Jay Chou Concert in Sanlituan, Beijing.
As I mentioned the other day, Em and I went to a concert the other night. We went to see Em’s favourite singer and performer, Jay Chou (周杰伦, Zhōu Jiélún) at the Workers Stadium in Sanitun last Saturday, with at least another 50,000 people. For anyone unfamiliar with Jay Chou, he’s one, if not the leading, music artist in Asia having won the World Music Awards (whatever they are) four times. Unlike most Western performers, he also writes and composes all of his own music, and came to fame by winning a talent contest in the late 90’s on his musical talent alone.
I have to confess I don’t know a great deal about his music, but Em has idolised him since she was a teenager, so any blanks she quickly fills in for me. I actually took Em as a surprise for her birthday in early may. Back then, I was still fairly new to Beijing, so I couldn’t really go out and buy anything with much meaning. One of the Chinese teachers at work helped me to organise and buy the tickets, and I think Em was a little surprised, and touched, that I was able to organise something like for her, albeit a couple of months late.
The concert itself was awesome. Despite not knowing any of the words, I did recognise a few of the songs from when Em sometimes plays his music in the background at home. The beauty with most good music (and good being a relative term) is that you don’t have to know the words, with 50,000-odd people cheering on, you really get wrapped up in the atmosphere. I also had a big flashy stick to wave around, so I didn’t really need much more to keep me entertained for the better part of 3 hours.
In addition, Em’s best friend (and her boyfriend) also purchased tickets (after they found out Em was going) and joined us (on the other side of the stadium). We caught up after the concert, had dinner together, and then they stayed with us at our place for the night, seeing as they both come from the other side of town and was too late to drive home.
I did take a few pictures on my video camera, as well as some video, what you can see below. I edited it together to make it a little easier to watch.
As I don’t have access to youtube, google video, or yahoo video here in China, I’ve had to open a youku account (it’s the Chinese version of youtube). While it runs amazingly fast here in China, I’m told it’s slow everywhere else, or just doesn’t work. I apologise for this, but alas I can’t really do much else.
Anyway, below are a few photos and the fore mentioned video. I hope you enjoy. I know I sure did! Happy Birthday sweetie.
If anyone has trouble viewing the video, please let me know in the comment section. Thanks.
Photo’s can be found by clicking here…
Going into the Workers Stadium in Salituan. I finished work at 6:00, met Em outside, caught a taxi, and legged the last 15 minutes seeing as the taxi, due to the traffic, could not get any closer to the stadium.
For the most part, the crowds were well behaved. A first in Beijing!
About 20 minutes before the concert started. The stands are still filling up. I was lucky to have Em on one side of me and a tiny woman on the other, giving my plenty of sidewards room, although my legs were jammed with the seat in front of me. Still, not too bad.
Take your seats.
The concert starts. Thousands of glow and light rods fill the stadium (including mine!)
Jay playing the piano on the big screen.
Up close.
Tags: Beijing, China, concert, Jay Chou, Life in Beijing, music
Chinese Pictures, General | David | 
9/7/2010 - Friday 9:19 am
3 Comments
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By Frugal Bastard, 12/7/2010 - Monday @ 7:14 am
Not wrong about the video be slow to load.
By corbin doak, 17/7/2010 - Saturday @ 8:24 pm
Jay Chou is my wife’s Idol as well. She loves him and his music and movies. We haven’t been able to see him live yet but we were able to see another singer here in GZ.(Kahlil Fong, Fong Da Tong sorry for the spelling of his chinese name.)
By David, 19/7/2010 - Monday @ 9:30 am
Corbin: I’m not that knowledgable with Chinese singers, yet, but I’m sure in time I will be. Jay Chou seems popular throughout China and Taiwan (as well as most of Asia) and it’s easy to see why as he’s more than talented.