Hikki in Hong Kong

After seeing Nakashima Mika (中島美嘉) in concert earlier this year and missing Misia later, we were pretty excited to find out that Utada Hikaru (宇多田ヒカル) was coming to Hong Kong. While Foursheets was initially unable to get us tickets in the mad rush, we eventually found another avenue to get ourselves seats tonight, and I have to say that the seating wasn't half bad!

For me, Utada Hikaru is an artist I paid attention to during a period when Japanese pop culture featured a little more heavily in my life, back around the turn of the millenium. She got very famous pretty quickly because First Love was used as the theme song for Terms for a Witch (魔女の条件), a J-drama I was very fond of at the time. Then everything kinda exploded from there. But my enthuasiam for her music kinda faded after Deep River, and I was barely aware of her music after that - other than occasional songs like Goodbye Happiness with the fun video and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence - FYI - the latter because the piece from Ryuichi Sakamoto is one of my all-time favorites.

So I showed up at the concert on her Science Fiction Tour tonight - her very first tour involving a stop in Hong Kong - expecting not to know at least half the songs she was going to sing. But that's OK. It was enough just to be here and enjoy some of the classics.

She showed up in a white dress, alone except for the band behind her, and started the set with Time Will Tell - her very first single. She followed up with Letters, Wait and See 〜リスク〜, In My Room... etc., which were all songs I knew.

The audience sat docile in their seats for the first 7 songs, which was kinda unusual for me as far as concert-going experiences go. At the start of traveling, Hikki asked the audience to stand up and dance, and we needed no further instructions! The crowd had their hands up in the air, waving their arms around while jumping up and down to the beat. The light from the magnetic bracelet being sold really stood out in the darkened arena.

I had no idea that Hikki released a children's song called Boku wa Kuma (ほくはくま). I had kinda known that she liked stuffed bears, but this was news to me. Also news to me was that her Instagram handle is @kuma_power.

She took a break after a string of 15 songs, and changed into a more colorful and sculpted costume to start the second set with BADモード. The second set ended with 君に夢中, which made for 21 songs up to that point.

After changing into a more casual and comfortable outside, she came out for a 2-song encore - Electricity and ending with Automatic. The crowd went wild at the end.

The arena was packed, and the crowd was enthusiastic. Hikki was obviously moved by the love from the crowd, especially as she learned a few lines in Cantonese and tried very hard to communicate with them. To no one's surprise, the whole arena sang along to First Love and I have no doubt that there were many, many tears. So many happy fans were here tonight to see her live for the first time, including us and the Film Buffs. We all hope that she would come back sooner rather than later.

While we really enjoyed the show, our evening was somewhat affected by the two Mainland Chinese bitches sitting next to us. Before the concert started, it was broadcast in three different languages that the audience was prohibited from taking photos or video recordings during the show. There were monitors stationed all throughout the area holding signs reminding people about this, and periodically they would approach people who were violating the policy - and I figured maybe 5% of the audience did this. Unfortunately we sat next to two of them, and despite an initial admonishment from Foursheets at the start of the show, the bitches continued to do this throughout the evening. The monitors must have given them warnings about 7 or 8 times, and we even had a supervisor-type guy with headsets come to give a stern warning. But the bitches didn't stop, and no one kicked them out as had been threatened. That was really annoying to be in the presence of entitled people who openly defied rules they thought did not apply to them.

More than two decades ago, I brought my professional SLR to a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, and as soon as I started to take pictures, a monitor came and took my camera away from me. I had to go to a designated counter after the show ended to get my camera back. And that was for my first offence! Unfortunately, the security here were just too chickenshit to enforce their own rules... so we kept being interrupted as a result of our neighbors.

We were allowed to take pictures during the encore set, which just about everyone did, but we did not post them on social media as requested. Someone very famous did post them, and promptly got called out...

Here's the playlist for the tour:

Time Will Tell
Letters
Wait and See 〜リスク〜
In My Room
光
For You
Distance
traveling
First Love
Beautiful World
COLORS
ほくはくま
Keep Tryin'
Kiss and Cry
誰かの願いが叶うころ
BADモード
あなた
花束を君に
何色でもない花
One Last Kiss
君に夢中
Electricity
Automatic