Went to Rene Liu's Singapore concert last night. Probably my favorite artiste after Liang Jing Ru :) It's Rene's first concert in Singapore. Amazing. I bought a balcony seat but got bumped up to a terrace seat! Yay! Although the downside, naturally, is that there weren't a lot of people there. The Indoor Stadium was far from full...hopefully this doesn't affect whether there will be another concert here again in the future.
This was my first ever concert at the Indoor Stadium, and I must say, the venue's pretty good. All the seats up in the terrace had a pretty good view of the stage. The acoustics sound pretty awesome too, although I'm far from being an expert in this field, so I can't really say. Hope there will be more events here in the future where I can go to.
The concert started at around 8.30pm. I had an entire row to myself :) Right from the starting song, which was a combo of 听是谁在唱歌/年华, Rene was in great voice, and she was pretty much faultless in her vocals throughout the entire duration of the concert, which only ended at ~ 11.40pm. We got our money's worth, and then some :)
Rene commented that she had been warned it might be hard to do a concert in Singapore as the audiences tend to be a little more shy. She wasn't kidding. The crowd was pretty muted, especially comparing with the previous Liang Jing Ru concert I had been to in Chengdu. The audience did get more into it as the concert progressed, helped immeasurably by Rene's chiding...she was great at working the crowd, and the interludes between the songs were filled with humorous monologues and banter with the crowd, e.g. confiding the awkward questions she would get at weddings (a Liang Jing Ru shoutout here!!! Yay!! As Rene mentioned a few of her good friends who had gotten married recently) from relatives and friends about when she would get married, and the various nicknames that she had acquired over the years. A special mention has to be made especially for Rene's onstage chemistry with the guest performer for the night, Mayday bandmember Masa. They were great together and their teasing, I'm pretty sure, brought smiles to every one in the audience. They dueted on 舞女 with some great dance moves, and also on a song by Cheer Chen, which I thought was really lovely. I have not heard much music from Cheer Chen previously, but she's so well-regarded and her songs have such a unique, folksy-touch to them that lends them a distinctive charm...will definitely check out more of her songs in the future. See? Coming to Rene's concert has the added benefit of listening to other great music too! Eason Chan's 十年 sounds like a great song too.
One really nice thing was that Rene and the organizers really put in effort to make the concert tailored for Singapore. For instance, the abovementioned interlude with the questions that she would get at weddings was done with very Singaporean-sounding accents as the voices of her relatives and friends. In addition, in the encore portion, Rene sang Stefanie Sun's 遇见! Awesome!
It was a real treat to hear Rene sing so many of her greatest hits and new songs live, especially my favorite songs of hers 我等你, which came pretty early in the concert songlist and her new song 我不想念. Of course, any concert would be remiss without the classics 很爱很爱你 (which closed off the main concert) and 后来, which was the penultimate song of the night. The fast song 到处乱走 was electric and really got the crowd going, and Rene even threw her high-heeled shoes into the crowd! A guy got one and a girl got the other so naturally match-making ensues (hee!) but alas, the guy came with his date :) Another highlight was Rene introducing her band during the song 爱你一万年, with each bandmate singing the signature chorus. It was really an innovative way to do this, and closed with Rene telling the crowd that, now that we've heard how it's sung, we can sing likewise :)
One sentimental moment in the concert was when Rene recounted how she felt a connection to Singapore because it was here that she got noticed by industry veteran Sylvia Chang. Rene was here ten years ago as an assistant to Emil Chua, Chen Sheng, Li Zong Sheng and Zhao Chuan for Rock Records' anniversary concert, and she was carrying all this luggage and checking in at the hotel, and Sylvia Chang noticed this strong girl carrying all this baggage, and invited her to act in her next show. And the rest is, shall we say, history :)
The encore was terrific. The encore chant was pretty insipid, but luckily that did not deter Rene from delivering a great encore performance. It started with 继续-给15岁的自己, a lovely song from her latest album which chronicles the trials and tribulations of growing up. As mentioned, Rene then sang 遇见, and also Sylvia Chang's 爱的代价, which is another favorite song of mine. The crowd really got into it at 后来, singing several lines in good voice (me too!), before Rene's rendition of Mayday's 生命有一种绝对 closed off the evening, with Rene getting into a gravity-defying trapeze performance mid-song too, which was a real treat.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. I had a great time at the concert, and from the crowd reactions, everyone else felt pretty much the same way too. Rene's vocals were pitch perfect throughout the evening, and her banter with the audience was terrific throughout. Definitely looking forward to hearing one of my favorite artistes live in concert again, hopefully in the near future.
