Las Vegas ~Winter 2010~: Day 3 (番外) - Utada "In the Flesh" 2010 @ House of Blues, LV (2010.1.30)
WOAAAAAAAAH I SAW UTADA LIVE.
Already going out of order on my vacation report, and I should probably go to sleep, but I must jot down EVERY DETAIL while I still remember. I didn't think anything while I was watching the concert, but I think that might be because it still hasn't sunk in.
No photos yet, since technically cameras weren't allowed. I had my cell phone on hand tho so I took a few photos before and after the concert - unfortunately I forgot my memory card reader so I can transfer those photos to my laptop, so I'll probably have to wait til I get back to Japan to post them.
But enough tangents...onto the JUICY DETAILS!
Setlist:
Opening (Crossover)
On & On
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence - FYI
Poppin'
This One (Crying Like A Child)
Passion/Sanctuary
Sakura ドロップス
Stay Gold
Devil Inside
Kremlin Dusk
You Make Me Want To Be A Man
The Bitter End (Placebo cover)
Apple & Cinnamon
Come Back To Me
First Love
Can You Keep A Secret?
Automatic
Dirty Desire
Encore:
Simple and Clean
Me Muero
The concert was held at the House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay Hotel. To be brutally honest - the whole point of this trip was so that I could FINALLY see Hikki live. And see my big brother.
Speaking of my AWESOME brother, he's the one who so kindly got me the tickets - and even took vacation/flew all the way out to Vegas to see me. But since he said he wasn't interested, I wound up going to the concert with my brother's girlfriend, which actually was pretty cool because she knew a fair amount of Hikki's songs!
Doors opened at 7pm. We arrived a little before 8pm, since my mom obviously underestimated just how serious I was about this concert and accepted an invitation to have dinner with relatives...she should have asked to have it on a different day. When we arrived, the line was already wrapped around the hall, but they were already letting people in. After a pretty strict admissions - ID checks since you had to be 18+ to get in, and body/bag checks for cameras, etc...we were finally in! The pit area was already completely filled up, so we settled for the bar area to the right of the stage.
While waiting for the concert to start, there was a DJ playing dance/techno remixes of current/recent-ish pop music. Not sure if he had anything to do with Hikki, or if he was just there because he was associated with the House of Blues, but he was pretty cool. The crowd...was pretty interesting. Half Japanese, half non-Japanese. I'd say that almost all of the non-Japanese audience was in their 20s, but the Japanese...the ones who looked like they came from Japan just to see the concert looked pretty young, also in their 20s, but the ones who seemed to understand English and probably live in the States looked like they were eaaaaasily in their 40s-50s!! And randomly, there was an old Japanese guy who was at least 60 was there all alone. I seriously respect that guy.
After nearly passing out from dehydration since it was so damn HOT in there, the concert finally began a little past 9pm. Hikki strutted out wearing a tight dark gray/black velvet dress "damaged" with red cloth peeking from behind, ankle length boots studded with crystals, and teased hair. Not too sure I'm a fan of the hair, but her outfit was cute. (During one of the last MCs, she said something along the lines of "How's my dress...? It's been a long time since I wore something as tight as this..." So modest, it makes her adorable!!) I was I've posted the setlist above...I'm just really impressed - and thankful! - that she did such a wide range of songs. Not just songs from "This Is The One," and not just a few Japanese songs, but a BUNCH,...but even songs from "Exodus"!!!
Although I of course loved everything she performed, some of the most memorable parts:
- Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence ~FYI~. Hikki has been supposedly notorious for being not-so-good during lives, but she was really on mark for almost the entire performance! I was particularly impressed during this song, which has a pretty high range, but she did it flawlessly.
- Passion/Sanctuary. What can I say? My favoritest, favoritest song in the WHOLE WORLD. Really. I really cannot put into words just how satisfied I am to have heard this live. And she put the single and extended versions of Passion, and then Sanctuary together!!! I was blown away when she sang the last part of Passion - that part never fails to move me. I literally took a step back out of surprise!
- You Make Me Want To Be A Man. I've always been a huuuuuuuuuge fan of her perfomance of this during Utada United. When she did "Devil Inside" followed by "Kremlin Dusk," I got so excited by the idea that she was gonna do this set that I started chanting "do it do it do it" and I think creeped out my brother's girlfriend o_O
- Simple and Clean. Another song that I would have NEVER expected to be able to hear LIVE in my lifetime. This song holds a lot of good memories from high school, and it was just really moving to get to hear her sing it.
Some other random memories from the concert:
Bad manners. I remember some American girl standing near us - she was short, but unfortunately got stuck behind a clump of older (~40s), taller Japanese women. I seriously don't know what this girl was thinking - maybe she wanted them to move?, but she said to them,「すみません。ちょっと見えませんけど。」Needless to say, she got some really icy looks and was COMPLETELY ignored. It was a dumb thing to say, especially since the concert hadn't even started yet. Also, there was this reaaaaaaally OBLIVIOUS chick standing in front of us. She was a little chubby and tall, so there was nothing to complain about even if she blocked our view, but THEN she insisted on waving her HUGE arms around and bouncing about randomly - consistently blocking our view and the view of everyone around, and successfully pissing everyone off. But she totally failed to notice this, and proceeded to do so EVERY SONG, like she was at a hardcore rock concert, but instead she just looked really stupid because she was flailing even during ballads. My brother's girlfriend was a victim too, but I said, "hey - you gotta let her be. She's just feeling her song - which is EVERY song." There was also another Japanese chick in front of us who somehow always managed to shift positions so that she would completely block our view, but she disappeared for more than half of the concert, so it was too bad.
MCs! Hikki is sooooooooo damn cute. First she talked about how her straw (for her water bottle) had a hole in it and how she was spurting water everywhere. Then, she was curious where the crowd was from since apparently Vegas was the only concert that wasn't sold out, and also because it's a tourist town - not so unexpectedly, more than half of the crowd was from out of town (I was a dork and said I was a local :D...but hey, I know Vegas so well that it might as well be my home). But my most memorable - this MC, which began in Japanese:
「はい、日本語が分かるひとー」*cheers*
「日本人のひとー」*cheers*
「日本人じゃないひとー」*cheers*
"Okay, I know that there're some people at concerts who like to cheer even if they don't know what's being said, but just then I said 'who IS Japanese?' and I saw some people screaming who were obviously NOT Japanese - like 'um, but you're white?'"
This MC continued a little longer - she thanked her Japanese fans for coming all the way from Japan to Vegas「なんでベガス？！」just to see her... I wanted to scream that Japanese people aren't the only people who come from Japan JUST to see her perform XD.
There's probably a ton of other stuff I want to post but am forgetting, and I still have to check my setlist and post photos, but it's past 3am. I'll lose internet tomorrow night (paid for a 3 day internet service at the hotel we're staying out right now), but hopefully I can post again tomorrow so I don't get too far behind again in posting.
Hope everyone is doing well!!!