Throwback Thursday: Utada Hikaru: Utada United 2006 DVD

With this month marking the first new music from Utada Hikaru/Hikki since 2012’s "Sakura Nagashi", and also nearly a decade since the iconic "Utada United 2006 Tour", this TBT piece is dedicated to the DVD release of said tour.

"Utada United 2006" arguably marked a high point for Hikki’s career with her latest Japanese album, Ultra Blue, having recently been released and her Western audience riding high on her works for the Kingdom Hearts series as well as her 2004 English album, Exodus. It also signaled a return for Hikki to Japan after Exodus, playing 22 big-arena shows across Japan. It’s hard to really emphasize Hikki’s importance on the Japanese music scene, but seeing crowd shots can put her popularity in perspective, and hearing her range in both vocals and song type only cements her as one of the strongest women in the Japanese music scene.

Utada United’s DVD release setlist is an interesting mix of her latest tracks for the time, some of her more popular songs from Exodus, and her earlier works. The setup for the stage included a moving array of LEDs, which featured both her as well as various imagery during the show. The stage itself was shaped like an eye and featured light up tiles, pulsing along with the music. Hikki herself went through 4 outfit changes against an all black clothed backup band, as if marking different parts of the show.

The first chunk of the show opened with her major single at the time, "Passion". This high-powered opening led into the catchy dance-y tracks "This Is Love" and
"Traveling", before slowing down into into "Moving’ On Without You" and "Sakura Drops", and ending with the more somber "Final Distance" and "First Love". Here she wore a rather poof-y black and white dress, which bounced and fluttered around with her as she danced.

The second movement, opened with an intense interlude that went into the Exodus tracks: "Devil Inside", "Kremlin Dusk", and "You Make Me Want To Be A Man". For being English tracks, the crowd seemed to respond well to them; but then again Exodus probably fared better in Japan than in the West for Hikki. She was covered in a pillow-y coat, which honestly could not have been the most comfortable thing to wear at the time.

The third set opened with a heartbreaking cello-and-vocal-only rendition of "Be My Last". The cellist stayed as the set led into very-scaled-back-in-backing-instruments versions "Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro" and "Colors". She left as Hikki got into the groove of a retro-ish set of "Can You Keep a Secret?", "Addicted to You", and "Wait and See". This piece of the show ended with "Letters" and "Keep Tryin’". Her outfit here was a rather dramatic red dress seemingly made up of strip upon strip of fabric draped across her (it could actually be seen under the coat from the previous set).

Hikki ended the show with "Automatic" and beloved crowd favorite "Hikari". Heartfelt thank yous to her band and the crowd and confetti dotted this ending (which could be considered the encore set), closing out a powerful show with a bang. Her final outfit for the night was a simple yet cute skirt and shirt combo.

Hikki’s energy for the nearly 2 hour set never seemed to slow down, even with the slower tracks. She genuinely seemed to be enjoying herself, interacting heavily with her band as well as the crowd. The entire concert was a wonderful audio-visual assault of Hikki’s brilliance. Each segment felt cohesive, and the overall setlist was a great presentation of her body of works. The cinematography and audio of the DVD itself were great: a wonderful mix of up close, far, crowd, and overhead shots with music that felt properly recorded and not lacking in volume. I’m so very glad it wasn’t just focused on Hikki or just a handful of the same shot type, as it really gave the band proper due and the crowd shots gave depth to the insane amount of people who showed up. The segues from one song to another were well blurred, and the live versions of the tracks performed were, while different, able to stand on their own as solid renditions. I will always be impressed with Hikki’s ability to keep her vocals strong for live sets, especially with how long this one was.

My copy of the Utada United 2006 DVD is one of my most prized possessions. Every re-watch of it is a delight, even after a decade since its release. I could gush about Hikki forever, but for now I’ll just say try to find a way to watch even just a couple videos from this DVD. If you’re a Hikki fan, it’s quite the highlight reel of some of her more popular tracks that you’ll find yourself singing along to. If you’re not, I promise it’s still really good music and an entertaining watch.

-Janette (anarchymarie)