustrations naturally dissolve, without singing a single note. As she had hoped, her voice shined a light for the audience, and one could not help but take off one’s hat to her exceptional skills, even when singing songs written by other artists.

 In the second half of the show, the box grew larger, presenting Ado with a wider area in which to perform. In “I’m a Controversy,” “Kura Kura,” and “Chocolat Cadabra,” the audience sang along and clapped their hands, but what stood out in particular was the excitement with which the audience reacted to each of her challenging vocal performances. Ado proceeded to perform song after song that showed off her talents and elevated songs in a wide range of genres, such as the club music-inspired “Nukegara” and “Yoru No Pierrot (TeddyLoid Remix)” and the city pop “All Night Radio,” making them her own. “0” was the last song on Ado’s second album, Zanmu, which she released in July 2024, and it was clear from the audience’s reaction to the intro that “0” joined “RuLe” as another highlight of the show. These two songs have an underground feel, as if the songs don’t want to be discovered by the masses. They also feel like especially strong expressions of Ado’s emotions.

 In the encore, Ado showed the audience two faces that she had never revealed before. She performed “Hello Signals” and then “That Band” and “Himawari,” original songs by Kessoku Band, the rock band from the anime Bocchi the Rock! She followed this up with an updated arrangement of “Shoka,” the first song that she ever wrote and penned the lyrics for, back when she was 17 or 18, and she played her own guitar, which she got when she was just 13 years old.

 “I keep moving forward and surpassing what I’ve done in the past so that one day I can come to love myself,” she said. During this voyage of coming to love herself, she has struggled with being judged based on surface-level interpretations, and she has found it hard to truly communicate her thoughts. Through her voyage, Ado shared, she has found the courage to discover her own will, her own essence, and what she truly wants to communicate. She compared this to Mona Lisa, a personage known by people around the world, but whose profile nobody knows. While she had once considered giving up playing the guitar, writing music, and crafting lyrics, she later came to want to express herself through her own music and words, showing people sides of herself that none had seen before. Even now, Ado takes on the challenges of her music while asking herself if this voyage, which she had believed in so deeply, was truly the right choice. Despite the tremendous changes around her, Ado’s roots remain unchanged. We can only hope that she will continue on her voyage.

 On December 27 and 28, Ado played rescheduled shows in Nagoya International Exhibition Hall (Portmesse Nagoya), where she performed “Take Me to the Beach,” a collaboration with Imagine Dragons that began streaming worldwide on December 16.

Ado JAPAN TOUR 2024 Profile of Mona Lisa

Sunday, October 13, 2024

Kanagawa K-Arena Yokohama

1. KokoroToIuNaNoFukakai

2. Backlight

3. Show

4. Fleeting Lullaby

5. Rebellion

6. Kagakushu

7. Aitakute

8. Faking of Comedy

9. Hungry Nicole

10. MIRROR

11. RuLe

12. I’m a Controversy

13. Kura Kura

14. Chocolat Cadabra

15. Nukegara

16. Yoru No Pierrot (TeddyLoid Remix)

17. All Night Radio

18. Value

19. Tachiire Kinshi

20. 0

21. FREEDOM

ENCORE:

22. Hello Signals

23. That Band

24. Himawari

25. Shoka

—This article by Mio Komachi first appeared on Billboard Japan