Gary Chaw Welcome To My World
Asia Live Tour 2008
Singapore Indoor Stadium
Last Saturday

The king cut a dashing figure in black as he crooned from his prop throne.
It was an apt seat for Gary Chaw, the newly crowned Best Male Singer at Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards. And he delivered a 21/2-hour show that kept things interesting for the most part.
The 29-year-old Malaysian shone during the ballads and he started the concert with a fan favourite, the R&B hit Superwoman.
The near-capacity crowd of 7,500 roared its approval when he fell to his knees and his voice soared on the karaoke favourite, Betrayal.
His sonorous pipes were shown to their best effect when he was accompanied by just a piano on various slow songs. He was by turns tender, aching and dramatic.
Melancholic ballads aside, Chaw was cheekily endearing. When he fumbled on the pitch, he said: 'Oops, the king of pop has gone off-key again. Everyone just pretend he didn't hear that.'
That facet of his personality worked well on the livelier numbers such as 3-7-20-1 and the retro-sounding The Wake Up Song.
Some thought had clearly gone into the staging of the songs as well.
The brooding Singular was performed against a stunning backdrop of a V-shaped sculpture entwined with fairy lights while Chaw playfully channelled gongfu superstar Bruce Lee and fought off a motley crew of baddies during Superman.
There was also an English song segment but Chaw could not quite swing the jazz standards Moon River and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.
He got points for trying, although his rendition of My Way, which saw him switching back and forth between his lower register and his falsetto, probably had original crooner Frank Sinatra turning in his grave.
But the concert seemed to run out of steam towards the end. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Chaw has only three albums worth of material.
Four, if you count the first album that he released in Malaysia in 2001, though, he confessed frankly during the concert, 'it died a horrible death'.
Fellow Malaysian singer- songwriter Jet Yi and a shrill Genie Chuo showed up as guest stars but it was white-hot singer Aska Yang who caused the greatest stir when the crowd realised that he was in the audience.
Though Yang's version of Betrayal had previously eclipsed Chaw's in the popularity stakes, there was no question who wore the crown last Saturday night.
(ST)