"「IT WAS YOU」, American pop giant Burt Bacharach provides the music. Since being unveiled at RISING SUN ROCK FESTIVAL 2008 IN EZO, a recording has been long awaited by fans." That's a quick, cleaned up Google Translation.

This song is five years old and I've never heard of it. I'm slipping.

IT WAS YOU is really beautiful, exactly the thing I always wanted her to do. she should do more songs in this chamber setting. why she waited until now to release it?

I was just about to post this. This song really does feel like Ringo's "In My Life". Honestly, upon first listen the song felt a little ho-hum until I got to the "But that's okay/Either way it's worth it" section. Little moments like that really show the musicality of Ringo's melodies in comparison to lifeless pop robots. The string section really gives the song life too. I like it, especially after repeated listens.

As you guys have said, the video and song is evocative of classic Ringo. To be honest, I think Nu-Shiina appeals to me more than MM-era Ringo, sans Tadashii Mashii, Morphine, and on certain days Onaji Yoru and Suberidai, but the visual switch-up, if not the song, is very much appreciated in light of all the diva stuff that's come to the forefront in the last few years.

I don't think that the anniversary concert will be Bon Voyage 2, because for that tour, I reckon that she was going for a glam rock/manufactured pop star set-up. This could be the Saito Neko quartet concert, where the SG tracks aren't obsessively compulsively 'rocked in' like Electric Mole and retain their Nu-ness -- but are still arranged more humbly ala this track, Onaji Yoru, Beyond Today and Tomorrow, that one part of GX. SG popped.

I think Burt Bachrach composed this song, so sadly Ringo isn't responsible for the melody this time. it still doesn't detract from the beauty of the song. I wonder what propeled Bachrach to write a song for Ringo and how he came to know her in the first place. considering she's not very known in the west

It sounds like a Ringo melody until "to tell them, what love is, I'll say it was you" which sounds like an ambush if you're expecting an SR composition. To my ears at least.

This makes me wonder how they are going to handle the encore section of GX on the new Blu-ray. Same scratchy audio segue-ing into full blast mode?

That photo makes me want to join the SR collector brigade, heh.

^
If the packaging isn't enough, just wait until people start reviewing the blu-ray content. After all, many of us pre-ordered without already knowing what the packaging would look like. It will probably turn out that we didn't need to pre-order, though.

On another note, the blu-rays boxset is practically non-P2Pable, when you consider that not only will it consist of over 250 GB, but somebody would also have to upload it. So it won't really matter what our stance is on filesharing. Most/all of us won't be able to download the new blu-rays even if we wanted to, which means there's still some natural incentive to buy even if we couldn't care less about the packaging (or about supporting the artist/industry).