Utada’s “In the Flesh” Live NYC

If you are looking for an in-depth review or something actually worth reading, I would highly suggest checking out animemiz’s report instead. If, however, you would like something entertaining or want to kill a few minutes reading an “old man’s” ramblings, continue on as I’ll give the quick 411 on Utada’s “In the Flesh” concert in NYC!

I was debating whether or not to tell it in my usual style of “play by play” (like I do for the majority of my cons posts), but seeing that would lead to a lot of dead air time (i.e. ranting about 7+ hours standing in line) I decided to skip that. Instead I’ll just give the good, bad, and overall impressions to save the hassle.

On the bad, this really had to do with the venue’s management. I’ll admit I don’t do concerts, like ever, but out of the few I’ve been to I would have to say the Fillmore’s was the worst. What I mean by that is how once they started to let people in the actual building, any sense of order was thrown out the window. Beside normal security checks, getting into the actual venue was a mad rush with everyone waiting an additional 30 minutes before they would let us to where the stage was. During that time, the line ended up being lines and once the door was opened to the stage, it was like cramming 10 people at a time into a door opening that only fit 2 people at most. Plus people pushing like mad to get through the already crowded venue just made it all the more annoying. Great right?

Luckily venue management issues was pretty much it, as beside that, the concert itself was great. Like out of the dozen or so Japanese related ones I’ve seen live, easily the top 5 hands down! Utada definitely knows how to work the audience and kept everyone thoroughly pumped through her 20-odd song set list. Obviously my big favorites were her japanese songs with “First Love” being the top, but even her english stuff (which I did not like initially) grew on me as the night went by. I was thoroughly glad she stuck to her more popular and mainstream Japanese songs as its really her older songs that made Utada well, Utada Hikaru for me. I won’t go into more details on why but let’s just say after a certain time period, Utada’s songs have been hit and miss for me since ^^;;

Not really have seen any of Utada’s Japanese concerts (beside Nippon Budokan, what others have been released on DVD?), I was quiet surprised at how good she was during the various MCs. I guess since I’m used to seeing MCs a certain way after watching god knows how many other Japanese concerts, it was refreshing and weird at the same time for Utada to be pretty normal/American(?) during hers. I mean, how many Japanese artists during their MCs would bitch about the venue’s pillars (Boston), call the audience crazy for camping out (NYC), or tell them to shut up (playfully) for being too enthusiastic for cheering her on? Plus she was freely switching between Japanese and English depending on the song/mood, which had my brain working overtime to boot! Actually, on this, I have to admit it was kind of sad I understood her better when she MC’ed in Japanese versus English. I think it had to do with how she was talking; not in term of accent (she had none really) but grammatically (edit: thanks wah, my English goes down the crapper the later it gets) I guess? Like if she switched some wording around, whatever she was saying would have sounded smoother? This was more obvious to me in the beginning but I think as the night went on and Utada got more in the mood, it disappeared. Heh, go fig, but I guess it simply comes down to not being used to having a predominantly Japanese singer speak normal english ^^;;

Overall though, excellent concert and totally worth the 40USD, 7+ hours of waiting in line outside in the cold, and having my feet totally destroyed. Would I do it again if I had to? Definitely. I mean as much as Utada may not be as uber popular as she was during her peak, she’s Utada fricking Hikaru! Easily one of the artists that got me interested in Jpop back in the days whom career I’ve seen only get better and better (for the most part) since she started! Plus there are only so many chances to meet and hear artists of her caliber in Japan, let alone in the US, so for foreign fans like myself there’s just no excuse not to take the chance when available!