Faye Wong 2011 Concert

Singapore Indoor Stadium/Last Saturday

Banter is part and parcel of every concert experience, except when it comes to a Faye Wong gig.

The Chinese pop diva said “xie xie” (thank you) five times and the sixth time, just to mix things up a bit, she said it in Cantonese. And that was the sum total of what she uttered to the sold-out crowd of 6,500.

Then again, if you are a fan, you were not there for the small talk. A Faye Wong concert is first and foremost about hearing her sing live.

And as a bonus, this concert boasted a few beautifully conceived tableaux. The creative director of the show is Ida Wong, also the producer-director of the tour, which has so far been to Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Nanjing, Changsha and Wuhan. There was also creative input from director Wong Kar Wai for the visuals.

The show opened with a wintry snowscape. There were trees with bare branches and what appeared to be a huge white rock in the middle of the stage. The structure eventually split apart to reveal Wong as a human chandelier, singing her Cantonese ballad Promise.

Both she and the sound system got off to a shaky start. She sounded tentative and her pitch did not seem too secure.

But by the time she sang her cover of Teresa Teng’s You Are In My Heart, things were beginning to come together and the crowd signalled its approval with a roar.

Winter gave way to spring and Wong changed from her white get-up into an outfit with a flouncy red and white skirt.

Summer arrived with a blast of electric guitars as she took on the invigorating To Love and the electropop of The Last Blossom.

She was beginning to hit her stride as her pipes warmed up, which made it the perfect moment to put on Face. The track was a showstopper on the Scenic Tour (1998) album and live, it was a stunner as Wong switched between an operatic higher register and a twangy lower range.

While she never quite broke into a dance, she would shift about on the balls of her feet and during Bored, she even twirled the microphone over her head.

It was during the Autumn segment that she literally soared. She sat on a structure that seemed to be made of air and light and the entire contraption was hoisted over the stage and then, thrillingly, over the audience.

The ceiling was lit up like a night heavy with stars as she sang Sky and Wishing We Could Last Forever. The effect was heartstoppingly magical.

At other times, the lighting alone was enough to create drama. During her rendition of her early Cantonese hit Cold War, she was strikingly framed by cones of light beamed from different angles.

While her last album was 2003’s To Love, it did not mean that there was no new material at the concert. In a show of versatility, she gave her own take on Karen Mok’s Single Room Double Bed as well as Sinead O’Connor’s A Perfect Indian.

In the final Rebirth segment, Wong wore a white dress with a print pattern of black skulls. She performed New Tenant and then Chanel, as red cloth twirled mesmerisingly from the rafters.

Both numbers, as well as the following Flower On The Other Shore, are from the song cycle that she composed for Fable (2000). Flower is not exactly a crowd-pleasing set-ender and yet, Wong made it work.

She sang it standing in front of a screen, onto which a reflection of her was also projected, lending an other-worldly vibe to the proceedings.

By the end of the song, she was in that other world as depicted by the visuals of sweeping vistas on the screen.

Then intriguingly, the screen tilted and turned into a giant mirrored surface reflecting the audience back to themselves.

The house lights came on as Wong’s voice sang a Buddhist sutra. Slowly, the fans got to their feet and streamed out, too flummoxed to even chorus for an encore.

It was a deliciously enigmatic moment when pop culture and conceptual visual art collided.

Wong might not have said much that night but she certainly made a statement with that ending.

(ST)