Superstar Concert 30-09-2005

It’s three days after the Superstar concert last Friday and I miss Sin Huey already! The highlight of the concert for me must surely be performances by Sin Huey (duh!) and Kelvin. More of that later.

Ok, let’s start with the concert venue at the newly constructed Max Pavilion at Spore Expo hall 10. Looking like a warehouse from the exterior, it boasts quite an excellent sound, video and lighting system. Video footage of the Superstars’ performances during the contest were shown on the video wall by the stage before the start of the show. TODAY reported that over 90% of the 6,000 seats were “sold”.

The concert kicked off at 8.30pm with a group song and dance performance of the rock anthem by Queen “We Will Rock You”. Well, they tried… :P Super host Quan Yifeng did a good job of holding the show together and injecting some laughs to relieve the bouts of boredom that crept in between the show. The concert was basically divided into two halves, with the first half “anchored” by Junyang/Sin Huey and the second half by Kelvin/Kelly. Footage of Sugi, Derrick, Jason, Weicong and Chanel hamming it up as the Superstar judges were flashed on the video screen in between the show segments, spouting lines like “What is power? Power is nothing without control!”. Sounds familiar? 8-) Incidentally, Fang Zhonghua and Ye Peifen were in the audience and they must have enjoyed a good chuckle watching the spoof of themselves. I must say Weicong and Chanel displayed good comic potential… ha ha.


The first half started with duets by army boys Derrick and Weicong whose shaven heads gave the hormone-charged xiao mei mei much to scream for. Next up was a guitar-strumming Junyang who then introduced the ge sheng yi ji bang de Sin Huey. Her first song was Hikaru Utada’s First Love, a song of great personal meaning to her. She sang with piano accompaniment only instead of the orchestra music in the original version. If you have seen Utada’s MTV Unplugged version before, you would appreciate this is not at all an easy song to sing. Sin Huey sang it a little differently from Utada, with a bit more power. I could tell she was very mai li and tou ru and her rendition gave me goosebumps. Up next was a duet with her demure younger sister Sin Rui, who came all the way from KL to perform together onstage with her for the very first time. As I wasn’t familiar with the song they sang (有你真好) I don’t have much recollection of their performance now except that it was rather nice and sweet. The third song was Kelly Chen Huiling’s不要说抱歉, the 4th track of the Best of Jue Dui Superstar CD. What I love about Sin Huey’s version is her refreshing interpretation of the song which she sang differently from Kelly and made it her own. I particularly like the husky tone of her voice and the feeling she injected into the tune. Her concert rendition was almost as good as the CD version but I found the outfit/boots she wore for that song rather odd. Eh, for the sake of nitpicking lah!

Fast forward (sorry, quite sian with some segments) into the second half with a big-haired Kelly singing a fast song 发烫 and a Cantonese song 问我 by Sammi Cheng. She next introduced Kelvin and befitting his Superstar champion status, performed the most number of songs during the show, including an audience’s pick. He sang well and engaged in an easy banter with Quan Yifeng who cheekily asked if he would consider to be with an older married woman with one kid… hehe. His repertoire included a popular Thai and Hokkien song and oldies like 月亮代表我的心 to the delight of the aunties in the audience. His piano accompaniment of a duet (陪你看日出) with his sister Wei Nee was a hit with the crowd.


Some people mistakenly thought the group performance of 老鼠爱大米 was the finale and thus left, missing the encore. Wasted, man. The best part of the encore was the piano version of 遗失的美好 duet by Sin Huey and Kelly. I can only say that Sin Huey’s vocals were exquisite in this song and would have been perfect if she had sung solo. Next was the guy’s turn with Kelvin and Junyang crooning Tong Hua to the strumming of their guitars. The concert came to an end at 11.45pm with a group song finale.

My main gripe of the concert was the use of canned music instead of a live band. The only form of live music was the piano accompaniment on a few songs and guitar strumming by a few of the Superstars. For the high ticket prices charged, I had expected a live band which would have enhanced the concert experience.

On a score of 1-10, I would rate Sin Huey’s concert performance a 8.5. While she received an appreciative response from the general audience, I can’t say she has quite endeared herself to them the way Kelvin did with his laid-back sense of humour or Kelly’s “ya ya” way of speaking (oops!). Somehow her likeable personality fails to come through onstage but hopefully she can establish a more appealing identity over time.

To Sin Huey, I just wanna say watching you sing is really a form of xiangshou. Oo-la-la :)