{"id":340659,"date":"2026-05-31T22:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T22:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/340659\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T22:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T22:00:12","slug":"anri-delivers-a-performance-of-nostalgia-and-passion-annenberg-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/340659\/","title":{"rendered":"Anri delivers a performance of nostalgia and passion \u2013 Annenberg Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

On May 20, the halls of the Wiltern Theatre were filled with cheers and cries of fans, waiting in anticipation for the performance of one of the titans of the city pop genre, Anri. A sub-genre of 70s and 80s Japanese pop music, city pop has served as Anri\u2019s specialty throughout her nearly 50-year career.<\/p>\n

ANRI LIVE 2026 U.S.A Timely!! serves as one of the highlights in Live Nation\u2019s City Pop Waves<\/a> concert series, an initiative to bring Japan\u2019s top city pop artists to the United States. This initiative started with Taeko Onuki<\/a>, a star of the industry who performed for the first time abroad through City Pop Waves. Masayoshi Takanaka, another prominent city pop artist, was added to the series following his first U.S. concert<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n

City Pop Waves was created in response to the genre\u2019s boom in popularity amongst the younger generation, primarily due to songs such as Mariya Takeuchi\u2019s \u201cPlastic Love<\/a>\u201d and Miki Matsubara\u2019s \u201cStay With Me<\/a>\u201d trending on social media. This recent trend matched the concert\u2019s turnout, which skewed younger.<\/p>\n

At the concert, fans played a game of cheering anytime a dolphin appeared in the accompanying music videos that were shown prior to the start of the performance. As the videos came to a close, Anri arrived, dressed in a black-and-white dress inspired by the outfit she wears on the cover of her most famous album, \u201cTimely!!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SoloAnri walks on stage at The Wiltern. (Photo by Aaron Ogawa) <\/p>\n

The concert stage was fairly empty aside from the musicians and their instruments, but this was done with good reason. The emptiness of the stage invited the audience to use their imagination and memory to create the backdrop of the music instead.<\/p>\n

Anri often evokes a warm, summer day through tracks like \u201cWindy Summer<\/a>,\u201d capturing the feeling of an ocean breeze at the beach. These easily imaginable scenes became iconic for city pop, in part due to Anri\u2019s influence on the genre.<\/p>\n

Although Anri\u2019s aesthetic captures the sea and summer, nostalgia serves as the cornerstone of her music. Since city pop originated in 1980\u2019s Japan, Anri often calls back to that period, layering her tracks with themes of romance, freedom and longing.<\/p>\n

The finale of the first set, \u201cLast Summer Whisper<\/a>,\u201d clearly shows how Anri layers her songs with nostalgia. The sunset after a summer shower that the song\u2019s setting exists in matches Anri\u2019s established aesthetic. The lyrics reinforce this vibe while adding a story about a romance that was not meant to be. The song\u2019s wistfulness is topped off with Anri reminiscing over this relationship.<\/p>\n

\"HeartA fan giving a heart symbol towards Anri. (Photo by Aaron Ogawa) <\/p>\n

Despite Anri using 80s nostalgia as a basis for her music, she\u2019s able to capture the attention of audiences who never experienced that era. Older listeners have a personal connection to the memories evoked by the songs, yet younger fans can still feel the timeless emotions and stories told through the music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up listening to a lot of Michael Jackson, and typically in Anri\u2019s \u201cSuper Get a Rainbow\u201d album, a lot of the instruments are very similar to Michael Jackson, so for me, it does kind of have that nostalgic feeling, because I\u2019ve [listened] to other artists from the 80s that [have] a similar vibe,\u201d said Lucas Vigil from San Francisco.<\/p>\n

\"ArtistAnri, musicians and backup singers take a final bow. (Photo by Aaron Ogawa) <\/p>\n

Though some people have become fans of city pop through other artists, many others started their journey with Anri.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really started to get into [Anri] during our Japan trip after Lucas put me on, and I tie a lot of memories from that trip to the music, and it just brings me back to a time where I felt like life is really good,\u201d said Joey Manahan, a fan from San Francisco.<\/p>\n

As the concert reached its climax, Anri played the fan favorite track \u201c\u60b2\u3057\u307f\u304c\u3068\u307e\u3089\u306a\u3044 I CAN\u2019T STOP THE LONELINESS<\/a>.\u201d The crowd erupted into cheers, with the entire theater singing along to a song that combines city pop\u2019s energy, comfort and nostalgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always good to have that comfort music to go back to and rely on, just always use as a resource to keep you in check,\u201d Manahan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On May 20, the halls of the Wiltern Theatre were filled with cheers and cries of fans, waiting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[140329,85652,140331,85654,48,52,51,140330,47,50,49,9929,85655,294,140332],"class_list":["post-340659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-anri","tag-city-pop","tag-i-cant-stop-the-loneliness","tag-j-pop","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-live-nations-city-pop-waves","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-nostalgia","tag-the-wiltern","tag-timely","tag-windy-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}