Translated by Mandilinn
February 17, 2018

Singer Namie Amuro (40), who is retiring this year on September 16th, held the first performance of her final tour at Nagoya Dome. Centered around top songs chosen by fan voting, the setlist included hit numbers such as “Can You Celebrate?”, with 8 costume changes interwoven throughout the show. The tour will continue until June 3rd, drawing in 750,000 people (Japan only, the Asia leg tour is expected to bring the number to 800,000), which is the highest number for any Japanese solo artist in history.

The curtain has risen on her “final journey”. This is the first live show since the announcement of her retirement on her birthday last year in September. She descended down onto the stage, led by a “Namie Call” which began along with clapping 20 minutes before the show. The excitement from 40,000 fans who managed to obtain tickets through serious competition (there were 5.1 million applicants in Japan alone) was incredibly high.

Namie chose to sing songs that fans had requested. The setlist was constructed of popular songs chosen from 2.8 million votes and brand new songs from her all-time best album “Finally”, which has sold 2.1 million copies to date. She wore 8 various styles of costumes, including a red Napoleon-style jacket and a black and gold beaded bustier, and started the show with dance performances.

The performance for the first new song in 16 years created by her teacher and producer Tetsuya Komuro (59), who is also retiring this year, was unveiled for the first time during the show. In order to trace her history from debut until her 25th anniversary, images from past live shows were displayed on the screen. During her performance of the Rio Olympic theme song “Hero”, she held a golden microphone tightly.

On the first day of her last tour that includes 6 overseas performances, Amuro put her thoughts and feelings into everything and drew out fans’ joy and excitement with 30 songs. After singing for 2 hours and 40 minutes, she proudly threw her right fist up.

There are 211 days left until she sets down her microphone for good.