Delayed Vegas Post #2!
Ugh, I'm so slow XD Anyway! This is the conclusion to my trip, mostly focusing on Utada's WONDERFUL performance. I'll also snag some photos from Hikki's website to show you how gorgeous she was!
Continuing from my last post:
Even though I'd been standing around in a pair of shoes an entire size too large for me, (I had to wear 4 pairs of thick socks to compensate XD) as soon as the lights dimmed and Utada came out, I felt the greatest rush of energy. I could stand, right there in front of her for 9 hours if she wanted me to. Or longer! As long as she was there, I'd feel like I could do anything! I felt like I dipped into some sort of alternate state; where I was dreaming she was standing there above me; then reality hit me and I realized SHE WAS RIGHT THERE! RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME! And GORGEOUS AS HELL KDALKJERAWOIHRW2.
The first song she started out with was On and On to get the crowd hyped, and it was excellent! I was dancing and groovin' and singing along to every word while admiring her beauty; she had BIG, MESSY hair which I loved, and was wearing an awesome black velvety-type dress with lots of slits in it that revealed a hot pink underdress. She paired the dress with some AMAZING black boots with star-shaped studs covering the entire bodice of the boot. I wanted her shoes so badly! XD I'm thinking I'll probably get around to making some just like those one of these days; adding studs isn't hard ;) Anyway, enough fashion fandom, and back to the story!
I, of course sang my heart out the duration of the entire concert; though near the end my throat was so tired that I could tell that even though I was TRYING to sing, no sound was coming from my mouth whatsoever. Just whispering breaths; but that's okay because I'm totally off key anyway XD.
At this point, I can't remember the order of the setlist (hooray for posting this nearly a month AFTER said concert :p) but I still have a very good idea of the songs she sang.
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence - FYI
Poppin'
Passion/Sanctuary
Come Back to Me
Apple and Cinnamon
Exodus '04
Dirty Desire
-Cover of some rock song by Placebo-
Automatic (part 1, not 2)
Time Will Tell
Kremlin Dusk
First Love
Me Muero
Devil Inside
Simple and Clean
Sakura Drops
Stay Gold
Can You Keep A Secret?
This One (Crying Like A Child)
You Make Me Want to be a Man
And I must say, her tone was PERFECT in every single song. She sounded incredible; though I did note some subtle errors she had in a few of her performances. In Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence- FYI, I noticed that she messed up some of the lyrics during her first bridge. She was singing some of the lyrics from the SECOND bridge during her first bridge; then realized it and switched mid-lyric so what she sang didn't make much sense XD; but it was a very subtle mistake. Also, as she played Stay Gold on the piano during her performance, one of her piano chords was off; very sharp. I saw her face wriggle up a bit, but again, it was very subtle and didn't detract from the performance at all. She's such a great pianist!
If she didn't have that cover over the keyboard she was playing, you'd have been able to see exactly where we were all standing because we were literally right in front of it! Though; the cover was there for good reason; don't want anyone peeping at any Utada goods while she's sitting down ;)
As for Japanese songs, she played a great mix between her US and songs from Japan which I appreciated. She started off with a lovely piano version of Sakura Drops, which drove everyone wild. The Japanese girl standing next to me broke down in tears when she started; I'm assuming...that was her favorite song, haha. At least it kept her eyes peeled on Utada, and not on me-- she kept staring at me oddly; probably because I was dressed in lolita fashion and not... Japanese. It's sad, but true; some Japanese DO get offended when they see people of other ethnicities in clothes/fashions deemed to be "theirs". I'm not going to get into that subject here, but I felt a slight sense of that in that girl's eyes, whoever she was. During the middle of the concert we found out that the majority of the people near the front rows had all traveled from different states or countries just to see her XD there were a lot of people visiting from Japan, that girl being one of them. I'll tell you what though; there was sooooo much eye candy going on! XD Many cute Asian boys; and so much dark, silky hair. I enjoyed >:D.
After Sakura Drops she continued on into Stay Gold, which was gorgeous as always and very sweet. She also did a hybrid version of Passion/Sanctuary; starting off in Japanese then switching to English mid-song. I approved! Hearing Passion was SOOOO amazing live; and in some part she literally sang her 'backwards' parts of the song. I found that a little ironic, but it was still badass! During First Love, I think everyone in the venue started tearing up, because it's one of Hikki's most popular songs, and also one of her much older tunes. I don't think there was one person in the audience that wasn't singing along to First Love, I could even hear Steve loudly singing it while he held me from behind; which surprised me because he usually doesn't sing out loud at concerts from what I could tell. Then she continued her pattern of older songs by performing Time Will Tell/Automatic (her first 2 singles) and Can You Keep A Secret?, another classic. I was hoping she would have performed Colors or Be My Last, or hell, ANYTHING off the 'Ultra Blue' album (my favorite) but unfortunately she didn't perform anything from that album.
After her Japanese songs she went back into singing more songs from her US albums, occasionally jumping back to Exodus, playing a few favorites. Kremlin Dusk, (my personal favorite off that album) was INCREDIBLE live; it was very strong and powerful. Hikki hit all her notes perfectly; and I was like "HOT DAMN! SHE NEEDS TO RE-RECORD THIS SONG WITH THIS VERSION!" A lot of the songs she played had a heavier rock-influenced theme attached to them; which I thought was incredible because it was great to see her rock out! During Devil Inside she even played a little drums near the end, which had a powerful, tribal kind of beat to it. You Make Me Want to Be a Man, as well as Dirty Desire had EXCELLENT rockin' instrumentals, long and drawn out. Her guitarist was so cool! XD
The crowd calmed down when she began singing a cover of a song by Placebo. I'm not sure which song it was, but I remember the lyrics were something like "See you after midnight~" in the chorus. I loved the song, whatever it was, but I could definitely tell that most everyone was like "Wtf? What song is this?" in the crowd because everyone stopped singing, haha. It had a dark twist to it, which I very much enjoyed. If anyone has the slightest idea of what Placebo song it was with the (few) lyrics I provided, please let me know!
During her short breaks inbetween some songs here and there, the crowd got a great taste of her quirky, slightly-awkward sense of humor. I think she's so silly; her and I are a lot alike in the way we charm people with our...oddities. She naturally had a very humble, nervous appearance in the way she spoke, but she'd also make funny noises and cute jokes that filled the HOB with many giggles. A small part of her came off as a little cocky; however-- she mentioned that she was complaining about how the LV show didn't sell out like the rest of her shows (up to that point) had. Of course, we were a great audience so she told us about she's not complaining anymore and couldn't have wished for a better audience, but on the inside I was kinda like "well does it matter if you're sold out or not? You've got a ton of people here adoring you, what more could you ask for?" but eh. I shrugged it off; she's great and she knows it :). I wished that I would have brought her some sort of gift; I was kicking myself over it for a little while during the show since I'd thought about getting her something weeks beforehand; just never found anything worthwhile. I didn't want to get her a bear or flowers; she needed something more than that.... I should've thrown my headbow up there, or something XD. Ah! Speaking of headbow!!
If you look SUPER CLOSELY in this photo, you can see my pink headbow sticking out above somebody's head! XDDD look towards the bottom center; it's small but I promise you can tell it's there! That's my proof of how close I was! Rofl
Anyway, near the end of the night (unfortunately) drew on and it was time for her to wrap things up. She ended her performance with Me Muero, which relieved me because I'd been waiting to hear that song all night and felt that she wasn't going to perform it. It too, had a very powerful rock/jazz aura that I loved immensely. It was at this point that she picked up her presents which had been thrown on stage, as well as brought out a basket filled with white balls with her autograph on them. I wish I'd have caught one! ...but sadly, we were actually too CLOSE to her to get a chance at catching one; they all went a ways behind us. She thanked us all, and left!
The lights shut off; but the crowd eagerly waited for her encore, shouting "U-TA-DA! U-TA-DA!", clapping our hands and so on and so forth. I'm not sure how long the wait was in between (nowhere near as long as it was for Dir en Grey, those bastards XD) but before I knew it, Hikki's band members came back out and waved at us all. We cheered loudly as we saw them re-set up their equipment, and a couple minutes later Utada re-emerged, introducing us to her band members. She had two people on keyboard/synthesizer, a bassist, guitarist, and drummer. She was bragging about how she stole one of the band members (I think the drummer? maybe the bassist) from Bette Midler's band crew on her tour, sending a wave of snickers throughout the venue. She thanked us again, for being an amazing audience and performed a great encore, ending the night with (a song I can't remember, shoot) and Simple and Clean. Best ending song ever. Her entire setlist rocked my socks off <3 I love you, Utada!
Afterward, we were all pretty tired from Saturday's events, so we went back up to our hotel room to hang out, then grabbed a little food and called it a night.
Chillin in the room~
Grubbin' at the blingin' McDonald's located inside the Luxor XD
I spilled a little bit of ketchup/grease on my new dress, leaving me cursing McDonald's for being so greasy lol, but it was cheap and we were hungry. Luckily I was able to remove the stain when I got back to CO with my good 'ol Tide to go pen! ;D Yay for not ruining $250 dresses!
We proceeded to take Danielle and Andrew home for the night, then came back and paaaassed out. We had to leave early tomorrow morning, so it was best we got as much sleep as we could before we set off!
Steve and I packed up our things, and checked out of the hotel; I was so sad T_T I wanna go back to THEhotel at Mandalay Bay! And use THE toilet paper!!
See what I mean? XD
Anyway, picked up our buddies and on the way leaving from Vegas we passed an awkward souvenir shop.
"If it's in stock, we have it!" ....uh....YEAH?? Lmao we all had to take a picture of that, it was a total 'wtf' moment. Talk about redundancy!
Finally we ended our time in Nevada by stopping at a restaurant/souvenir shop outside of town called The Iron Skillet. We were actually pretty shocked to find that everything they served to you actually came out on top of an iron skillet XD ZING! Even Danielle's oatmeal was served in iron!
I tell you what, that place had some of the BEST breakfast food I'd ever tasted! I was skeptical when we first got there because I'm not so big on eating at truck-stop kind of places because I always think they look dirty, but this one was very nice, and the staff and food were great ;) mmm! Sadly, throughout the entire trip I had completely forgotten to buy ANY souvenirs whatsoever, so we all pretty much left empty-handed, but with minds full of glorious memories <3 If I knew Utada was coming back, FUCK YEAH YOU BET I'D GO RIGHT BACK AND DO THE SAME THING!
We spent about 13 hours on the long ride home, but finally arrived around 1am. Next time I go to Vegas, you bet I'm gonna fly! My back started to hurt from sitting for so long, and my legs felt all cramped, bleh. But, oh my gosh. Every single minute of waiting/riding/standing/crampiness/discomfort was completely worth it. I'd totally do it again in a heartbeat. I'm pretty sure, that seeing Utada live in Vegas is, for sure, the highlight of this entire year. Maybe more. If you've never heard the songs I've mentioned or this artist, YOU HAVE TO CHECK HER OUT! She's so grand! It becomes very easy to tell why she's my favorite artist <3
...Took me long enough to complete this, right?! XD
Continuing from my last post:
Even though I'd been standing around in a pair of shoes an entire size too large for me, (I had to wear 4 pairs of thick socks to compensate XD) as soon as the lights dimmed and Utada came out, I felt the greatest rush of energy. I could stand, right there in front of her for 9 hours if she wanted me to. Or longer! As long as she was there, I'd feel like I could do anything! I felt like I dipped into some sort of alternate state; where I was dreaming she was standing there above me; then reality hit me and I realized SHE WAS RIGHT THERE! RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME! And GORGEOUS AS HELL KDALKJERAWOIHRW2.
The first song she started out with was On and On to get the crowd hyped, and it was excellent! I was dancing and groovin' and singing along to every word while admiring her beauty; she had BIG, MESSY hair which I loved, and was wearing an awesome black velvety-type dress with lots of slits in it that revealed a hot pink underdress. She paired the dress with some AMAZING black boots with star-shaped studs covering the entire bodice of the boot. I wanted her shoes so badly! XD I'm thinking I'll probably get around to making some just like those one of these days; adding studs isn't hard ;) Anyway, enough fashion fandom, and back to the story!
I, of course sang my heart out the duration of the entire concert; though near the end my throat was so tired that I could tell that even though I was TRYING to sing, no sound was coming from my mouth whatsoever. Just whispering breaths; but that's okay because I'm totally off key anyway XD.
At this point, I can't remember the order of the setlist (hooray for posting this nearly a month AFTER said concert :p) but I still have a very good idea of the songs she sang.
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence - FYI
Poppin'
Passion/Sanctuary
Come Back to Me
Apple and Cinnamon
Exodus '04
Dirty Desire
-Cover of some rock song by Placebo-
Automatic (part 1, not 2)
Time Will Tell
Kremlin Dusk
First Love
Me Muero
Devil Inside
Simple and Clean
Sakura Drops
Stay Gold
Can You Keep A Secret?
This One (Crying Like A Child)
You Make Me Want to be a Man
And I must say, her tone was PERFECT in every single song. She sounded incredible; though I did note some subtle errors she had in a few of her performances. In Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence- FYI, I noticed that she messed up some of the lyrics during her first bridge. She was singing some of the lyrics from the SECOND bridge during her first bridge; then realized it and switched mid-lyric so what she sang didn't make much sense XD; but it was a very subtle mistake. Also, as she played Stay Gold on the piano during her performance, one of her piano chords was off; very sharp. I saw her face wriggle up a bit, but again, it was very subtle and didn't detract from the performance at all. She's such a great pianist!
If she didn't have that cover over the keyboard she was playing, you'd have been able to see exactly where we were all standing because we were literally right in front of it! Though; the cover was there for good reason; don't want anyone peeping at any Utada goods while she's sitting down ;)
As for Japanese songs, she played a great mix between her US and songs from Japan which I appreciated. She started off with a lovely piano version of Sakura Drops, which drove everyone wild. The Japanese girl standing next to me broke down in tears when she started; I'm assuming...that was her favorite song, haha. At least it kept her eyes peeled on Utada, and not on me-- she kept staring at me oddly; probably because I was dressed in lolita fashion and not... Japanese. It's sad, but true; some Japanese DO get offended when they see people of other ethnicities in clothes/fashions deemed to be "theirs". I'm not going to get into that subject here, but I felt a slight sense of that in that girl's eyes, whoever she was. During the middle of the concert we found out that the majority of the people near the front rows had all traveled from different states or countries just to see her XD there were a lot of people visiting from Japan, that girl being one of them. I'll tell you what though; there was sooooo much eye candy going on! XD Many cute Asian boys; and so much dark, silky hair. I enjoyed >:D.
After Sakura Drops she continued on into Stay Gold, which was gorgeous as always and very sweet. She also did a hybrid version of Passion/Sanctuary; starting off in Japanese then switching to English mid-song. I approved! Hearing Passion was SOOOO amazing live; and in some part she literally sang her 'backwards' parts of the song. I found that a little ironic, but it was still badass! During First Love, I think everyone in the venue started tearing up, because it's one of Hikki's most popular songs, and also one of her much older tunes. I don't think there was one person in the audience that wasn't singing along to First Love, I could even hear Steve loudly singing it while he held me from behind; which surprised me because he usually doesn't sing out loud at concerts from what I could tell. Then she continued her pattern of older songs by performing Time Will Tell/Automatic (her first 2 singles) and Can You Keep A Secret?, another classic. I was hoping she would have performed Colors or Be My Last, or hell, ANYTHING off the 'Ultra Blue' album (my favorite) but unfortunately she didn't perform anything from that album.
After her Japanese songs she went back into singing more songs from her US albums, occasionally jumping back to Exodus, playing a few favorites. Kremlin Dusk, (my personal favorite off that album) was INCREDIBLE live; it was very strong and powerful. Hikki hit all her notes perfectly; and I was like "HOT DAMN! SHE NEEDS TO RE-RECORD THIS SONG WITH THIS VERSION!" A lot of the songs she played had a heavier rock-influenced theme attached to them; which I thought was incredible because it was great to see her rock out! During Devil Inside she even played a little drums near the end, which had a powerful, tribal kind of beat to it. You Make Me Want to Be a Man, as well as Dirty Desire had EXCELLENT rockin' instrumentals, long and drawn out. Her guitarist was so cool! XD
The crowd calmed down when she began singing a cover of a song by Placebo. I'm not sure which song it was, but I remember the lyrics were something like "See you after midnight~" in the chorus. I loved the song, whatever it was, but I could definitely tell that most everyone was like "Wtf? What song is this?" in the crowd because everyone stopped singing, haha. It had a dark twist to it, which I very much enjoyed. If anyone has the slightest idea of what Placebo song it was with the (few) lyrics I provided, please let me know!
During her short breaks inbetween some songs here and there, the crowd got a great taste of her quirky, slightly-awkward sense of humor. I think she's so silly; her and I are a lot alike in the way we charm people with our...oddities. She naturally had a very humble, nervous appearance in the way she spoke, but she'd also make funny noises and cute jokes that filled the HOB with many giggles. A small part of her came off as a little cocky; however-- she mentioned that she was complaining about how the LV show didn't sell out like the rest of her shows (up to that point) had. Of course, we were a great audience so she told us about she's not complaining anymore and couldn't have wished for a better audience, but on the inside I was kinda like "well does it matter if you're sold out or not? You've got a ton of people here adoring you, what more could you ask for?" but eh. I shrugged it off; she's great and she knows it :). I wished that I would have brought her some sort of gift; I was kicking myself over it for a little while during the show since I'd thought about getting her something weeks beforehand; just never found anything worthwhile. I didn't want to get her a bear or flowers; she needed something more than that.... I should've thrown my headbow up there, or something XD. Ah! Speaking of headbow!!
If you look SUPER CLOSELY in this photo, you can see my pink headbow sticking out above somebody's head! XDDD look towards the bottom center; it's small but I promise you can tell it's there! That's my proof of how close I was! Rofl
Anyway, near the end of the night (unfortunately) drew on and it was time for her to wrap things up. She ended her performance with Me Muero, which relieved me because I'd been waiting to hear that song all night and felt that she wasn't going to perform it. It too, had a very powerful rock/jazz aura that I loved immensely. It was at this point that she picked up her presents which had been thrown on stage, as well as brought out a basket filled with white balls with her autograph on them. I wish I'd have caught one! ...but sadly, we were actually too CLOSE to her to get a chance at catching one; they all went a ways behind us. She thanked us all, and left!
The lights shut off; but the crowd eagerly waited for her encore, shouting "U-TA-DA! U-TA-DA!", clapping our hands and so on and so forth. I'm not sure how long the wait was in between (nowhere near as long as it was for Dir en Grey, those bastards XD) but before I knew it, Hikki's band members came back out and waved at us all. We cheered loudly as we saw them re-set up their equipment, and a couple minutes later Utada re-emerged, introducing us to her band members. She had two people on keyboard/synthesizer, a bassist, guitarist, and drummer. She was bragging about how she stole one of the band members (I think the drummer? maybe the bassist) from Bette Midler's band crew on her tour, sending a wave of snickers throughout the venue. She thanked us again, for being an amazing audience and performed a great encore, ending the night with (a song I can't remember, shoot) and Simple and Clean. Best ending song ever. Her entire setlist rocked my socks off <3 I love you, Utada!
Afterward, we were all pretty tired from Saturday's events, so we went back up to our hotel room to hang out, then grabbed a little food and called it a night.
Chillin in the room~
Grubbin' at the blingin' McDonald's located inside the Luxor XD
I spilled a little bit of ketchup/grease on my new dress, leaving me cursing McDonald's for being so greasy lol, but it was cheap and we were hungry. Luckily I was able to remove the stain when I got back to CO with my good 'ol Tide to go pen! ;D Yay for not ruining $250 dresses!
We proceeded to take Danielle and Andrew home for the night, then came back and paaaassed out. We had to leave early tomorrow morning, so it was best we got as much sleep as we could before we set off!
Steve and I packed up our things, and checked out of the hotel; I was so sad T_T I wanna go back to THEhotel at Mandalay Bay! And use THE toilet paper!!
See what I mean? XD
Anyway, picked up our buddies and on the way leaving from Vegas we passed an awkward souvenir shop.
"If it's in stock, we have it!" ....uh....YEAH?? Lmao we all had to take a picture of that, it was a total 'wtf' moment. Talk about redundancy!
Finally we ended our time in Nevada by stopping at a restaurant/souvenir shop outside of town called The Iron Skillet. We were actually pretty shocked to find that everything they served to you actually came out on top of an iron skillet XD ZING! Even Danielle's oatmeal was served in iron!
I tell you what, that place had some of the BEST breakfast food I'd ever tasted! I was skeptical when we first got there because I'm not so big on eating at truck-stop kind of places because I always think they look dirty, but this one was very nice, and the staff and food were great ;) mmm! Sadly, throughout the entire trip I had completely forgotten to buy ANY souvenirs whatsoever, so we all pretty much left empty-handed, but with minds full of glorious memories <3 If I knew Utada was coming back, FUCK YEAH YOU BET I'D GO RIGHT BACK AND DO THE SAME THING!
We spent about 13 hours on the long ride home, but finally arrived around 1am. Next time I go to Vegas, you bet I'm gonna fly! My back started to hurt from sitting for so long, and my legs felt all cramped, bleh. But, oh my gosh. Every single minute of waiting/riding/standing/crampiness/discomfort was completely worth it. I'd totally do it again in a heartbeat. I'm pretty sure, that seeing Utada live in Vegas is, for sure, the highlight of this entire year. Maybe more. If you've never heard the songs I've mentioned or this artist, YOU HAVE TO CHECK HER OUT! She's so grand! It becomes very easy to tell why she's my favorite artist <3
...Took me long enough to complete this, right?! XD