J-pop superstar and R&B songstress Utada Hikaru (known now simply as “Utada” on her domestic releases) kicked off her United States tour to promote her new album “This Is The One” here in Hawaii at the Pipeline Café, and even now of the morning after I still can’t get over how FULLY KICK-ASS the show was!!!
Now, I’ve always enjoyed Hikaru’s songs and performances when I would catch her on those various Music Programs, but up until this point, I’d only ever owned two Utada Hikaru Albums: Her debut Japanese classic album ‘First Love” and her 2004 American/International release “Exodus”. You might say that I’m more of a casual fan of Hikaru, so I wasn’t even aware of her upcoming appearance til I read about it in the Honolulu Weekly and found the show had been sold out already!!!
So imagine my surprise when I got a call from a friend inviting me to come along to check out Utada that following weekend!!! EH?! TO that SOLD OUT CONCERT?! I Said “Heck Yeah!!!” Seems the smart thing to do was to order the tickets online, and that’s just how the tickets were obtained!!!! ARIGATOOO!
This gave me a week to get a copy of Hikaru’s new THIS IS THE ONE release and get down to re-immersing myself in her music! I knew she would be pulling a lot of tracks from this new album because she was, after all, touring to promote it, what I didn’t expect was almost EVERY SONG on that album being so damn GOOD! Really, I couldn’t stop listening to it, and by the time Friday night came around, I was primed and ready to go!
Arriving at the scene, the first thing that hit me was THE CROWD!!! Now, I knew there would be a good turnout for Utada, but thought it would be a room full of hardcore fans and fans who loved her from her j-pop catalog, but…MAN!!! The Line (of crowds two to three people deep) went from the front door across two blocks and around the corner onto the main boulevard! Almost everyone who got to the line after us had the same reaction: HOLY CRAP!!!!” I knew this would be a cool show, I didn’t realize this was really an EVENT!!!!
Utada opened the show with “On and On”, the opening track to This Is The One, followed by a few more including my fave song on the CD, a jumpin’ tune called “Poppin,” where she really engaged the crowd and got EVERYONE in the mood for a GREAT TIME!
At this point she polled the audience of how many were from Honolulu, and though she was answered with a rousing cheer, when she asked how many were from Japan, the thunderous cacophony that resulted made me realize how die-hard her fans were, to travel all the way to see her in this intimate surrounding
It was then that she switched gears and began to pull songs from her impressive J-pop career, much to the delight of the crowd! From then, the show consisted of a sort of “Greatest Hits” package, with Utada mixing in singles from all of her albums, both English and Japanese, and with the incredible band she had with her, every one was vibrant and in-your-face ROCKING!
Highlights for me were the aforementioned “Poppin” (love when she sassily sings the line “Girls, You KNOW we have it better than the boys”, and she’s met with a rousing cheer from all the gals in the audience), The absolutely POUNDING Passion/Sanctuary performance, the Brazilian tinged “Me Muero”, the highly anticipated “First Love” ( I loved hearing everyone in the audience singing right along with this beloved song), and seeing Hikaru perform my all-time favorite song AUTOMATIC, grooving and totally getting’ INTO IT!!!