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A while ago I was listening to an audio file from "VIRTUAL REMIX JAPAN × FLOW Virtual Live" #FLOW鬼退治 from 2023. I noticed the end of Re:member sounded like Break It Down (not in the setlist) was about to begin. Turns out it's taken from FLOW Chokaigi 2020 Anime Shibari with some slight edits. (1/6)

It seems they had the recordings of all individual mics from that large 2020 concert. They probably needed them for post-production of the releases on DVD/Blu-Ray and on Spotify (audio only). It seems they just reused that good concert audio for this VRChat concert and just did motion capture later.

I lined up the files from the virtual concert with the 2020 concert and they match perfectly. Only differences are that the crowd has been silenced, some screams mentioning Makuhari (the venue) have been muted and some instrument sounds still ringing from the previous song have been removed.

This also explains why, unlike the motion capture studio, the recording studio has not been shown anywhere - it didn't exist. However, it was shown in the promotional material of the Code Geass FLOW VRChat concert from 2022 so I assume that one was an unique recording, but I haven't seen it.

It's also interesting that the first half of the concert have "230620" in the filenames and the second half has "230726". I originally thought those might have been the dates of the recordings, but I now wonder if it's the date of the MC sections that had been recorded for this concert specifically.

Although I feel a bit disappointed I paid to hear something I already had, I'm surprised I didn't recognize that I had heard the exact same performance before when I saw the VRChat concert. I think the experience felt really different. It's surprising what different visuals and some talking can do.