Utada is expected to be currently in Los Angeles at the moment rehearsing for her upcoming "In The Flesh" USA/UK Tour. Percussionist/drummer Taku Hirano updated his myspace status Tuesday stating that he "is headed to L.A. to begin rehearsals tomorrow with Utada Hikaru for the 'In The Flesh' U.S./U.K. tour".
Taku Hirano has worked with Utada since 2001, beginning with UHU - Utada Hikaru MTV Unplugged. He also worked with her on her 'Hikaru no 5 at Budokan' concerts series, and 'Utada United 2006' concert tour.
&forumIt is now definitely official and confirmed. To recap, Utada will be touring America + London in early 2010. Her official website now lists the performance dates. Here are the dates again, in a nice neat list (Click on links to buy tickets):
UPDATE 11/17: Utada.com has finally officially announced the 'In The Flesh 2010' Tour.
The London and Hawaii Tour dates are now sold out!
UPDATE 11/19: San Francisco, Boston, & New York are Sold Out!
UPDATE 11/23: NY sold out again! The extra New York tickets are now out.
UPDATE 11/24: LONDON TICKETS OVERSOLD? Looks like some people who have purchased tickets to the London show through TicketWeb.co.uk have been getting their tickets cancelled and refunded "due to an administrative error". According to emails from TicketWeb, bookings were "processed in error, and was not part of the allocation of tickets we were instructed to sell on behalf of the venue". Sympathies go out to those affected and we hope you get another chance to see the show!
UPDATE 11/25: Looks like Seattle is SOLD OUT!
UPDATE 11/27: Tainted Reality, an online JRock radio show, announced on a show yesterday that they will give free tickets to Utada's concerts. No news on which performance dates or what day they will be giving away the tickets.
Check back here for updates! Thanks again to aquaticdragon for the news
UPDATE 11/28: LA / Hollywood is SOLD OUT!
UPDATE 12/1: More tickets to BOSTON have been made available!
UPDATE 12/3: Looks like SEATTLE & BOSTON are Sold Out again.
Tickets still available for Las Vegas and Chicago!
UPDATE 12/6: TICKET GIVEAWAYS!:
-Tainted Reality online radio is giving away 20 Tickets to the performance in Los Angeles: more
-Petals & Beans is giving away tickets to the Honolulu show: more
Last night at a Mika concert in Tokyo at Studio Coast, Hikaru Utada made a special surprise appearance on stage to sing a duet with Mika. They sang a rendition of "Let It Snow".
Continue reading for video and photos ...
20,000 readers of Oricon Style magazine voted Hikaru Utada as their no. 2 favorite artist of 2009.
First place went to Mr.Children.
>Mainichi.jp
Now announced on LiveNation.com, we now know the Tour will be called "UTADA 'In The Flesh' 2010" and three US cities are confirmed:
We also know that there will be an appearance in London at O2 Academy Islington, February 12 @7pm.
THIS JUST IN:
This is EXCITING!
Special thanks to all the great work the fans here at UN have done to find all this info!
According to Goetz B's page on 365artists.com, he has done mixing work for a new Hikaru track titled "Show Me Love"! This will likely be a Japanese release.
credits to UN member Raito
According to a leaked link on the O2 Academy Islington venue website (which has currently been taken down), Utada will be performing in London on Friday February 12, 2010! Tickets start at ?20. The artist details page is still up, which also shows that tickets for the show will go on sale Friday November 13, 2009 - 9:00AM and also confirms that DJ Mike Rizzo will be performing with her.
According to MuuMuse.com, US ticket sales will be handled by LiveNation.com (LiveNation UK also has a page) and that "Utada will begin the tour in Hawaii in mid-January, move through 10 U.S. cities, and end in London on February 12".
Thanks to members jumpoff501 for finding the original leak and Pips_paradise for flushing out the details
Note, since there hasn't been an official announcement, aforementioned dates may change.
According to DJ Mike Rizzo, who has been reported as creating remixes for the single, "Dirty Desire" will be Utada's new single in 2010.
Further, he will also be 'touring' with Utada in possibly January. We are unsure exactly if 'touring' means this will be full out concerts, clubs, or just promotional appearances.
[UPDATE]: The tour will include 10 US cities!
Big thanks to UN member SimChaoU!
According to 365artists.com, Goetz B is/has been mixing new tracks for Hikaru Utada. Quote:
Goetz has recently finished producing and mixing tracks for Skye?s latest album with Alexis Smith, and is due to start mixing tracks for the next from Hikaru Utada (EMI).
On Goetz B's profile, it says: Quote:
Goetz? talents have been employed to work on the new album by Japan?s multi-million selling artist Utada Hikaru.
Further, Hikki's recent blog post today talks about putting some 'german magic' into the music (FYI. Goetz is a German name).
props to Raito for the news
The KDDI PLY is Hikki's new cell phone.
PLY is a cool touch screen phone, which follows the concept of layers, inspired by plywood.
The PLY came out just this month. It is likely that Hikki just got this phone sometime in the past couple days! The original concept for the phone was to have each layer support a function, such as: a gamepad, pico projector, printer, and an analogue clock where the minute hand sticks out past the screen! However in the actual production model, it seems most of those concept features did not make it in. It looks like a slider style phone with layered tab buttons on the side.
More info about the PLY:
Original Concept; iida Product Site; concept-phones.com
We know that this is Hikaru's current phone because on her message blog, the images that she uploads as a part of her messages contain EXIF data that reveals what device the pictures were taken with.
According to this data, it appears that Hikki has been quite fashionable with her phones in the past year or two and gets new ones quite often. So far, these are the different phones that she has been using for 2009 and 2008:
After a 4 month hiatus from her blog, here are two new Japanese messages
[2009/Sep/3 12:47pm GMT+6]
[2009/Sep/3 1:43pm GMT+6]
See Nuuks Translations here and here.
On July 17th, 2009, Utada had a 'Meet and Greet' session with contest winners of 102.7 Da Bomb radio station. This was a rescheduled event from May, when several of Utada's appearances in the U.S. were canceled due to illness. It is good to see that she is alive and well :)
The 'Utada Meet and Greet' was held at the Kahala Hotel near Waikiki.
You can view photos from 102.7FM Da Bomb here.
Or watch the full video interview from the videographer. The interview video is about an hour long and has some very insightful details about what she has been up to, thoughts on recent events, and Hikki herself.
The winners of the American Myspace Karaoke Contest has been announced. The Grand Prize winner is Kristen Candra. Kristen wins a Trip to Tokyo with 3 friends and karaokeing with Utada. The second place runner up was Tommy and there were ten other contestants that won the third place prizes.
[UPDATE]
If you haven't already, you can watch the video of the Karaoke party here:
Utada Karaoke Party ☆ Japan winner ZUNTATTA
Utada Karaoke Party ☆ United States winner Kristen
A remix of Utada's 'Come Back To Me' will be featured in Island Def Jam / Ultra Records' compilation album 'JUST DANCE'. The compilation will be available May 26th.
Utada's latest album, This Is The One, is in stores all over America today, May 12, 2009! While the album was released digitally over a month ago, the physical CD is now available. Make sure you go out and grab your copy of the CD today! [Walmart] [BestBuy] [Amazon]
Included in the promotions, Island Def Jam has created a new website for TITO - www.Utada-ThisIsTheOne.com