I WAS kind of hoping that the first big gig of the year – for me, anyway – would be a mother of a blowout. And well, I wasn’t disappointed.
The concert started, predictably enough, with a lot of whizz bang. Dancers in tribal outfits pranced onstage as A-mei appeared from behind two gigantic LED walls, astride an extendable bridge, and proceeded to whack the heck out of her drum set, the intro to her hit, Ri Chu.
Say what you like, but there’s something alluring about A-mei. Call it charisma, stage presence, what you will. But when she’s onstage, she makes sure you know it. (And no, it’s not because of the costumes that emphasise the largesse of her mams. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of it.)
In the world of Chinese pop music, she stands out because she’s not quite like your cutesy cookie-cutter Chinese pop singers. Those seem to be a dime a dozen and are easily categorised into the cutesy dance-pop girls, the solemn-but-cutesy balladeers, or the cutesy pop diva.
No, the difference between A-mei and the rest of that lot is that she actually does have a great singing voice – think of her as Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald and Adele combined. And it doesn’t waver of flag throughout the concert, even if it is 3 hours long.
While it’s not quite in the same league as Faye Wong, A-mei’s vocals are full-bodied and, yes, sexy. A bit like what she looks like in person (although a concertgoer behind me proclaimed – a bit too loudly – to his friend that she was looking “rather chubby” these days). Admittedly, she sounded a little raspy to begin with, but as another concertgoer said, that was still sexy.
But that voice. Now truth be told, I can’t understand half of what she’s singing about, but that has never stopped me from enjoying every minute of her show – all 180 of them. The show itself was broken into six different segments: Tribal intro, bordello, Amit rock, acoustic breakdown, ballad hits, and party zone.
During the acoustic segment, where she did a lovely rendition of Rainbow on the ukulele, she and the band dove into a rendition of Justin Bieber’s Baby. And made it sound nicer than the original.
My favourite part of it was, of course, the Amit bits. Mostly because few Chinese female singers can do rock properly, but A-mei is definitely one of them. Too bad ex-Megadeth axeman Marty Friedmann wasn’t around to provide his unmistakable riffs and solos, but hey, you can’t always get what you want. Another notable moment, getting the crowd to go “Woo!” in the chorus for Yes Or No.
And after doing her ballads, which included a lovely version of My Only Love she got everyone on their feet – no mean feat, considering it was already past 11pm at that point – with her “dance” tracks like Bad Boy, Fire and Three Days, Three Nights.
She clearly loves what she does and the audience loves her right back for it. Another nice touch, getting Singaporeans onstage with her, including the seemingly ubiquitous Ignatius Bong on bass, and Ruth Ling on keyboards and guitar.
Was it a great start to major concert season? Definitely. Can’t wait for more.
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