JJ Lin Timeline World Tour
Singapore Indoor Stadium
Last Saturday

Surviving 10 years in the music industry is no mean feat. And what has made the journey more difficult for local singer-songwriter JJ Lin is that he has had to accomplish this mostly away from home, in Taiwan.
Two years after his last concert here, the boyish-looking star returns home to mark this milestone in his career. It was also an opportunity to express his gratitude as he thanked his family for all their support over the years.
He said to his parents: “Thank you for the extraordinary love every time I’ve been back and I hope I have not let you down.” He also gave a shoutout to his paternal grandmother, who died from liver cancer while he was in the midst of his Taipei gigs in July.
Clearly, he relished being back and early on, he teased his fans in Singlish after they had just cheered him: “How can like that? You call this loud?”
So what if, unlike Taipei, we did not get to see him serenading singer Hebe Tien?
We got to see Lin, 32, and his elder brother Eugene sing together on the heartwarming ballad Fly Back In Time. They were both enrolled in music company Ocean Butterflies’ Very Singers’ Training Course back in 1999, though Eugene later went into banking.
Lin would go on to release his debut album Music Voyager in 2003 and win the prestigious Golden Melody Award for Best New Artist.
Keeping things in the Singapore family of singers was Lin’s second guest star. The capacity crowd of 8,000 went wild when Stefanie Sun appeared in a short dress to duet with him on She Says. The lyricist of the title track of his 2011 album was none other than Sun.
She joked that she had worn sexy singer Jolin Tsai’s dress to the concert and kept singing his praises as a “sweet guy”.
Another highlight of the show was Lin’s tribute to the late king of pop, Michael Jackson. He even tipped a hat to Jackson’s iconic look by wearing a red military-style jacket. On a stage that was filled with water, Lin danced up a storm and slinked his way through Billie Jean.
The jacket later came off to reveal a black singlet underneath, which he eventually ripped off to the delight of his fans.
It did take a while though for the concert to really kick into gear.
Lin first appeared looking like a futuristic space cadet with a fatal weakness for bling.
True, there were hits peppered along the way including Cao Cao, Never Learn and a fan favourite, Soy Milk And Dough Sticks.
His voice was also generally in fine form, going from tremulous and tender on the ballads to packing a punch on the rock numbers such as The Dark Knight.
And yet, there was not enough momentum built. In part, the intermittent video clips centring on aspects of time did not seem to have too much to do with what was unfolding on stage.
Still, by the time the encore rolled around, Lin was working up a party mood in the hall with energetic tracks You N Me and We Together. The almost three-hour-long concert closed with the groovy hip-hop of High Fashion and his monster hit ballad, River South.
Apart from his parents, brother, aunts and uncles, Lin also has an extended family of fans who have been with him all the way.
On a heartfelt rendition of Remember, a ballad he had written for Taiwanese diva A-mei, the entire stadium of spectators sang along. And when he crooned the final line – “We hold hands together and say we’ll walk to the end together” – his family of fans cheered in approval.
(ST)