This is my second Stefanie Sun concert, the first one was in 2006.
In 2006, it was a much simpler affair.
This time it seems like everything was in place, the concert was near perfect.
The stage itself was a spectacular art piece.
Holograms were used in place of the usual two-dimensional screens.
Halfway into the show, the stage transformed and the hologram screens by the side turned into mega spotlights for the rest of the night.
I was highly impressed with the creativity of the team behind the stage design.
Then, came the stylish costumes.
William Chang (the man who worked alongside Wong Kar Wai), was her image consultant. Yanzi donned all kinds of costumes that I'll never imagine her in.
Stylo, sexy, sweet, sassy. Almost everything you can think of.
The singing was a lot better than the show in 2006.
I read reviews on Today, My Paper and Straits Times and I have to say that the critics were nice to Yanzi. They mentioned how she was better in terms of live singing compared to years ago, which I do agree.
But there were still parts that Yanzi's voice cracked and the occasional offbeats. But well, her songs are not easy to sing, so it's forgivable that she did not display a perfect showcase of her vocals. And in fact, she did better than I thought she would.
The spontaneous audience were fantastic and Yanzi has got pretty interesting fans. One banner says: "9 years of loving ain't enough.. How about forever?"
I must say, this is so unique compared to the usual.. "YANZI, WE LOVE YOU!"
Yanzi's high stage EQ in was evident in the show too.
When the fans tried to made conversations with her, Yanzi jokingly chided them: "The whole stadium is waiting for you guys..". You can see how the audience love her response from the laughter that surrounded the stadium after her statement.
And being on home ground has its advantage; Yanzi mentioned more than once that the applause & cheers she gets from Singapore always feels different.
It feels good to know that we have such a proud export who's proud of her own origins too :)
One of the major highlight of the show was the use of the hologram projector to project Yanzi's image to make the audience think that it's the real Yanzi singing while she change.
The only thing that I really have to give a big boo was the inconsistent sound system.
It was ok when Yanzi was singing ballads but when it came to the fast numbers, it was obvious that the sound system wasn't able to handle it.At one point in time, I even thought that she was not singing to a live band cos the quality of the music was so bad that it didn't sound live at all.
This is one point that the newspapers reviews did not point out.
Maybe it was due to the fact that I wasn't sitting in the middle.
Then again, I wasn't too far off from the middle of the stadium, so it doesn't seem to justify for the lousy music system also.
Having said so much, everything seems to be in place and it was supposingly a good concert. But somehow, I felt something was missing and it was only after reading Straits Times review that I could pinpoint it - "It made one wonder if she would have fared better in a smaller and more intimate setting, stripped of all the extraneous details."
Indeed, I prefer Yanzi to be how she used to be - The girl with the distinctively unique voice singing ballads in her most comfortable outfit, (think: jeans and tank-top).
And so... the answer is: A good show, a better Yanzi.
Since we can't turn back time, i can only reminisce how she used to be like when she was much younger and simpler and continue to support her and her music.