Sunday, December 30, 2007

Jay Chou (周杰倫)’s LA Concert Review

Thanks to one of our readers, we have a great review for Jay's concert. If any of you have any reviews you want to share, please send them to us at aznconcerts@gmail.com. Check out the review and enjoy!!!



We arrived at the Galen center at about 6:30 and there was already a huge line of fans waiting to be seated. The concert was suppose to start at 7:30, but due to the security, many people entered the galen center abit late. The concert finally started at 8pm with I would say almost 95% full capacity, so around 10 to 11,000 people. Although most of the attendees were between the teen ages to the mid thirties, I wassurpised that there were quite a few elders there as well. Jay Chou opened up with the song Golden Armour, with some of his dancers dressed in armour similar to the ones from the film "Curse of the Golden flower,"while doing fighting skits. From the start you could feel the music in this fairly new center. I was on the second floor, with a nice center view. I can't remember the order of the songs, but I believe he did a few more upbeat songs, before displaying some scenesfrom his film "Secret" then as a lead in to the song, he rose (from under the stage) playing the piano and sang "the secret I cannot tell."

Some of the songs He sung were:

Golden Armour
Unparrelled
The Secret I cannot tell
Cowboy on the run
Listen to mama
Black Humour
Silence
Beyond a thousand miles
Chrysanthemum flower bed
Compendium of Materia Medica/herbalist tea
Twilights chapter 7
Noctourne
I cannot speak
sunshine homeboy
Hair like white snow
Huo yuan jia

I have to say he did a really good job on with the stage show (but lacking some good CG on the bigscreens). Some disappointments about the concert were the little sessions of dance sequences, a quite long and boring session of what seemed to be some sort of music/song improv. Near the end of the concert, somelame person probably made a mistake of turning on the main lights, which signaled that the concert was over, but Jay still had a few more left for his final encore. What also may have been noticeable was Jay's rush of the concert. It seems like he was rushing through the songs, and in some cases, just felt like the songs were shortened (maybe I was just having too much fun and didn't realize it). This was Jay's last stop of his tour, so I'm sure he's quite tired. (maybe even jet lag).

Still the concert, with all of his music and the production value was quite awesome when comparing to various other asian artist.

Jay showed his versatility, as he played different instruments throughout the concert; the piano, guitar, drums, as well as one of the chinese string instruments. (He lead that into Hair like white snow, that was so awesome!). He also had Nam Quan Ma Maperform a few of their songs as well.

In keeping the crowd entertained, in the dance sessions he did have, they were quite nicely in sync,and also doing a Piano battle with one of Nam Quan MaMa's member (as it was a scene taken from his movie"secret"). At one point he was even doing some Yo yo/circus act.

Some memorable moments: Jay doing Listen to your Mom, and seeing Chow yun fat appearing in a short videofootage. For one of his songs, he had an lady playsome sort of chinese violin, which lead into the song Twilight's chapter seven, with Lara (NQMM) doing the female part of the song and one of the male (NQMM) doing other male parts of the song. Jay playing the chinese instrument and singing Hair like white snow. And in the last encore, he did Huo Yuan Jia (Fearlesscredit song), really pumped up the crowd (and some lucky girl got his dragon embroided jacket he hadthrown into the crowd).

Overall it was a great concert, entertaining mostly and full of great music. Jay really rocked the Galencenter (he's the first asian to perform in this center). Go Jay!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Unknown said...

I think it was full of crap that they were so strict about not allowing cameras in. How did you manage to get your camera in?

Anonymous said...

LA was not the end of the world tour, he still goes back to asia and have it in Japan and Malayasia...also, when he was singing "Ting Ma Ma De Hua" it wasn't Chow Yun Fat, it was Jacky Cheung!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, he definitely said "Zhang Xue You", who is Jacky Cheung, one of the 4 heavenly kings of canto-pop.

And I liked the music improv, I thought it was a really cool MC. The interaction with the audience is the kind of stuff you can't get from a dvd.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the review!! I was wondering how this concert went.

To the reviewer: Jay is actually the 2nd Asian entertainer at the Galen Center. Emil Chou held his concert there in November.

Anonymous said...

Just attended his concert here yesterday in Toronto 16th December at Air Canada Center which kick off another round of concert tour after release of the new album.

The order of the songs sounds about the same and it was also close to full capacity (95%). He did all the songs you have mentioned as well as some new songs from his new album and recent movies such as 'dao xiang' and 'zhou da xia'. Though his songs are very good as we all know, I thought the beginning of the concert was a but shaky as his voice hasn't seem warmed up yet. It got better after 5 songs and after he sang 'ting mama de hua'.

The middle bit with too much gimicky stuff was a low point for me- dances and nan quan mama part was a lil terrible - coz they dun sound very good (from my perspective). Gary (his studio recording technician) who recorded his first album with Jay's help was a bit better. I was actually quite bored mid-concert. Luckily Jay brought it up back to expectation again with 'an jing' and 'qing hua qi'

Overall, I think it's great that we were able to get all his hit from all his different albums. However, the production is a bit amateurish at times - as per previous comment. Also - too much clothes changing which interrupted with the flow of the concert I feel. However, I do think that maybe as compared to other Asian pop singers - he may be one of the best - well, didn't really attend any of others - but his concert is definitely the only one I will attend amongst the other Asian performers.