HAI I'M GOING TO MARRY EMIL CHAU AND I DON'T CARE WHO KNOWS IT.
[ETA: Posting this old entry from a teahouse in Xi Men Ding, after a huge plate of beef fried rice which only confirmed to me that Singapore - with its fanatical health tendencies - has bred the ability to eat copious amounts of MSG out of me. Dude, I CANNOT eat MSG-laden food anymore. Sad. Due to head to the airport in a little under an hour...]
1. It's 2.40am on Sunday morning in Taiwan. This post - clearly - is going to appear somewhat later than that because I am made of so much epic fail that I tried to buy myself wireless internet, SUCCEEDED... and then proceeded to forget to take down the password and info I needed to LOG IN. Of course, this info was pointlessly forwarded to my email account, which I can't access because I'M NOT ONLINE, AM I. Honestly I could easily buy myself another day's worth of internet - it's not expensive at $4 a pop - but I'M PUNISHING MYSELF FOR BEING STUPID. No internet for you, IDIOT.
2. Doesn't mean I can't write an epic long, FLAILY entry to be posted when I finally get back online, though. HAI, CONCERT OF ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF EPIC AWESOME, OMIGOD. LIKE, I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I GOT TO SEE THIS LIVE. But we did it. We were TWO ROWS from the front, and honestly so close to the stage that the performers were real-people-sized. We were SO CLOSE we couldn't even see the huge television screens that the REST of the stadium were watching.
I think the ensuing flail can be encapsulated as follows: OH MEMBERS OF SUPERBAND. WHY SO AWESOME. Except, Superband, why so faily?
This was supposed to be a concert by a proper new band, made up of four of the Chinese pop industry's most incredibly talented singer-songwriters. These people have formed the backbone of Chinese popular music for DECADES, people - Luo Dayou, who was a massive star back in the 70s; Jonathan Li, who has written more enormously popular and yet heartbreakingly poetic songs than pretty much anybody else in his peer group; SOME UNKNOWN DUDE NAMED EMIL CHAU who has sold hundreds of millions of albums and spent more time onstage than any other Chinese pop singer EVER; and Zhang Zhen Yue (A-Yue), the youngest of the bunch but a rocker in his own right renowned for his ability to meld rap, rock AND represent Taiwan's youth all at once. The TALENT on that stage would have been worth the ticket price alone, even if they (literally) couldn't get their act together and had to put up four mini-concerts instead... which a lot of people were expecting them to do. Sadly, the FAILY part of the concert really was that they did exactly what all the cynics figured they would - they failed to come up with a clutch of proper SUPERBAND songs, and really coordinate and rehearse and gel as a band. Which means... they had, I think, ONE new song on top of their pre-existing single Wang Ming Zhi Tu. They DID get onstage and sing as a foursome, but hardly to the point that it felt like THAT was the main attraction, you know? In effect, it was the four of them doing solo sets, occasionally duets, and ONCE IN A WHILE singing as a band. So that was... not so awesome.
And I think noldoparma and I got pretty much the same vibe from the concert. Not even speaking as an unapologetic Emil fangirl (and y'all know I'm super-biased for his super-awesome), Emil was the one holding the show and the group together. He was... kind of the star of the show? And such a gentleman about it all that honestly I love him even more after tonight than I have after fifteen years of fangirling him. THAT'S RIGHT. It actually IS possible to love him more, after all!! :P Seriously though: he just seemed so happy and excited to have the privilege to be onstage with this group of people, and readily sang or performed with every one of his band members, providing back-up vocals when necessary (even shaking the maracas at one point, LOL) and just generally being sweet and considerate of his fellow performers. It was noticeable how the others didn't interact as much - Jonathan being the worst offender. Honestly, his lack of participation in the night was kind of OBVIOUS, and J and I can only postulate that it's because he just wasn't happy with preparations and how the band was going so just... took himself out of a lot of it. He sang his five-song set, dueting only with Emil... which isn't anything special in that the two of them work and sing and perform together a LOT. Aside from the band segments, he had nothing to do with Dayou or A-Yue. At least Dayou wrote a song and gave A-Yue's vocals a nice huge cameo!
Bah. At least my boyfriend was awesome. I think the other thing about the night - and really I am being as objective here as I CAN be - he was clearly the best showman as well. He LIVES onstage: there's something about him that lights it up, and that lights up once he gets to sing and perform for others, and it's SO obvious he just adores entertaining other people. Jonathan, I think, considers himself a songwriter first and foremost, and in any case, had a kind of snarky vibe to his entire performance last night (I'm not sure WHAT he was doing with a weirdly-arranged, slightly off rendition of Gui Mi Xin Qiao, but it certainly felt like he was smirking throughout the whole song). A-Yue is a little Energiser bunny onstage, clearly proving how much younger he is than all the older guys in the band, but he's also kind of an indie star more concerned with getting to perform his own stuff than relating to the audience. Dayou, of course, hasn't really rocked out live in ages - he's more or less a hermit these days, so he just sang... and bantered a little bit, but not much.
Isn't it sad that I'm actually sort-of complaining that Emil got such a star turn at the concert last night? I mean, you'd think I'd be HAPPY. And of course I AM, because he got to sing so much and he was FANTASTIC. But the thing about last night was that it proved to me that these four people - IF they got serious - really could be the most astounding band of collaborators EVER. The fact that they flaked out, pretty much, and collapsed into their individual comfort zones (aside from Emil and to a far lesser extent, Dayou and A-Yue) was just... disappointing. :(
THAT BEING SAID. OMG WHO CARES ABOUT ALL THAT. THE SHOW WAS STILL SO FUCKING FANTASTIC. I can't believe I got to see it from THAT CLOSE TO THE STAGE. Guys, there were a SHIT TON of Taiwanese stars there last night - Zhang Ai Jia, Winnie Hsin, MAYDAY, Tarcy Su, Victor Wong Pin Guan, the Mayor of Taipei among others - and and AND our seats were legit better than theirs. *weeps* We were just METRES away from the stage, and you could see... pretty much everything. To the point that, up close, it was kind of obvious when Emil's eyes flicked to the teleprompters for lyric prompts. *weeps*
Okay, before I review the REST of the performers, it was clearly all about Emil for me. His voice was INSANELY AMAZING last night. LIKE, INSANELY AMAZING. HAVE THAT IN BOLD: INSANELY AMAZING. The moment he FIRST sang a solo bit - at the beginning when each performer sang a snatch of one of their hit songs and he chose Ai Xiang Sui - my heart pretty much shuddered to a stop. Because he totes STOPPED the music, sang a verse completely ACAPELLA, and sounded just INCREDIBLE. I think I started to tear a little bit at that, because it was SO BEAUTIFUL to hear him all fired-up and ready to go like that. This is saying rather a lot, btw. Even when sick, Emil pretty much sounds amazing, and he's got one of those wash-and-wear voices (mixing metaphors with abandon) - as in I'm pretty sure you could poke him awake, stick a guitar in his hand, and he'd STILL be able to start singing and sound good without any warm-up or rehearsal. TONIGHT. TONIGHT HE WAS SKDLALKSALHFLAHLAGHLDFADSALFHLGHALFA. Better than in his live concert last month. I AM NOT EVEN EXAGGERATING THERE.
And of course, because he was nice enough to prep numbers with EVERYBODY, he sang SO MUCH. Here's a rundown as I listen to him be incredible on my audio:
- Rang Wo Huan Xi Rang Wo You - this is one of HIS biggest hits, but the lyrics were written by Jonathan, so Jonathan included it in his own set. And thank goodness too, because I've grown somewhat weary of this song (having listened to it for 15 years!) but this rendition literally made me cry. I really did, a bit, because Jonathan took lead vocals, turned it into a beautifully mellow jazz song, riffed the crap out of it, and then had Emil SING BACK-UP. Emil's harmonisation is out-of-this-world beautiful, guys. He sings such gorgeous high notes, and matches whoever he's singing with so perfectly. So this song pretty much would have made my night. EXCEPT:
- To kick off his OWN segment, Emil sang Chuan Ge - YES. With Dayou playing guitar and providing back-up, he sang CHUAN GE. A SONG SUNG BY INSANE FEMALE SOPRANO OF AWESOME, QI YU. I quibble with Emil's attempt to sing the back-up vocalists' part ("bom bom bom, bom bom bom" WUT), but omigod. My brain exploded when he sang the first line, I grabbed J's sleeve and had a mini-heart attack, and didn't think it could get any better until the second part of the song, when he STARTED YODELLING. That's right, guys. He riffed the effin' CRAP out of that song, belting high and awesome and DFLDHFLAHFLHGLLSADASDA. I'd have proposed marriage at that point, I am for serious.
- Then then THEN, later in his set, he sang short renditions of songs by Dayou and Jonathan because he fanboys them so (HOW cute is he), and I don't know the title of the Dayou song (this is going to be a problem when I track the audio) but he knocked it out of the PARK, and then he sang Wei Ni Wo Shou Leng Feng Chui. AGAIN, a song for a WOMAN, which involves high notes of epic awesome, and I think I cried again at that point. *weeps*
- FINALLY, I never realised he wrote one of his new songs - Qin Ai De Baby - for Superband, so when he started talking about how he'd been inspired to write something about maternal love, I almost had a conniption. And then HE SANG IT, and omigod omigod. I'd only severely overplayed the demo version on his website by this point, so getting to see him sing it live? A+!! I LOVE that he had A-Yue play back-up guitar, and that he just... sang it so beautifully and simply. So obsessed with the song.
- I think it says something about how much I loved these performances - each of which would have been worth the price of admission - that I actually cared LESS when he sang Gua Fu Chun Chuan Qi (ALWAYS a favourite for me when he sings it live), Pa Hei and Shang Xin De Ge, LOL.
- Then he came out during Dayou's segment and sang a duet with him! I don't know the title, but I heart it a LOT. And this moment was so cute because the stagehand thought Emil was singing back-up, rather than a proper duet, and put his mike stand in back... Dayou, who was playing the guitar, marched over and got it for Emil and put it frontstage centre, and Emil was all respectful and bowed to him and alskdhalfhalfhlfa how is he such a NICE guy??
- Let's not even mention all the other things that made me flail, except let's: hearing him sing snatches of Dayou's songs during the medley, or just riffing some lines in A-Yue's finale (but not encore) song Zai Jian, were just epic. EPIC.
OH AND AND AND. There was this moment near the end of the show, when J and I were singing along and waving our glowsticks (YES WE HAD GLOWSTICKS AND THEY WERE BLUE, WHAT OF IT), and he looked STRAIGHT AT ME, and smiled that huge, sunshiny smile of his and gave me two thumbs-up. And I DIED from the awesome, because I am 12, clearly, but COME ON GUYS THROW ME A BONE AND ALLOW ME TO BE A SILLY CHILDISH FANGIRL, I LEGIT LOVE THIS GUY. I do, and I have to say, without any shame or reservation at all, that I would marry him in a heartbeat if he asked. IN. A. HEARTBEAT.
URM OKAY. Let me... stop being scary and talk about the other guys. *cries*
Jonathan WAS good - I especially loved, as I said, his version of Rang Wo Huan Xi ♥ and his revised arrangement of Wo Shi Yi Zhi Xiao Xiao Niao was SO interesting. But he really DID seem to just take himself out of proceedings a LOT, so I didn't get much more of a vibe from him beyond that. Though there WAS a moment I liked when he got pissy that the audience wasn't singing along with one of Dayou's songs; he got all offended. XD My favourite song he wrote was probably Fan Ren Ge though, when all four of them sang it together... oh, and when J returned to her seat. *weeps* She had to run to the bathroom halfway through Emil's set and didn't dare come back 'til considerably later for fear of annoying people and ruining my audio. I'M SUCH AN AUDIO NAZI, AREN'T I?!
I really LOVE A-Yue, and think I might have to start fangirling him. ♥ Really he writes such GOOD, modern music, and he has the voice (and stamina!) to back it up - he sang a couple of his rollicking fast songs, literally leaping around the stage like a jackalope (Pixar short film reference, guys, did you get that?) and then held incredibly long notes ANYWAY. I'm not sure if he lost someone close to him recently, but it sure felt that way. He started crying when he sang his second song, Si Nian Shi Yi Zhong Bing, and that was really sad. :( My favourite? Zai Jian, because I am OBSESSED with that song.
Dayou was SUCH a revelation. I fail at not knowing the titles of 99% of what he sang, but he was fantastic. His voice is gravelly now, and his diction dodgier, but omigod, he got SUCH a reaction out of that audience with each successive classic song he sang. Other than Emil, this was basically his night - a comeback concert of sorts, buoyed by three friends. Other than his own set, the songs that Superband sang together in the last act of the show were all his... J and I suspect it's because it was easiest for everyone to sing his songs, since NO ONE of this quartet can sing A-Yue's songs except A-Yue himself, Emil's ones are kind of tough for all four to sing to because they range from impossible to share out to blatantly commercial, and Jonathan was... well, I presume being stroppy about sharing his songs. :P So a Dayou showcase it was, and that was FINE BY ME. My favourite? His NEW song, Tian Shi De Yan Lei, which he sang with A-Yue. EPIC AMOUNTS OF LOVE. One thing I MUST say is that I am super super excited to be seeing them when they eventually make a tour stop in Singapore as well. Because hopefully by then, they'd have figured more things out, written more songs just for Superband, and gelled better as a band. Because that would basically rule my life/universe/everything.
3. WOW GUYS I'VE BEEN TYPING THAT RECAP FOR OVER AN HOUR, WTF. I really should sleep.
4. It's kind of sad that this was our last day in Taiwan though. I have to cop to being super pathetic this trip in the sense that I didn't... go OUT and see more of Taiwan as I should have? Really I dawdled in bed, stayed within a certain small geographic zone and just ate a lot. I've seen a LOT of Taiwan in the culinary sense, and I loved what I saw, but I was a really bad tourist. But... I'm kind of okay with that. What I needed out of this trip, other than Emil!flail, was a BREAK, and I got just that. I got to sleep in and just REST, and... get my brain right again, you know? And be reminded why there really is a lot in this world to love. Besides, this only means I need to come BACK to Taiwan. Next time Emil holds a concert here, maybe... ;)
5. Okay okay. About the rest of the day: the food finally caught up to me and J. *weeps* My stomach protested MIGHTILY once I woke up, and I had to be really careful the rest of the day because I didn't want to spend most of the concert in the bathroom. So... I think I ate... not very much, compared to the day before anyway. A rice roll for breakfast, some sesame mua chee (SESAME, guys, SESAME), and I shared J's lunch of deep-fried pork steak and sesame-boiled chicken (SO heaty). I had a green tea latte at Starbucks while we stoned at the stadium, since I was freaked out that we might get lost and we wound up spending... way too much time there waiting rather than out shopping. And after that we went back to Shilin and ate teppanyaki as the healthiest option we could find, because even J couldn't bear the thought of oily pork anymore. Buttered/salted/MSG-ed cod, buttered mushrooms and beansprouts... everything with butter, and yet probably healthier than pretty much anything else we'd eaten to date. At least it was fish and vegetables, right? Though... what does that say about us (and Taiwan) that we considered this healthy?
6. Of course, this entry is now hopelessly out-of-date. BUT IT WASN'T WHEN I TYPED IT.
7. Right. It's 4am. No more flailing. Bedtime. Guys... I kind of really DO NOT WANT to go back to Singapore/work. :(
1. It's 2.40am on Sunday morning in Taiwan. This post - clearly - is going to appear somewhat later than that because I am made of so much epic fail that I tried to buy myself wireless internet, SUCCEEDED... and then proceeded to forget to take down the password and info I needed to LOG IN. Of course, this info was pointlessly forwarded to my email account, which I can't access because I'M NOT ONLINE, AM I. Honestly I could easily buy myself another day's worth of internet - it's not expensive at $4 a pop - but I'M PUNISHING MYSELF FOR BEING STUPID. No internet for you, IDIOT.
2. Doesn't mean I can't write an epic long, FLAILY entry to be posted when I finally get back online, though. HAI, CONCERT OF ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF EPIC AWESOME, OMIGOD. LIKE, I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I GOT TO SEE THIS LIVE. But we did it. We were TWO ROWS from the front, and honestly so close to the stage that the performers were real-people-sized. We were SO CLOSE we couldn't even see the huge television screens that the REST of the stadium were watching.
I think the ensuing flail can be encapsulated as follows: OH MEMBERS OF SUPERBAND. WHY SO AWESOME. Except, Superband, why so faily?
This was supposed to be a concert by a proper new band, made up of four of the Chinese pop industry's most incredibly talented singer-songwriters. These people have formed the backbone of Chinese popular music for DECADES, people - Luo Dayou, who was a massive star back in the 70s; Jonathan Li, who has written more enormously popular and yet heartbreakingly poetic songs than pretty much anybody else in his peer group; SOME UNKNOWN DUDE NAMED EMIL CHAU who has sold hundreds of millions of albums and spent more time onstage than any other Chinese pop singer EVER; and Zhang Zhen Yue (A-Yue), the youngest of the bunch but a rocker in his own right renowned for his ability to meld rap, rock AND represent Taiwan's youth all at once. The TALENT on that stage would have been worth the ticket price alone, even if they (literally) couldn't get their act together and had to put up four mini-concerts instead... which a lot of people were expecting them to do. Sadly, the FAILY part of the concert really was that they did exactly what all the cynics figured they would - they failed to come up with a clutch of proper SUPERBAND songs, and really coordinate and rehearse and gel as a band. Which means... they had, I think, ONE new song on top of their pre-existing single Wang Ming Zhi Tu. They DID get onstage and sing as a foursome, but hardly to the point that it felt like THAT was the main attraction, you know? In effect, it was the four of them doing solo sets, occasionally duets, and ONCE IN A WHILE singing as a band. So that was... not so awesome.
And I think noldoparma and I got pretty much the same vibe from the concert. Not even speaking as an unapologetic Emil fangirl (and y'all know I'm super-biased for his super-awesome), Emil was the one holding the show and the group together. He was... kind of the star of the show? And such a gentleman about it all that honestly I love him even more after tonight than I have after fifteen years of fangirling him. THAT'S RIGHT. It actually IS possible to love him more, after all!! :P Seriously though: he just seemed so happy and excited to have the privilege to be onstage with this group of people, and readily sang or performed with every one of his band members, providing back-up vocals when necessary (even shaking the maracas at one point, LOL) and just generally being sweet and considerate of his fellow performers. It was noticeable how the others didn't interact as much - Jonathan being the worst offender. Honestly, his lack of participation in the night was kind of OBVIOUS, and J and I can only postulate that it's because he just wasn't happy with preparations and how the band was going so just... took himself out of a lot of it. He sang his five-song set, dueting only with Emil... which isn't anything special in that the two of them work and sing and perform together a LOT. Aside from the band segments, he had nothing to do with Dayou or A-Yue. At least Dayou wrote a song and gave A-Yue's vocals a nice huge cameo!
Bah. At least my boyfriend was awesome. I think the other thing about the night - and really I am being as objective here as I CAN be - he was clearly the best showman as well. He LIVES onstage: there's something about him that lights it up, and that lights up once he gets to sing and perform for others, and it's SO obvious he just adores entertaining other people. Jonathan, I think, considers himself a songwriter first and foremost, and in any case, had a kind of snarky vibe to his entire performance last night (I'm not sure WHAT he was doing with a weirdly-arranged, slightly off rendition of Gui Mi Xin Qiao, but it certainly felt like he was smirking throughout the whole song). A-Yue is a little Energiser bunny onstage, clearly proving how much younger he is than all the older guys in the band, but he's also kind of an indie star more concerned with getting to perform his own stuff than relating to the audience. Dayou, of course, hasn't really rocked out live in ages - he's more or less a hermit these days, so he just sang... and bantered a little bit, but not much.
Isn't it sad that I'm actually sort-of complaining that Emil got such a star turn at the concert last night? I mean, you'd think I'd be HAPPY. And of course I AM, because he got to sing so much and he was FANTASTIC. But the thing about last night was that it proved to me that these four people - IF they got serious - really could be the most astounding band of collaborators EVER. The fact that they flaked out, pretty much, and collapsed into their individual comfort zones (aside from Emil and to a far lesser extent, Dayou and A-Yue) was just... disappointing. :(
THAT BEING SAID. OMG WHO CARES ABOUT ALL THAT. THE SHOW WAS STILL SO FUCKING FANTASTIC. I can't believe I got to see it from THAT CLOSE TO THE STAGE. Guys, there were a SHIT TON of Taiwanese stars there last night - Zhang Ai Jia, Winnie Hsin, MAYDAY, Tarcy Su, Victor Wong Pin Guan, the Mayor of Taipei among others - and and AND our seats were legit better than theirs. *weeps* We were just METRES away from the stage, and you could see... pretty much everything. To the point that, up close, it was kind of obvious when Emil's eyes flicked to the teleprompters for lyric prompts. *weeps*
Okay, before I review the REST of the performers, it was clearly all about Emil for me. His voice was INSANELY AMAZING last night. LIKE, INSANELY AMAZING. HAVE THAT IN BOLD: INSANELY AMAZING. The moment he FIRST sang a solo bit - at the beginning when each performer sang a snatch of one of their hit songs and he chose Ai Xiang Sui - my heart pretty much shuddered to a stop. Because he totes STOPPED the music, sang a verse completely ACAPELLA, and sounded just INCREDIBLE. I think I started to tear a little bit at that, because it was SO BEAUTIFUL to hear him all fired-up and ready to go like that. This is saying rather a lot, btw. Even when sick, Emil pretty much sounds amazing, and he's got one of those wash-and-wear voices (mixing metaphors with abandon) - as in I'm pretty sure you could poke him awake, stick a guitar in his hand, and he'd STILL be able to start singing and sound good without any warm-up or rehearsal. TONIGHT. TONIGHT HE WAS SKDLALKSALHFLAHLAGHLDFADSALFHLGHALFA. Better than in his live concert last month. I AM NOT EVEN EXAGGERATING THERE.
And of course, because he was nice enough to prep numbers with EVERYBODY, he sang SO MUCH. Here's a rundown as I listen to him be incredible on my audio:
- Rang Wo Huan Xi Rang Wo You - this is one of HIS biggest hits, but the lyrics were written by Jonathan, so Jonathan included it in his own set. And thank goodness too, because I've grown somewhat weary of this song (having listened to it for 15 years!) but this rendition literally made me cry. I really did, a bit, because Jonathan took lead vocals, turned it into a beautifully mellow jazz song, riffed the crap out of it, and then had Emil SING BACK-UP. Emil's harmonisation is out-of-this-world beautiful, guys. He sings such gorgeous high notes, and matches whoever he's singing with so perfectly. So this song pretty much would have made my night. EXCEPT:
- To kick off his OWN segment, Emil sang Chuan Ge - YES. With Dayou playing guitar and providing back-up, he sang CHUAN GE. A SONG SUNG BY INSANE FEMALE SOPRANO OF AWESOME, QI YU. I quibble with Emil's attempt to sing the back-up vocalists' part ("bom bom bom, bom bom bom" WUT), but omigod. My brain exploded when he sang the first line, I grabbed J's sleeve and had a mini-heart attack, and didn't think it could get any better until the second part of the song, when he STARTED YODELLING. That's right, guys. He riffed the effin' CRAP out of that song, belting high and awesome and DFLDHFLAHFLHGLLSADASDA. I'd have proposed marriage at that point, I am for serious.
- Then then THEN, later in his set, he sang short renditions of songs by Dayou and Jonathan because he fanboys them so (HOW cute is he), and I don't know the title of the Dayou song (this is going to be a problem when I track the audio) but he knocked it out of the PARK, and then he sang Wei Ni Wo Shou Leng Feng Chui. AGAIN, a song for a WOMAN, which involves high notes of epic awesome, and I think I cried again at that point. *weeps*
- FINALLY, I never realised he wrote one of his new songs - Qin Ai De Baby - for Superband, so when he started talking about how he'd been inspired to write something about maternal love, I almost had a conniption. And then HE SANG IT, and omigod omigod. I'd only severely overplayed the demo version on his website by this point, so getting to see him sing it live? A+!! I LOVE that he had A-Yue play back-up guitar, and that he just... sang it so beautifully and simply. So obsessed with the song.
- I think it says something about how much I loved these performances - each of which would have been worth the price of admission - that I actually cared LESS when he sang Gua Fu Chun Chuan Qi (ALWAYS a favourite for me when he sings it live), Pa Hei and Shang Xin De Ge, LOL.
- Then he came out during Dayou's segment and sang a duet with him! I don't know the title, but I heart it a LOT. And this moment was so cute because the stagehand thought Emil was singing back-up, rather than a proper duet, and put his mike stand in back... Dayou, who was playing the guitar, marched over and got it for Emil and put it frontstage centre, and Emil was all respectful and bowed to him and alskdhalfhalfhlfa how is he such a NICE guy??
- Let's not even mention all the other things that made me flail, except let's: hearing him sing snatches of Dayou's songs during the medley, or just riffing some lines in A-Yue's finale (but not encore) song Zai Jian, were just epic. EPIC.
OH AND AND AND. There was this moment near the end of the show, when J and I were singing along and waving our glowsticks (YES WE HAD GLOWSTICKS AND THEY WERE BLUE, WHAT OF IT), and he looked STRAIGHT AT ME, and smiled that huge, sunshiny smile of his and gave me two thumbs-up. And I DIED from the awesome, because I am 12, clearly, but COME ON GUYS THROW ME A BONE AND ALLOW ME TO BE A SILLY CHILDISH FANGIRL, I LEGIT LOVE THIS GUY. I do, and I have to say, without any shame or reservation at all, that I would marry him in a heartbeat if he asked. IN. A. HEARTBEAT.
URM OKAY. Let me... stop being scary and talk about the other guys. *cries*
Jonathan WAS good - I especially loved, as I said, his version of Rang Wo Huan Xi ♥ and his revised arrangement of Wo Shi Yi Zhi Xiao Xiao Niao was SO interesting. But he really DID seem to just take himself out of proceedings a LOT, so I didn't get much more of a vibe from him beyond that. Though there WAS a moment I liked when he got pissy that the audience wasn't singing along with one of Dayou's songs; he got all offended. XD My favourite song he wrote was probably Fan Ren Ge though, when all four of them sang it together... oh, and when J returned to her seat. *weeps* She had to run to the bathroom halfway through Emil's set and didn't dare come back 'til considerably later for fear of annoying people and ruining my audio. I'M SUCH AN AUDIO NAZI, AREN'T I?!
I really LOVE A-Yue, and think I might have to start fangirling him. ♥ Really he writes such GOOD, modern music, and he has the voice (and stamina!) to back it up - he sang a couple of his rollicking fast songs, literally leaping around the stage like a jackalope (Pixar short film reference, guys, did you get that?) and then held incredibly long notes ANYWAY. I'm not sure if he lost someone close to him recently, but it sure felt that way. He started crying when he sang his second song, Si Nian Shi Yi Zhong Bing, and that was really sad. :( My favourite? Zai Jian, because I am OBSESSED with that song.
Dayou was SUCH a revelation. I fail at not knowing the titles of 99% of what he sang, but he was fantastic. His voice is gravelly now, and his diction dodgier, but omigod, he got SUCH a reaction out of that audience with each successive classic song he sang. Other than Emil, this was basically his night - a comeback concert of sorts, buoyed by three friends. Other than his own set, the songs that Superband sang together in the last act of the show were all his... J and I suspect it's because it was easiest for everyone to sing his songs, since NO ONE of this quartet can sing A-Yue's songs except A-Yue himself, Emil's ones are kind of tough for all four to sing to because they range from impossible to share out to blatantly commercial, and Jonathan was... well, I presume being stroppy about sharing his songs. :P So a Dayou showcase it was, and that was FINE BY ME. My favourite? His NEW song, Tian Shi De Yan Lei, which he sang with A-Yue. EPIC AMOUNTS OF LOVE. One thing I MUST say is that I am super super excited to be seeing them when they eventually make a tour stop in Singapore as well. Because hopefully by then, they'd have figured more things out, written more songs just for Superband, and gelled better as a band. Because that would basically rule my life/universe/everything.
3. WOW GUYS I'VE BEEN TYPING THAT RECAP FOR OVER AN HOUR, WTF. I really should sleep.
4. It's kind of sad that this was our last day in Taiwan though. I have to cop to being super pathetic this trip in the sense that I didn't... go OUT and see more of Taiwan as I should have? Really I dawdled in bed, stayed within a certain small geographic zone and just ate a lot. I've seen a LOT of Taiwan in the culinary sense, and I loved what I saw, but I was a really bad tourist. But... I'm kind of okay with that. What I needed out of this trip, other than Emil!flail, was a BREAK, and I got just that. I got to sleep in and just REST, and... get my brain right again, you know? And be reminded why there really is a lot in this world to love. Besides, this only means I need to come BACK to Taiwan. Next time Emil holds a concert here, maybe... ;)
5. Okay okay. About the rest of the day: the food finally caught up to me and J. *weeps* My stomach protested MIGHTILY once I woke up, and I had to be really careful the rest of the day because I didn't want to spend most of the concert in the bathroom. So... I think I ate... not very much, compared to the day before anyway. A rice roll for breakfast, some sesame mua chee (SESAME, guys, SESAME), and I shared J's lunch of deep-fried pork steak and sesame-boiled chicken (SO heaty). I had a green tea latte at Starbucks while we stoned at the stadium, since I was freaked out that we might get lost and we wound up spending... way too much time there waiting rather than out shopping. And after that we went back to Shilin and ate teppanyaki as the healthiest option we could find, because even J couldn't bear the thought of oily pork anymore. Buttered/salted/MSG-ed cod, buttered mushrooms and beansprouts... everything with butter, and yet probably healthier than pretty much anything else we'd eaten to date. At least it was fish and vegetables, right? Though... what does that say about us (and Taiwan) that we considered this healthy?
6. Of course, this entry is now hopelessly out-of-date. BUT IT WASN'T WHEN I TYPED IT.
7. Right. It's 4am. No more flailing. Bedtime. Guys... I kind of really DO NOT WANT to go back to Singapore/work. :(