Melbourne: meeting Leehom Wang + the 'Music Man II' concert

Leehom 'Music-Man II' 王力宏 《火力全開》concert tour
The Plenary, Melbourne Convention Centre  09/04/13

I touched down in Brisbane on Friday afternoon, after spending most of the week in Melbourne, and I had the Guy Sebastian 'Get Along' concert to attend the same night I got back, so it's been, oxymoronically, a busy week of leisure! I never get to sleep early or well when I'm away from home, and somehow my skin always gets into a horrible, dry, unsightly state, especially when I'm in Melbourne, regardless of the use of my regular skin care products. Must be the bipolar weather. Fortunately, Melbourne's strong redeeming feature is its brilliant food culture, which, in my humble opinion, is second to none in Australia. This is why I travel to Melbourne at least once a year just to satisfy my gastronomic cravings. Of course, there are the musical productions that choose to snob Brisbane, too.

The main event I flew down for this time was the concert of my favourite Taiwanese singer, Leehom Wang - his first concert tour ever in Australia. I've been listening to his music since I was in high school (which now seems like a lifetime ago!), so it was, in a way, like I was finally fulfilling a longstanding teenage dream. The occasion was made all the more exciting by the fact that I was also 1 of 100 ticket holders to win a ticket to attend his autograph session the night before the concert. The experience was truly special and something I won't forget in a long time. For a multi-award-winning, extremely talented, handsome, famous singer, he is super nice and laid-back. I still can't believe that he offered to have the professional photographer on stage take photos of him with each and every fan at the autograph session. What a very kind gesture! He deserves all the love and respect he gets from his fans.

Shaking hands with Leehom Wang at the Autograph party (Mid-City Arcade, Bourke St, Melbourne)
(Photo credit: China Town Cinemas, Melbourne) 

With my autographed concert poster!

The organisers of the event laid down strict rules at the outset about not attempting to take our own photos with the artist and not asking to have anything else signed besides the official concert promotional poster (which we had to purchase from them for $5, at the time of ticket collection), citing security reasons. I wasn't told this until the afternoon of the autograph session, when I went to pick up my ticket. I had been spending some time preparing something to have signed back home, so I thought I'd try my luck anyway. This item is a new Moleskine music manuscript notebook that I had purchased last year, with the intention of working on compositions, but I have been putting it off, mainly due to lack of time (and laziness). When I was thinking about what sole item I should ask him to sign (I guesstimated each person would get about 3-4 seconds max. to 'interact' with him), I figured, what better to inspire me to write songs than to have one of my favourite musicians autograph my music book?

I proceeded to make this book, which was to become the most special music book I'd ever own, that little bit more special by cross-stitching a cute Margaret Sherry design to incorporate into a fabric book cover I was going to make for it. I changed the design a bit by stitching the tennis ball into a quaver instead, to make it more music-relevant; to suggest a pun: When in doubt, hit some notes/play music/etc ;) However, as you can see from the pictures below, I ended up sans book cover. I had spent a long time at Lincraft selecting which fabrics, patterns and colours to use, and had it all sitting in its shopping bag at home, ready at my disposal. Sadly, I just didn't have the time, and I realised I would have to sew a thin, rectangular opening on the back fabric cover to accommodate the elastic closure, which I had totally forgotten about. I literally finished doing all the backstitch the night before my flight, and had to wake up extra early the next morning to iron on the interfacing, cut the aida cloth to size and directly glue the cross-stitch design onto the front cover of the book. Thankfully, the finished product still looks good (to me at least). And yes, Leehom did agree to autograph it for me :)

For those of you who are not familiar with him, and might not know what I am harping on about, you can get an idea of what a brilliant singer he is from the following YouTube clip of his duet with the multilingual Canadian songstress, Lara Fabian. It is sung in English and titled, Light of my Life: (the music video is from 13 years or so ago, so the quality is, sadly, not that great.)

   

....Well, what do you think? Silenced by both the singers' great vocals? I expected nothing less :)

The concert itself was phenomenal and lived up every bit to my expectations. Leehom is a fantastic vocalist and a ridiculously talented musician in his own right. He performed brilliantly on the piano, the violin, the electric guitar (which was shaped like a dragon!), and the erhu, which is a traditional Chinese stringed instrument. Like the violin-playing member of Zac Brown Band, he has inspired me to pick up the violin and to start practising the piano again. I'll never be as good as him though - my fingers are too short and clumsy; my technique is weak; and, let's face it, you need some degree of innate talent (which I obviously lack) to be really skilled at an instrument. Perhaps I should focus more on the Chinese zither (gu zheng), which is an instrument I think I might stand a chance at being as good as him at, if I practise harder.

At the concert!

As faultless as the concert was, I do, however, believe my experience would have been more enjoyable if it wasn't for certain factors pertaining to the venue and the fans, which are totally out of the control of the artist, of course:

a) my seat and the one next to it had visible big blotches of dried blood stains on their fabric covers - gross!;
b) one of the security personnel kept physically pushing me back even when I was just standing there at some distance from the stage, not causing any problems (are they even allowed to touch me? I don't think so.); and
c) I wish the other fans were more respectful and mindful of other people around them - I had an avalanche of screaming girls crush against my head, shoulders, and back, such that my glasses were knocked off my face, when Leehom made a manoeuvre to shake my hand. This is how people get injured at concerts. Seriously, do other people really cease to exist when you're in the presence of your idol?! I certainly would not do that to anyone. Safety first. And where were the security guards then, I wonder?

But anyway, on to foodie matters, I took full advantage of the time I was in Melbourne to eat to my heart's content. My sister and I managed to make table reservations in advance at Shannon Bennet's Vue de Monde and at Attica this time round, to try out their degustation menus. It was all very exciting, so I think I might just write reviews up for them before I do the Sydney ones. Expect a whole heap of food reviews to come!