Utada In The Flesh Experience

My feet were so sore, my legs were numb, and I was tired as hell. The trip started off with a drive to Seattle, WA leaving from Vancouver, BC at around 9:30am. Seems pretty early to me especially if we wanted to be at the Showbox by 4, but it gave us a chance to stop by the outlets on the way—where I got an awesome Burberry sweater for the low discounted price of $200. After explaining to Will we’d be late, and laughing at the picture of his reaction when we told him, we made our way downtown.

It was only 2:30pm when we circled 1st and Union, so we thought we were doing fairly well in terms of timing for the show. 10 mins of debating on parking was followed by a stroll by the Showbox just to check out the scenery. Unfortunately the scenery included a lineup on the street for the show. There were only about 10 people there, but we didn’t want to take any chances and waited in line anyways.

While standing in line with Will, hours before the show even started, I saw one of my old coworkers lining up to go to the same show. What a coincidence! Later on in the evening I ended up seeing another coworker there too. After a quick exchange of our expectations on how awesome the show was going to be, we went back to our spots in line.

At around 4:30pm we got the option to go into the bar (Green Room) beside the venue where we’d get even better priority over those in line. Interesting way of doing things actually—instead of waiting in the line, they offer you a seat in the bar and give you a number (1-5 based on priority). When they start letting people in for the show, they first allow those at the bar in based on their number. It’s a nice way to keep those, who show up early, nice and comfortable before the show. So, for the next 2 and a half hours we had some drinks, talked about how awesome the night is going to be, and played a bastardized version of Chai Mui.

They finally started letting people in at around 7pm, starting with us in the Green Room. After the quick frisk, and ticket check, there was a mad rush to the front of the stage to get the best spots. Lucky us, we found spots just off center and behind a couple midgets (not literally, but rather—hilariously). The four of us had a strategy of creating empty space in the middle of us, allowing room for crumple during the concert—which eventually worked well! After the first hour of waiting, we started getting impatient.

My feet were so sore, my legs were numb, and I was tired as hell.

DJ Mike Rizzo jumped on stage and started amping up the crowd. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on me because I don’t listen to the radio and reason being: top 40 doesn’t entertain me. An hour later I could feel the tension in the crowd and within me. We were already waiting for 5 hours and still no sign of her. At about 9:15pm, Mike blurts out—she’ll be out in 15 minutes! The whole venue goes crazy!

15 minutes later he says: “She’ll be here in 15 minutes!”

Another uproar, but I stood there pouting. At this point in my head I’m thinking, holy crap we’re going through a lot for this show. After 15 minutes of an internal debacle with myself, Mike leaves the stage and the roadies start setting up! My resting heart rate just jumped from 75 to 100!

For about 15 minutes, I worry that I’m going to pass out from all the excitement—then the music starts, and then Utada Hikaru kicks off with On and on! I can’t even explain how I felt, how it was like to be arms length away from her, to look in her eyes and receive the most beautiful smile back!

The show only got better and better. After a few English songs, she starts some dialogue and even at the introduction to her Japanese songs, the crowd went nuts! I went nuts! She did a few songs while on the keyboard as well. And I quote, “This is a keyboard!” When she started singing First Love I was afraid I wouldn’t hear her because of all the crowd singing along, but her voice of course broke through and was amazing! Every song she sang brought chills down my spine. Hikki’s voice was perfect all night, and every song sounded as beautiful as the first time I heard them.

Throughout the concert, cameras were disallowed, and I’m okay with that. There’s no way I’d forget those memories! There was, although, someone between us and the stage beside the bouncer taking photos. In between songs I looked… and it was Keiko Fuji aka Utada Junko, Hikki’s mom! I was in the presence of greatness! Being in such an intimate setting is beyond words. The venue was not very big, but it was packed! I’d compare it to about double the size of the venue stages during her United tour. We were up at the front with our eyes glued to Hikki, but I did get a chance to take a glance behind us and there wasn’t an inch of unmanned/unwomaned floor!

As the concert was coming to a close, she said her goodbyes and left the stage. Then we kept screaming for an encore. After about 2 minutes of screaming her name they came back on stage! Hikki ended off with Simple and Clean (with the awesome la da da da da da da ending). It looked like she grabbed her bag to leave, but it was actually a bag of 6-8 signed kumabucks balls! She began throwing them into the crowd and I was afraid I’d get trampled by other frantic fans.

So, you can think otherwise, but this is how it played out: she had a few left, and came back to the mid-left side of the stage (where we were). As she was grabbing a ball I was looking directly at her and she looked up, saw me and smiled, then tossed me the ball. It was all in slow motion in my brain and I’ll never forget those 5 seconds of my life (I sound like a creep right now lol). I couldn’t believe it, but it happened… and now my friends and gbones beside me at the concert hate me forever.

It was the most amazing night ever! I had so much fun, and couldn’t have asked for more (well, I could but that’d just be greedy). I don’t think I could ever go to another concert and have the same connection or feeling of bliss like I did at this one.

My feet were so sore, my legs were numb, and I was tired as hell.

…3 hours with Utada’s voice was well worth it

Links:
Official Tour Photos
Video clips and audio (removed these links, I guess you had to be there)