Tanya & The Cities 2011 Live Concert

Singapore Indoor Stadium

Last Saturday

Before we saw her, we heard her.

The concert opened with the first stanza of Breathe, local singer-songwriter Tanya Chua’s first-ever Mandarin single from 1999. It seemed to echo the song’s music video where her face could not be seen. Yet it still became a hit on the strength of the track and her unusual, lightly husky vocals.

Twelve years and seven Mandarin records later, Chua finally holds her first major concert on home territory. Clearly there was demand for it as more than 90 per cent of the 5,500 tickets were sold.

It is such a pity then that it was largely an underwhelming experience.

There appeared to be some problem with the microphone at the beginning, which led to fluctuations in the pitch and volume, and some words were swallowed up entirely.

Some of it could have been due to jitters as well. Chua admitted that she was nervous as she was singing to an audience which included primary school pals, relatives and family.

It did not help that much of her repertoire comprised ballads and mid-tempo songs and too often it seemed that the choice was to go even slower when giving songs a new spin.

The static staging contributed to the sluggish pace as well. She was rooted to one spot for long stretches, with the only movements restricted to her left hand checking her earpiece – something she repeated throughout the night.

Things improved with the first costume change when she appeared in a pink frock and projections transformed the bare black stage into lamp-lit alleyways.

One-third into the three-hour-long show she finally seemed to find her groove, in the India segment.

She told the audience that she had hit a bottleneck in 2005 and had eventually found her passion for making music again in India, where she had gone to practise yoga.

Looking relaxed, Chua played the guitar and was accompanied by the sitar as she took on Rihanna’s Umbrella and Lady Gaga’s Poker Face. It finally set off a ripple of excitement in the subdued crowd.

Another high point was when guest star Kit Chan strolled on stage as Chua sang the National Day song Home. After this stirring duet, Chan proceeded to steal the show. She demonstrated how one should take a sip of water on stage – slowly and with style – before taking on Leslie Cheung’s Cantonese hit Chase.

At her best, Chua breathed life into beautifully emotive songs about love with elegant metaphors such as evolution theory, cold-blooded creatures and projectile motion (on Darwin, Amphibian and Projectile). While she managed to deliver these on stage, there were not enough of these moments.

She has always composed much of her own material but it is on her last two albums, Goodbye & Hello (2007) and If You See Him (2009), that she came into her own as a lyricist with songs such as When You Leave, Blank Space, Who and If You See Him.

Unfortunately, it was not clear at the concert if she had a stronger affinity for these songs because of the inconsistent nature of the sound and her singing. And for a two-time Golden Melody Award winner for Best Female Vocalist with a rich body of work, that was disappointing.

(ST)