Alan Tam "30 Glorious Years" Concert

Yesterday 07 Oct, 2006 - The sky suddenly clears up towards afternoon around 3pm with bright sunshine. Not a stain of haze that you can find. To me this is definitely perfect and praying that it will continue to stay that way towards the nite.

Yes, thats the nite I am on a family outing to attend the Alan Tam "30 Glorious Years" concert at Stadium Nasional, Bukit Jalil. I have been a fan of Alan Tam since young (partly influenced by my dad). Although I hardly read Chinese character, he is one of the Four Heavenly King of Canto Pop during the 80s and 90s that I really admired and still is. Also partly because I enjoy the songs of The Wynners where Alan Tam and Kenny Bee used to be part of the band during the 70s and 80s. That tells you how old am I ~ a veteran.

Attending a concert have been a thing of the past for me. Gone are the days I am a concerts goer attending shows by Richard Marx, Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Michael Learns2Rock, Air Supply etc,etc. But for this time, I will not miss this special concert of Alan's and its one of the Special Editions.

So the nite started out very well with clear bright sky and no haze. Thats a blessing especially when the concert was held in the open air of the stadium. The concert supposed to start at 8pm but as usual it will always be delay. But the audience dont have to wait too long and becoming too restless, unlike those local concerts when it can be delayed for hours. Just cud not understand what so great about this local singer where they need to delay their shows. Alan Tam was on stage by 8.30pm to greet about 10,000 of his fans, shouting and yelling his name.

He pushed out a high tempo song and also one of his golden hits to get the adrenalin pumping. Then he greeted the crowd saying that he was surprised to see a good mix of very young children, teenagers, young adults and middle age adults (like me) within the audience. That shows that he had a very good mix of fan base, where his songs are heard and enjoyed by loving or dating couples, and then when they got married and have children, their kids are being influenced and exposed to his songs. And still continued to have a good fan base of middle aged adults as they aged. A very good way to market himself.

Alan Tam is one great celebrity that can perform very well and have great showmanship on stage. He communicated with the audience very well getting them engaged in his performance. The concert was well equipped with a great backdrop and props, professional dancers and most of all the sound system was fantastic. That make the concert so much pump up. Everyone enjoy every single hits that he sang.

Songs after songs with a combination of sentimental and upbeat version, the nite almost comes to an end when he bidded goodbye with his so call last song of the evening at about 10.45pm. After he finished the song, he went back stage and in a usual high powered high adrenalin concert, the crowd was screaming for an "ENCORE". Nothing happens for about 2-3 mins, the stage was in darkness except for some dim lights and backgroud music. Then out of a sudden the tempo start to comeback and Alan Tam reappeared from a hydraulic stage moving vertically upwards. He is back to the stage (from the request of his fans) for the nite.

This time he was sing all his golden hits of yesteryears and that pushes the crowd to be even wilder. By now everyone were standing on the chairs, singing along, waving their hands high up in the air and in one song Alam Tam had requested every single one to light up the stadium with their mobilephones on. This had created a sky of white lights (like moving stars) waving from left to right as he sings. And this is what I called showmanship and a great celebrity.

The ENCORE goes on and eventually the nite have to come to an end. The last song that he wanted to say thank you and goodbye to his fans (or he always term it as his FRIENDS rather than his FANS). The non other than the famous song "PANG YAU" (Friends). I believe anyone who heard of Alan Tam will know this song. Practically everyone in the stadium sang their heart out. After that, it was followed by another golden hit and that was the finale. By now it was almost 12 mid-nite, and that was a 1-hour long encore. Amazing !!!

After that it was jam all the way, from coming out of the stadium and getting to the carpark and driving the car out of the carpark to the highway.

It was a nite to remember for everyone in the stadium......and till we meet again !!!!