Hikaru Utada, a Japanese-American singer-songwriter and producer, released their eighth full-length studio album, BAD MODE, on January 19, 2022, on their birthday. They also had their studio concert, Hikaru Utada Live Sessions from Air Studios, on the same day.
The studio concert was held to celebrate Utada’s newest album. It was filmed at London’s Air Studios, and it featured Utada singing the majority of the “BAD MODE” album’s tracks live for the first time, as well as both the English and Japanese versions of “Face My Fears”, one of her songs from the video game Kingdom Hearts III. The concert also featured a lineup of notable musicians directed by Jodi Milliner, the bandmaster for their 2018 tour. Sound engineer Steve Fitzmaurice recorded and mixed the concert, and David Barnard directed the video.
The concert was attended by over 50 000 people, and due to high demand from international fans, the online event was made available for streaming on Netflix worldwide on June 9.
“Hikaru Utada Live Sessions from Air Studios” marks the singer-songwriter’s second concert that has been made available on the streaming service, the first being their 2018 concert “Laughter in the Dark,” which became available for streaming on the service in 2019.
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