Japanese musician Taeko Onuki performed her first ever concert in front of a sold-out audience at The Wiltern in Los Angeles.
Despite starting her career in the 1970s and now seeing an incredible renewed surge of interest from streaming sites, Onuki had never played a show in the United States. As a well-decorated singer-songwriter, her discography includes over 25 albums and the vocals to the theme song of the Mother 3 video game.
The most interesting observation from her one-night show was the demographic of her audience, many of whom were Millennials, Gen X, and even Gen Z; these are generations that heard her music for the first time not through physical media, but through digital streaming sites. Japanese city-pop artists have seen an incredible revival in the past 6 to 7 years, reviving hits like Onuki’s own “4:00AM,” which garnered over 61M views on YouTube and 138M on Spotify.
At The Wiltern, the audience was treated to a night of Onuki’s matured vocals, a spectacular stage production, and a night of excellent live music. The Tokyo native singer, now in her early 70s, wanted only the best for her first overseas performance and gave a revitalized edge to her songs, some of which are over 4 decades old. Truly, attendees were among the lucky few to hear Onuki along with her 6-piece band: Febian Reza Pane (piano), Masato Suzuki (bass), Manabu Sakata (drums), Kei Fushimi (guitar), Shohei Amimori (keyboards), and toshi808 (seq).
In a phone-free environment, the night started off with the 1978 track “Yokogao (Profile),” the second track on her internationally renowned album, Mignonne. Onuki’s voice was subtle and light, but steadfast in confidence.
“This is my first ever show outside of Japan in 50 years,” shared the Japanese singer.
From the decibels generated by the sheer mass of people screaming, an onlooker would mistake this performance for a rock concert. Other city-pop acts have their own take on show production, but Onuki’s team went above and beyond with the stage lighting design, even surprising the audience with synchronized onstage lamp lights during “LULU” and “Peter Rabbit to Watashi (Peter Rabbit and I).”
As her concert requested no video or audio recording during her concert, the atmosphere in The Wiltern was energetic with pure enjoyment. After the aptly named peaceful song “Rain” and its accompanying background of scattered lights, Onuki wanted to highlight a single that she said is surprisingly “popular here in LA.” Once the band hit the first upbeat notes of “Les aventures de TINTIN (The Adventures of Tintin),” an orange spotlight shone on her, embodying the adventurous energy of the Belgian comic it was named after.
Given her long discography and the many collaborators she’s worked with, Onuki took a moment to reflect on the 1984 song, “Cosmos Mitsuketa (Found Cosmos)”:
“This song was arranged by Ryuichi Sakamoto. We worked together for many years, and he was my music partner. Even the oldest songs still sound fresh.”
Rounding out her main performance, Onuki smiled as she voiced her surprise at the song’s social media popularity. Indeed, with over 200 million cumulative streams across major listening platforms, the entire crowd would sing the chorus line as a call-and-response. The song reportedly hasn’t been performed live since 1981, which made the Los Angeles concert extra special. Nowhere else could one hear 4 generations of English-speaking audiences sing the song’s unforgettable lyrics unison, sounding almost like a prayer to see Onuki perform again someday: “Lord give me one more chance.”
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