I have always dream of attending Jacky Cheung's concerts. So watching him live is a dream come true. Think I sound like a fangirl… because I am.
Since I bought numbered seats, there is no need to rushed to Stadium Merdeka like my previous concerts. It was a magnificent sight. The stadium was absolutely packed. Don't think any other event would have such a crowd. Staring at the 3 large LED projection, I remember a tech supplier once mentioned Jacky Cheung's concerts rents the most equipment - 100 moving heads - this was at least 4 years ago.
At 8.30pm, the lights dimmed and the crowd roared, video playback started and the crowd went crazy (hey, no opening act!) Dancers with umbrella dancing and suddenly…YAY, Jacky appears on an elevated platform. As he tap dance, the visual of water splashes on the LED screen behind him was just timed perfectly. The video playback was a love story specially designed for his live concerts to communicate the message of his songs even better. The video stars Shu Qi.
After a few dance number, he headed to the swing with one of the dancer and they kinda flew. The swing was lifted up to the video projection of the moon behind. Very nice! Next, the screen suddenly seem to have disappeared and Jacky appeared on an upper level of another stage. After a few songs, the stage he was standing on started to tilt from 90 degrees to an angle he could just walked on to an elevated platform. Amazing! What come next made everyone realized in awe that as it flips over 180 degree, it is actually the same LED screen we saw in the beginning of the concert! Nice.
He wrote a song in dedication to Lydia Sum of her influence in his life. Dancers dressed in costume with mascot and large balloons were pretty cute. After all that, he toned down and came to a smaller lower stage to the audience and did a little Jazz session with his pianist and double bass. He was a little disappointed at the response of the crowd after the 1st song, well you don't expect everyone to know how to appreciate Jazz. Haha, but the crowd continued to encouraged him as his following Jazz songs were jazzed up version of his popular songs. It was pretty nice, as he puts it, he could see the faces of this sitting near him, and this is just something he enjoys doing. Normally he does only 1 song, but somehow one lead to another and yea, it was nice, gives a nice touch to familiar songs.
After that he returned to fast paced songs (he claims to have seen people yawning) that he…or he used to have danced very well before. Remember that he ended one song with a split and that really got the crowd screaming. I am little jealous that he can still perform a split at his age. Then there was a little chopper that appeared midway of the songs and it flew like the swing earlier. It was spectacular with fireworks and laser lights. Truly a great show. It was nice to hear him interact like how he wants us to remember his dancing because he wasn't sure when will he be back and if he could still dance that way. Throughout the concert, he repeatedly apologize for his performance in December 2011. Apparently he was unwell (during the 4 consecutive nights concerts) I am truly impressed by his spirit of excellence and the energy. At 11.30pm, he asked to confirm that the audience was not working the next day because he wanted to sing more songs….We ended around 12.10pm That was a solid 3 hours and 40 minutes concert with very short interval for costumer change. Salute this guy and his voice never fails to deliver each song perfectly.
Technically, I thought the band and Jacky sounded amazing. Great job sound engineers! I sat at the very extreme side of the stadium and everything just sounded great! Vocals and instruments was very crisp and clear. Video playback was done very well and middle and side screen video mixing was really good. Lighting effects was impressive as it changes from one scene to another.
