Armed with my computer, mobile phone and iPad on the morning when Jay Chou’s concert tickets were released for sale, I was ready to battle with possibly thousands of his hardcore fans to get the best seats tickets for a chance to see Jay Chou in action. Despite my fast & furious finger movements in refreshing the website and mobile apps, I couldn’t even get to the page to select seats and by the time I was able to do so, I only saw the words SOLD OUT. Utterly disappointed, I was swearing and almost crying after all the effort as I’ve been wanting to attend the concert for years but never had the chance to get any tickets at all. Oh well. Bad luck. Again.
When the good news that Jay Chou will be adding one additional concert on the 6th June due to overwhelming response came, I was exhilarated and prepared myself for ticket sales day again. It was like striking 4D first prize when I could get to the ticket sales page without much effort and the icing on the cake was when my husband called to inform he had gotten two seats with a good central view! How best can it get!
So last Thursday, I was filled with excitement as we made our way to the Singapore Indoor Stadium and was also extremely moved that my husband came along even though he is British, doesn’t understand Chinese and wouldn’t even know what Jay Chou will be singing! I guaranteed him he would enjoy himself and the experience would probably convert him to a Mando-pop lover too!
We arrived at the stadium pretty early and were just people-watching as the seats gradually got filled up. It was pretty much full house that night!
I really love the high spirits of the audience at concerts. Never fails to boost my mood. I enjoyed crooning away familiar songs with the audience (till my throat felt sore) all night long. Jay Chou is indeed a very talented & versatile artist. In the 12 years of his singing and song composing career, he had delivered many outstanding works of slow and fast songs, circulating around various themes of love, hope, family and friends. He ventured into acting and directing too which were brave moves that didn’t disappoint his fans.
I had read reviews in the newspapers commenting that there wasn’t any climax moment during his concert. I beg to differ, probably because it was my first time attending with a fresh pair of eyes so my expectations were lower than the rest of his concert-goers. Every moment when he started to sing a different song, it was music-gasm for the screaming audience. It brought back many fond memories of the last decade as he sang a good mix of his old and newer songs. And he further showed off his music talent by playing the grand piano and guitar while doing so.
Two things that I felt were out of place were when Jay Chou included this short segment on his soon-to-be-released musical movie, The Rooftop, performing songs with his co-stars (Cindy Yen was one – seriously, I don’t even know her!) from the movie. That reminded me of John Travolta’s Grease. For some reasons, my neighbours around me were getting a little restless and bored of that particular performance. In fact, I noticed the glow sticks were less aggressively shaking away.
There were a couple of times when Jay Chou’s backup singers sang some major parts of his songs – though they sang reasonably well – that didn’t work for me. But I was highly impressed when one of the keyboardists sang – he had a really good voice!
The night was packed with lots of fireworks & sparks, laser displays, lighting, video & sound effects, it was truly a spectacular concert that wowed us all. The gigantic beach balls that were bouncing around our heads was a great way to end the night. Even though I wasn’t sure if the encore was considered an encore because it felt pretentiously planned but for the overall entertainment value, we sure got our tickets’ worth.
I had an awesome time. And so did the husband. Will we attend his next concert in Singapore? Unanimously, YES!