They almost never do so and I'm getting tired of it. The only times I can think of them performing the full song are when they are promoting a newly/soon-to-be released single on TV or in specific stage performances. The full songs used to be sung during Request Hour, but they stopped doing that after 2010. This currently makes sense now that there are 200 songs plus announcements each year, but they could at least perform the full version for the top 16 or top 7 songs (give them the Senbatsu/Kami7 treatment). I know to some people it is not a big deal, but there are songs that are MUCH better when the full version is sung. Two songs I can name off the top of my head are Junjou Shugi and Bird. Both are repetitive without the second verse and Bird is basically a solo song when it's shortened. Only the full version has the other two members singing solo lines. There are plenty more songs that I can think of, but these two are the first to pop up in my head as I heard them recently. Other songs that leave a deeper impression when the full version is sung are Blue Rose, Mushi no Ballad, Sayonara Crawl, and UZA. Feel free to name any other songs or to voice your opinions on this matter.
For request hour, top 3 songs are played in full I think. Jane doe (#3) was performed full if i remember correctly. But yeah, I agree with ur point,
I agree with you about Bird. That is an issue I always have with more recent performances of Bird, as much as I love to hear Takamina's singing. I'm not too annoyed with shortened versions on TV shows because I know that they're always in a time crunch in most TV shows. However, what really annoys me is that whenever they perform at their big concerts (spring or summer), a majority of songs are always cut short when being performed. I'm okay with the more popular songs being cut short (because we've heard them so often), but at least they should have the full versions for the songs that are performed less often. For instance, I really enjoyed listening to Hate on the 1830m album, but I was sad when Team A only performed 2 minutes of it during the 1830m no Yume tour.
I've been a fan of Kpop for the past 4 years and I'm used to watching videos from Korean music shows such as Inkigayo on SBS where almost all the songs are played in their entirety. When I first got into Jpop earlier this year and I was looking for videos from Japanese live TV shows I was very surprised and disappointed that none of the performances from any act (not just AKB48 or 48G groups) seemed to be any longer than about 2 minutes. Is this shortening of songs a Japanese 'thing'? Then again Jpop songs are often quite lengthy, 5 minutes or more isn't unusual, whereas Kpop ones are rarely more than 3.5 minutes in length. Perhaps my biggest disappointment was when I bought my first AKB48 DVD a few months ago which was the Group Tokyo Dome Concert one. I only bought the single disk version but I thought it would be a good introduction to the group's music as 30 tracks were listed. However I was rather dismayed to find that all of the songs were shortened and the whole disk was only 90 minutes long. Not good value for 5700 JPY! (I've since bought the Request Hour 200-1 set which IMO is much better value in spite of shortened songs again.)
I think for events like Request Hour it's understandable because there are 200 songs (or even if it's 100 songs like before it's still a lot). If all the songs would be performed in full, it would take forever! Even though I agree some songs are cut too short, but overall I understand they have to cut them. Same for Tv performances in music shows, it's the same for everyone, they always perform short versions. However if you want to see Tv performances with full songs, you can watch AKB48 Show!. They perform many of their songs, they also always perform their new singles there, and it's full versions. I also recommend watching theater stages, since they also perform full songs there all the time (the only exception - I think? - is during Waiting Stages back in 2013 or so, I remember Team B had one part of their stage where they performed short versions of some songs, but it's just an exception).
The thing here is that the higher-ups want to have as many songs performed as possible to make fans happy, even though many of the songs work a lot better compositionally and choreographically when performed in full (River comes to mind immediately). As a fan of many less-popular members, often times their lines are in the second verse, so it kind of hurts when they don't get their glory. Most interesting though is the songs that are ALWAYS performed in full. Some make sense (16 nin Shimai no Uta and Team B Oshi), but there are a few like Kuroi Tenshi which are never shortened.
It's so frustrating to me, when they shorten songs. It almost completely nips their impact.. not too mention having girls appear only to sing a couple group lines in the chorus is such a waste. I think the three most annoying are Mushi no Ballad, Bird, and OOGOE DIAMOND.... Jurina was the center of Oogoe Diamond, and they never even sing her solo part. Mushi no Ballad's lyrics make so much more sense when you get the full story of the lyrics... And why not just have Takamina sing by herself when they perform Bird? I get that TV shows have strict timing... so leave the shortened versions for those places. Request Hour? Make the top whatever full, leave the rest short... as for regular concerts, I think they should all be full performances. If you pay to go see the Request Hour concerts, I think you deserve to see more than a 1:45-ish performance of the song you voted for. Even more negative points if that 1:45 minute performance is totally lipsynced...
Thank you guys for agreeing with me. It's very disappointing that you would expect them to at least take advantage of the full songs a bit more. It's not like they have anything to lose. Cutting a song short for TV or during the early parts of Request Hour makes sense. There are time limitations, and Request Hour is five days long even with the shortened songs. But once it goes down to the last few songs, there is no excuse to shorten them.
I suppose for TV it can't be changed but I do get super pissed when they cut songs in concerts. At least now they perform full A-side in AKB Show, but a bunch of B-sides never get proper performances. They should change the length of RH if they can't fit all the songs in, I don't want to pay for half a song
For me, it's not that big of a deal but more of a plus if they perform a song in full. Besides RH top 3 and stage songs, there's an instance that the last song of a concert could be performed in full but most of the time, it's just the short version.
Just watched some performances of Idol Yokocho Natsu Matsuri, Sekigahara Idol Wars and Jam Natalie Expo on YouTube. I came to a decision that 48G needs to perform full versions of their songs. Some songs such as BwT is always performed in full version in concerts.
