Chinese music icon and veteran singer Tsai Chin defies the passage of time with her top-notch performance.
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| CN PHOTO: Desmond Tan |
Taiwanese songstress Tsai Chin sang her heart out to a capacity crowd at the Resorts World Convention Centre Compass Ballroom on Sep. 11, captivating audiences with her signature deep, mellow voice, warmth and witty sense of humor.
Having performed to sold-out concerts in most of Asia and produced almost 50 albums, the veteran singer was in top form at her 2010 The Endless Love, Once More, Singapore Concert. The concert was divided into four segments, each focusing on a different era of songs and singers from different regions, ranging from Shanghainese singers in the 1940s to the ‘60s, to ‘80s singers from Taipei like Feng Fei Fei and Teresa Teng. Before she started performing for each segment, a multimedia presentation showing clips and singers from each era was shown, giving the audience a background of the musical period while paying tribute to the singers of the yesteryears.
After a multimedia presentation, the songbird herself appeared in the middle of the stage in a stunning red cheongsam complete with a red shawl, channeling an old Shanghai sophistication to match the opening number, “Ye Shang Hai” (“Shanghai Night”). At this point, enthusiastic fans ran up to the stage to present their idol with bouquets of flowers.
Throughout the concert, Tsai maintained an effortless exchange of interaction with her fans, throwing out self-deprecating jokes every now and then and encouraging them to clap to the beat of the songs. She had the audience in chuckles by constantly joking about her age and her looks, saying, “For my type of beauty, the further you look, the prettier I will be”. She also shared about her childhood and her career milestones to the audience, many of whom had been ardent fans since her rise to fame in the ‘70s and her subsequent prime in the ‘80s.
Saving the best for last, Tsai then belted out the well-known classic, “Ni De Yen Sheng” (“The Look In Your Eyes”). It drew a heightened response from the crowd; instead of merely clapping their hands, they joined her in lifting up their hands and singing along—some even got to their feet and swayed along to the show. There was no doubt that this was a lady who knew how to work a crowd, and a cross-generational one at that.
The younger members in the crowd, who were at first difficult to spot, were taken in by her voice and made no qualms in showing their support for the veteran performer. Jasmine Ho, a newly converted fan in her 20s, said, “She is not what I expected. I like her. I just like her.” The teacher, who only came to the concert in celebration of her mother’s birthday, gave one of the loudest shouts for an encore after Tsai had departed.
She drew the concert to a contemplative end by asking everybody to close their eyes and listen to their heartbeats and voices, gently reminding them of the beauty of their own voices and asking them to continue singing. As she delivered the chorus one last time, the crowd stood up in a standing ovation.
It was a show without the usual frills employed by other big-name artists; there were no fancy costumes, dance moves nor stage features, but Tsai once again won over her fans, both the old and new, with her pure, inextinguishable vocal prowess.
