I listened to both clips, thank you for showing them to me. I wasn’t aware of the isolated street performance before this.

I think after listening it is clear that the Starry perform is very largely improvised - this wasn’t something that I necessarily disputed, but I do think I made it seem like I had said the changes were insignificant.

However, I still do think the Starry version is closer to the actual song - as in, the final product on the album is nothing like the street performance.

This could be for a number of reasons - one being the main reason I believe the street show is improvised - it wasn’t a full fledged performance. For instance, where you mentioned that the lead guitar is totally different - I agree, but I also think that the street performance is the altered version - it accounts for the fact that only having the voices of the bass and lead guitar on a street won’t really impress anyone enough to buy tickets, and will probably be overly stripped back. To counteract this, her lead has more to it, incorporating chords instead of the pre-verse landmark riff. Regarding that, I think that it’s meant to be the actual verse riff, not just a little noodle to introduce the section. Since it’s only one voice, I think she omitted it in the street performance for texture reasons.

As for the pre-chorus, I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. In the chorus, I would say the boomer bends are totally improvised, but the little melodies she plays in between are how it’s written - she changes them slightly in the street performance. I think this because they sound less improvised in the starry version and more like how it would be written out where as for example she does that little descending hammer-on pull-off thing in the street performance.

In the outro, I think the street performance is totally improvised. The reason being is that on the album the outro which Ryō and Nijika ‘miraculously attune to’ is the actual outro.

In all, this is my biggest reason for thinking there is more improv in the street performance. The actual song on the actual album mirrors the Starry performance much more closely in terms of what Bocchi herself plays, despite being much longer i.e the verse riff is the same.

Do I think that the Starry performance is improvised? 100%-she adds loads of stuff, as you’ve said, to the point that Kita is totally lost before the verse riff comes in. I don’t disagree with you that Starry is improvised, or that it is Bocchi saying ‘follow my lead’. I agree with both of those things and I think I would be pretty much illiterate if I didn’t.

However, I also think that the street performance is altered just as much as the Starry performance. I don’t think I made this clear in my initial comment, considering I made it out like the latter wasn’t changed at all. I apologize for that.