Jay Chou “New Era” World Tour 2010 (Singapore)

July 25, 2010 — 3 Comments

I knew nothing about Mandarin pop when I moved to Singapore. The first Mandarin song I heard was “An Jing” (Silence) by Jay Chou in early 2007. Since then I got hooked not just on his work but also on Mando pop in general. Soon after, I found myself enjoying Canto pop too. All these without knowing how to speak/read Mandarin nor Cantonese!!

Here’s a clip of “An Jing” so you have an idea. It’s a stylized version of the original, performed in a HK concert in 2006.

I guess that’s how it is for people who love music. It doesn’t matter what language a song is expressed in. To me, what I like about Chinese pop is the way it’s sung — a lot of passion and emotion. If you go to KTV, the music videos are also awesome. Make the rhythm faster and the choreography also looks great.

Here’s Elva Hsiao performing “Biao Bai” (Confession) :

Some people find it strange that I spend money buying C-pop albums and tickets for concerts. I must tell you – I have no regrets forking out a few hundred dollars on these sort of stuff. I think it’s the same as listening to French, Spanish, or Latin music — you like it even if most of the time you have no clue what’s being sung!!

I’ve seen a few Chinese concerts and this is the 2nd time I’ve seen Jay Chou perform live (in Singapore). I’d say the Jan 2008 concert was better in terms of song selection and production, including the opening (it was also fairly easy to get tickets then). However, there were visual effects in the 2010 world tour that are quite fascinating. You will know what I mean when you see the photos.

New Era World Tour poster (template)

I almost didn’t get to watch this concert. OCBC cardholders were given priority during ticket sales and I didn’t have an OCBC card. When the SISTIC website opened purchase to the general public, the website could not handle the volume and the queues were long for those who braved the “manual” approach. Tickets were sold out minutes after they went on sale. It was really frustrating that I had to post my disappointment as a Facebook status update.

When I was about to lose hope in securing at least 2 tickets, Marvin forwarded to me a message from a colleague who was selling his tickets after having purchased seats in a better section. A few days after, I found myself owning 2 tickets — 2 out of the estimated 24,000 tickets up for grabs! The show ran for 3 days. Thanks Marvin for the “lead” and Percy for selling the tickets to me!

The album “New Era” contains several good tracks. My favorite (track 2) is “Shuo Le Zai Jian (Said Goodbye)”. I think Jet Li is featured in the music video. Jay performed this at the concert as well.

On with the photos…

More concert photos on my photo website . Download as you please (for free) but let me know if you publish them somewhere ok.