Utada Hikaru "In The Flesh" @ The Fillmore Irving Plaza (Non Makeup)

So, I am exhausted still from the concert experience I had last night. I had the most amazing time seeing one of my favorite singers live for the first time. I have been a fan of Utada Hikaru (or Hikaru Utada, if you prefer, Utada is her last name) since about 2000. I never thought that I would see her live ever. Even though she was born here, she's a major superstar in Japan, like crazy famous in Japan. My awesome friend, Kristine, told me that she was on tour for her latest album and asked me if I wanted to see her. Of course my answer was "Hell f***in' yeah!" "In the Flesh" was a small tour for Hikki, she only chose a few selected cities to play for in the States. Her setlist included most of her songs off her new English album "This is The One" and of course some of her most beloved Japanese songs. Yay for both!

Ok let me start from the beginning of my day. I woke up at 6:30AM to prepare myself to get to the city at 9:30AM to stand in line because this was a general admission concert. Meaning no assigned seats, meaning if you got there late you had a pretty crappy spot. I made my way to the city, and got pushed by the rush hour straphangers as they rushed to their jobs with their oversized bags and briefcases. So I got to the Fillmore Irving Plaza at exactly 9:30 and there were about thirty to forty people already ahead of me! o_O We found out that they were waiting in line since 2AM to be in the front! It was below twenty degrees that night! 

So I waited about half an hour before my friends arrived. And as you can tell from the picture, there was no sun on our block. That's when my toes began to freeze and my hands as well. I had my Uggs on too and those usually keep my feet nice and toasty, but I guess since I wasn't doing much moving my blood wasn't pumping.  I checked my phone for the temperature and it was only 32 degrees with some crazy ass wind! After about shivering in the cold for three hours, my friend had to pick up her tailored jeans from this awesome store called Uniqlo so I went with her while we left her my friend/her boyfriend Chris to stand in line with us lol. (Sorry Chris!) When we came back, the sun finally started to show itself on our side of the sidewalk. (Hooray!) We actually started to get hungry and lucked out at the fact that there was a Chinese restaurant right on the corner. So we got our food and enjoyed the warm sun for about two hours before it drifted its nice warm butt behind a building. Here are some shots (Thanks Chris!)

Here is Kristine enjoying her Chinese and tweeting about the craziness

I forgot what we were laughing about here but it's an awesome shot!

I'm probably staring at the weird fans

Then it was back to the freezing. =( Then I looked behind me to find some interesting characters. Like this man: 

Yes ladies and gents, he was wearing this bird hat. It was weird actually, a lot of people wore a bunch of Cosplay gear, aka Full Metal Alchemist goggles, cat hats, panda hats. I thought maybe I was at the wrong place and at the anime convention! The crowd was definitely a bit odd for me. Also a tad bit annoying. o_____O;; Ok enough talking, a brief pic break!

Here is a pic of my two friends who stuck it out with me (Yay Chris and Kristine!) 

Here is Chris and I. I was on the phone with my fiance telling him about the crazy people and also telling him how cold I was.

The line snaked all the way around the block, it was insane! I don't know what's crazier the Cosplay fans or the fact that I stayed 9 hours in below freezing weather on line to see her. Around 3:30 Chris' brother came (lucky guy had to work in the morning so he didn't have to wait all that time! =P) What was nice about the venue was that they gave hot chocolate to about the first seventy people because it was so cold.  Sadly I missed out on the hot chocolate because I went on a coffee run. How ironic, I know lol.

So let's fast forward to about 6:30PM, all the excited people are no longer excited, they are all irritable and cold. I was so cold that I began to shake and shiver uncontrollably. 

I'm smiling, but all i'm thinking is "OMFG I need to get inside before I freeze to death" lol. Then as we are waiting for the minutes to tick by we see this transaction go on between a scalper and a fan about 5 feet away. The conversation goes as so:

Fan: How much are you selling tickets for?

Scalper: What do you have?

Fan: I have $20 dollars (pulls out money) and an iPod Nano (Pulls a brand new Nano still in its package out of pocket)

S: Ok give me the 20 and the nano

F: Oh wait I only have 15.

S: Give whatever you got. Does the Nano work?

F: Yes it does.

S: You got two dollars more?

F: That's my bus money.

S: You got anything else?

F: uhh I have my watch.

S: I'll take that too.

I think I stood with my agape for a few seconds. The dude gave up his BRAND NEW NANO. I really hoped that he enjoyed the concert with all the stuff that he gave up.

So we finally make it in and everyone was shoving and pushing, I felt like a sheep in a herd. People have no sense of personal space. Some girl threw up because she was claustrophobic and started having some anxiety attack. Seriously though, why would you do that to yourself knowing that you freak out in small crowded spaces? Anyway, after the security calls the crowd a bunch of animals and then tells them to stop pushing, we get let in and we were so close to the stage! I think this was the closest I've ever been to an artist. 

At 8 to start the show, DJ Mike Rizzo (he sounds familiar if you play DJ Hero) came up on the stage and began to mix some music. I thought he was great, the crowd not so much. Talk about a dead crowd. Maybe a handful of people danced to the music. The only time they really reacted was when he remixed two of Hikki's songs. That's when they went nuts. I felt so bad for him cause honestly he was awesome. So props to you DJ Mike Rizzo!!! Huzzah!

The security was insane though. These big beefy guys were like hawks when it came to cameras, even cell phone pics. They had spotters everywhere! There were a couple of people who had to leave the crowd to check in their camera before they were allowed back into the concert. It was that crazy. Lucky for us we were able to get two decent shots of her on Kristine's iPhone!

I must say she is absolutely breath-taking in person. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Her voice phenomenal. It sounded like it was from the CD! I wish I could see her again. Her band was amazing, they were so into the music right along with her. My favorite songs were "Apple and Cinnamon," "Stay Gold," "Kremlin Dusk" "This One (Crying Like A Child)" "First Love" (Of course ^^) haha sounds like I'm listing all of them. They were all amazing in some way shape or form. A few of the fans seemed unsatisfied that she didn't sing more Japanese songs, but honestly this is for her English album so I dunno what they really expected. Here is one more shot of Hikki ^^

So I hope you guys enjoyed this post. Sorry it's soo long! Here is a piece of her talking on YouTube, a sneaky fan was able to catch it without the guards noticing ^^ It gets kinda loud with the cheering so I would suggest watching it on low volume.

Was it worth the wait? Yes it was. Will I ever do it again....probably not haha, I would maybe, maybe do it again if it were the summer. I'll talk to all you beautiful blogger people soon!!