Crystal Kay announces CK25: The Tour — a North American (+ Canada) tour in celebration of the 25th anniversary of her music career

Crystal Kay is doing another US tour y’all. After the overwhelming response to the couple of live shows she did in the U.S. in 2023, Crystal is doing them again this year. Before, Crystal had only done a couple of gigs in L.A. But now a bitch has a tour bus and some Spirit air miles, because she’s doing 6 different states and Canada. And these shows aren’t taking place in the corners of bars as her last shows did. These are VENUE venues. Actual stages, with lighting set ups, sound systems and everything.

17 August 📍 Atlanta @ Terminal West
19 August 📍 Washington D.C. @ Pearl Street Warehouse
21 August 📍 New York @ Racket NYC
24 August 📍 Toronto @ El Mocambo
26 August 📍 Chicago @ Live Bash
28 August 📍 Los Angeles @ The Miracle Theater
30 August 📍 Dallas @ South Side Music Hall

You can purchase tickets from www.wearekonnectd.com/ckay25thetour. The website is a bit raggedy and it’s not just one ticketing service from which you can get tickets. Not the best user experience, but definitely the best fan experience, because it’s not Scammaster.

This is great news for Crystal and her fans. Wait. Do Crystal Kay fans have a name? The Crystal Gems?

HENNYWAY.

With me being me, and me being terrible at maths — I can’t help but sit here like ‘Things just ain’t adding up’.

When Crystal first announced this tour, it was at a point when the full 32 track version of All Time Best 25th Anniversary was only available on streaming in Japan. The rest of the world got a 17 track version which only featured the songs Crystal had released through Universal — which meant, none of the classics, other than the re-recorded versions of them. I don’t need to tell you how little sense it made for Crystal to announce a North American tour for her 25th anniversary, when her fans in North America couldn’t even stream the full best album which was released for her 25th anniversary. Clearly Crystal must have seen people’s Instagram comments, because within days she posted a link to the full version of All Time Best which was accessible to everybody worldwide. She posted a link via an Instagram Story ya’ll. Not a post. Not on her website. An Instagram Story. So that shit is gone now. But it’s fine. Because I have that shit.

Steam the full version of All Time Best 25th Anniversary on Spotify: The full version

But even as I post this now, this version of All Time Best hasn’t replaced the 17 track version on all streaming platforms. It’s unlisted and only accessible via a direct link. The only widely available version of All Time Best is a playlist. It’s an absolute mess. And Sony Music Japan seems to be enjoying it, because they put up an Instagram post of the OG video of “Koi ni Ochitara”, wishing Crystal Kay a 25th anniversary and telling people ‘Come listen to our CK playlist’. Messy as hell. But, hey. It’s promo. And it’s more than Universal have put out. Crystal Kay’s official website still has “Love Myself” as the latest music video instead of the new “Koi ni Ochitara” video. And there is no mention of her CK25 tour. I know I’m one to talk about updating websites. But this blogging shit is just a cute side thing for me. It’s not my career.

How the hell is Crystal’s old record label promoting her 25th anniversary more than her current one?

Girl. Fire the whole management and marketing team.

All Time Best is gonna be certified triple Lawsons bag. I’d be surprised if it even manages to chart on the Oricon.

As for the tour, I think it’s amazing that Crystal is able to tour North America. But why is she not doing tours in Japan? Crystal Kay sees herself as a global artist, which is how many of her fans see her too. But she is a Japanese artist signed to a Japanese label, with a Japanese management team. If the only way Crystal can do shows is to do them outside of Japan, then something is clearly wrong. Crystal Kay’s last national tour was her CK10 tour in celebration of her 10 year career milestone in 2010. And the fact that her 25th anniversary show was just one show in some small venue and not a tour was already some bullshit.

None of this is making any sort of sense. Crystal being able to do tours in North America is great. But what would be far more sustainable for Crystal as an artist would be her being able to tour Japan and do so regularly. Japan is her main market, so touring it should be the priority. There is a complete disconnect. It’s a mess.

Whilst I am really happy that Crystal is still active and finding ways to perform and do things, there is so much shit that needs to be addressed and fixed. And these aren’t just small issues. These are huge career blocking issues. Time and time again Crystal’s team, LDH and Universal keep showing us — and Crystal herself — that they are not taking her career seriously. They do not give a damn about a bitch. Crystal should be out here with a Science Fiction scale of tour and promo. But instead she’s having to squirrel away on a US tour, bec

It’s really depressing that despite celebrating a 25 year long career, that half of that has been so stagnant. The only real highlight of Crystal’s career since her last career milestone of 10 years was doing a song with Namie Amuro and that was 10 years ago. That Sony catalog is REALLY doing the heavy lifting of her legacy and her team couldn’t even be bothered to get that shit together for the streaming release of All Time Best.

I really didn’t intend for this post about Crystal’s US tour (a great thing) to become a ‘This 25th anniversary thing is shit’ post (a bad thing). But I’m just so frustrated and annoyed as a fan to see how Crystal team is not even doing the bare minimum for her.

Speaking of Crystal Kay’s 10 year milestone, go watch her CK10 tour. It’s great and a reminder of the days when shit was good. And if you’re a CK fan in Washington D.C., New York, Toronto, Chicago, L.A, Dallas or are willing to travel to any of these places — be sure to show your girl some support and buy a ticket. Tickets are between $40–$50. And I know times are ROUGH for many of us right now. But even so, $50 for a gig ticket in 2025 is a bargain. Especially when you know the performing act is a bad bitch like Crystal Kay. Barely anybody is selling gig tickets for $50 these days. You can’t even buy Switch games for $50 any more.

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📀 The Best album that we shoulda gotten in 2024: CK25

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☕ CK tea: The ways Crystal Kay influenced and impacted J-R&B AND Japanese music that not enough people talk about