sodagreen "Stations" Tour
Max Pavilion @ Singapore Expo
Last Saturday
There was no sign of coloured hair and the band members were dressed in black and grey. But if Taiwanese indie band sodagreen’s look was relatively subdued, their performance was anything but that.
The evening opened with three numbers from their Summer/Fever (2009) rock album: The Sound That Remains, Summer Summer and King’s Garden.
Lead vocalist Wu Ching-feng’s high-pitched voice, by turns piercingly clear and nasal, was once startling and now familiarly distinctive. He was in fine form throughout and delivered on both the moving ballads such as Incomparable Beauty as well as the energetic boppers including Fever.
As with most Mandopop concerts, the lyrics of the songs were shown on a screen to make it easy for fans to sing along. But in this case, it also made it easier to appreciate Wu’s often dazzling and thoughtful lyrics.
For example, Stopping At Each Station, from the brilliant Daylight Of Spring (2009) record, was inspired by Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi’s musings on whether he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was a man.
Despite the absence of regular guitarist He Jing-yang and keyboardist Kung Yu-chi due to national service commitments, the six-member band sounded tight.
They also served up some surprises by rocking out the folksy Daylight and adding little musical flourishes to the retro-sounding The Girl With Red Shoes.
What was rather unusual was the large number of covers that they did, from the late songbird Teresa Teng’s I Only Care About You to local singer Mavis Hee’s Moonlight In The City to the late singer-songwriter Chang Yu-sheng’s My Future Is Not A Dream.
While the band definitely left their stamp on the material, the only quibble would be that it took time away from them performing their own songs.
During the second encore, Wu asked for requests from the enthusiastic fans and then gamely sang snatches of Take Me Away and the Minnan number Chasing Chasing Chasing.
He also held court when it came to the interaction segments, entertaining one and all, including himself, with his teasing and needling of guitarist Liu Jia-kai, bassist Hsieh Hsin-yi and drummer Shi Jun-wei. The two stand-in musicians were not spared either.
The 21/2-hour-long gig ended all too soon with a rousing rendition of one of their earlier hits, Little Universe.
Liu had revealed at one point that he usually drinks beer before going on stage but the fans have no need for alcohol when they have sodagreen to get high on.
(ST)