魏如萱 - 泡泡音乐会 @ Esplanade, Friday 11 Sep 09

Went to watch the WaWa Bubbles concert at Esplanade last night. I was nursing a pretty bad headache and pissed that it was gonna be a 梦系红楼 all over again, where the concert was great but I was just not enjoying it. I knew next to nothing about the singer, but I got the ticket because I wanted to watch the NyLas concert next month, and they were having a package discount if we bought tickets for both the WaWa and NyLas concerts.

I decided I liked WaWa the minute she appeared on stage. She didn't quite stride confidently across as most major-league stars do (anyway this was the recital studio so no mainstream A-listers here), but rather peeked out from behind the curtain and sort of walked unassumingly to her mike. Second thing she did that made me an instant fan. After singing one or two songs, she declared Photo-taking time (despite the strict Esplanade No Photos policy), and gave us a full minute or so to snap to our hearts' content. These were all my poor ol' cam came up with:


She also said it was OK to turn on our phones, but that she would confiscate it if it rang out loud and asked the caller why he/she wasn't at her concert. So cute.

She kept saying she was 好紧张 and how her legs 一直在发抖 (probably from the cold), but she seemed quite OK to me. Only forgot a few lines in the last song in the encore. I haven't heard most of her songs, and I can't say any left deep impressions on me - but I did like her use of accordion in her music. And her voice does a very interesting thing when she gets dramatic. It's soft and wispy for the most part, but when she goes drama she suddenly sounds like she's drawing sounds up from the depths of her body. Anyhoo. Here's the set she performed:

"the lalalalala song"

一起去旅行

拖鞋

"the French samba song"

拖鞋

想想

麋鹿 (hm she translated it as "reindeer", but according to baidu, it's "Pere David's Deer")

The Scientist (it took me a while to get this, at first I thought she said "The Silent Tears")

我不是科学家

你是不会当树吗

"the Ophelia song" (from some Taiwanese Shakespeare musical play, this was memorable for its one word lyric - "ooooooh....ooooooh....oooooh", with plenty of dramatic angsty wailing)
泡泡
买你
香格里拉 (encore song)

My favourites were The Scientist (made me a fan of Coldplay all over again) and the French samba song (haven't found out exactly what it is). Really don't remember much what she sang, but can still recall tons of what she said:

Her xylophone is called 秀琴 (to match her perfoming outfits 秀服), and she has a little wooden frog (that she used in the samba song) called 安德路. Later, she borrowed a Sasha bear from the audience to sit with her 安德路 frog.

At Changi Airport immigration, a girl went up to her and asked if she was "WaWa". When she said yes, surprised at being recognised, the girl said to her "拜托, WaWa 你很红好不好."

There's a back story on why she included The Scientist in her set. On a telephone interview on a local radio station, the deejay asked her what song had the biggest influence on her at the moment. She said The Scientist because she'd just heard it that morning. The deejay asked if she were going to perform it in Singapore. Being a telephone interview with not very clear transmission, she said 好啊, 好啊, without really knowing what she was saying yes to. And so she sang it.

She has 很多朋友 in Singapore, not just 一些朋友, because she's part of the CHC (City Harvest Church?) 教会.

One of her favourite Singapore foods is 绿蛋糕, and apparently 榴莲泡浮 too, which one of her fans gave her in-between songs.

She has been to Singapore 4 times.

The giant floral brooch pinned on her was bought in Singapore for $45. She felt 被骗了 because when she asked the audience how much it cost, people were throwing up guesses of $10, $5 and $2.

"我就不相信这里没有喜欢想东西的人，因为听我的歌的人都是想太多的人。" (This one got a big laugh from the audience.)

The bassist in her band is called 汪六 because his name is 汪正一 . And 正一 has six strokes, hence 六.

and so on.

Some stuff I didn't really need to know, like how someone in her band spat on someone else's hand for luck, and someone else kept farting in the backstage room; or how which song was inspired by her tragic experience of unrequited love (she said that a lot, I don't know how many times she's liked someone without being liked back); and she kept pushing her keyboardist to tell us his MSN email.

I think she just really didn't want to end the concert. It was supposed to be a one hour set ending at 8.30pm. At 8.45 she was still singing, and it was past 9 when they finished the encore.

I queued for the post-performance autograph session. Just 'cos there was one. It was quite idiotic since I had barely a clue who she was before yesterday, and I would be lying if I said the music bowled me over (though I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the concert, it was like listening to a friendly - though completely one-sided - conversation). So when it got to my turn, all I could do was stick on a plastic smile, which gave me really tired cheeks after, and keep nodding and saying 谢谢. I think they thought I was kinda weird. This was my autographed copy of the programme:


Her autograph's camouflaged right in the middle of the 泡泡s.

Reached home 10+ with a full-blown headache by then, but guess it was worth it.