One Day in May…

It’s concert news, a-go-go! Or perhaps I’m unusually punchy this Friday evening. Hard to tell. （Okay, I tried to write this Friday, but my computer had the sort of hissy fit I had always associated with a PC, not a Mac, and then yesterday got crazy, so here we are at Sunday. Still a bit punchy, though.) (Oh, and in line with general electronics failures, the flash on my camera stopped working, so I’m waiting for an email from my cousin with a picture of my Qingfeng Halloween costume, which I will post. Only about half the people at the party figured out who I was – and them largely because they had found the pictures of me online at the concert the week before – but hey, that was still substantially better than I did with the koi pond last year.)

Mayday rocked Chongqing recently, video here. In related news, I’m starting to suspect that I’ve already read just about everything the mainland China media has to say about Mayday. The text under the video is copied from another article I posted on a while back. (Take my word for it; the punchiness does not extend to the desire to go look up the links.) Clearly, I need a path to get back onto Taiwanese news sites, or I’ll be able to start writing the Mayday news without ever actually bothering to read any of it.

….but maybe not just yet. The Tokyo stop of the DNA tour was on November 3, where they found enthusiastic fans of all ages. No matter their age or their sex, they were all moved by the music, dancing along and basically having a great time. They (typically) made their regular effort to speak some Japanese, with Stone introducing his name mixing English and Japanese together and getting big laughs; Monster added that he’s happy to see everyone. Guanyou joked that in preparation for the concert he specifically went out to buy a Japanese language book, but the only things he memorized had all already been said. Ashin commented that Guanyou is their “sexiest father representative,” which sorta makes me sad for Stone, and then noted this his own snail-like pace in learning Japanese is coming along: this time, he could order some food in Japanese. That’s funny, knowing Ashin’s interests and hobbies (i.e. eating, sleeping), I would have thought he’d have mastered the names of his favorite foods in at least a half dozen languages by now. Case in point, most the Korean I know consists of the names of my much-beloved Korean foods; the rest on my knowledge is limited to “hello,” “thank you,” “I don’t speak Korean,” and “I love you , darling!” (Long story.)

Actually, though, when the concert first started Ashin managed to say a perfect “hello” in Japanese without the aid of crib sheets, fooling the crowd into thinking he’d made more progress than he had.　He added that he knew a lot of the crowd consisted of Chinese studying and working in Japan, and so he told them how happy he was that they’d taken the time to come see the band. Many in the crowd shouted “No we’re not,” meaning that they’d actually come to Japan just to see Mayday; Ashin teased them that they must be rich then.

Ashin also told a story of being in a Chinese restaurant in Japan that was playing their music; after a few minutes, he noticed someone looking at them and thought they’d been recognized, but no – the man just turned away. He had been overthinking the whole thing. But he made the crowd promise that if they went to Taiwan and bumped into him on the street, they’d say hello. (Hear that, Mayday fans? You have Ashin’s permission to accost him on the street! Good news for everyone!)

In case anyone was wondering, Glay was busy preparing for their own concert and therefore couldn’t attend Mayday’s, but they sent a nice flower basket. They keep in touch by email, Monster asserts. In an interview, the band was asked about their impressions of fans in different places. They noted that the Taiwan fans are like family that have always supported them – they have a sort of tacit understanding. Mainland fans are the most enthusiastic, and have been the most prone to be excited to tears during this tour. (I was not among the sobbing Mayday fans, but I believe I did see a few teary faces.) Japanese fans are the quietest, though they do not lose to other fans in their devotion, and most have learned all the Taiwanese songs. (Sorry English-speaking fandom, we don’t get mentioned.)

With so many bands arriving on the Mandopop scene of late, Mayday was also asked if they worry about preserving their “heavenly band” position. Ashin shook his head and passed the question to Masa, who passed it on to Stone, and eventually it made its way over to Guanyou, who said they weren’t at all worried about being replaced, because Mayday’s DNA is unique. They might be getting older, but their music is as youthful as ever.

In other news, Ashin also gave a shout out to Singapore fans at Singapore’s Golden Melody awards, saying the city-state is like a second home and the fans very supportive (and North American/Australian fans feel even more unloved… *sniff*). Mayday was one of the big winners at the awards this year, taking home the best album and best band prizes, along with a prize for best loved group (“stolen” from S.H.E, according to the wise-cracking Ella), another Asian media prize and one more radio prize. Don’t feel sorry for S.H.E, though, as they won four awards as well. Annoyingly, Cowboy Jay still came away with best-produced album for last year’s pile-o-muck, along with the media award for male artist. Back to the good news: sodagreen was best composing artist. Leehom even snuck in there with a prize for the song “Heartbeat,” and Tanya Chua – whom I love and adore and think of like a big sister based on her lyrics alone – one a prize for her lyrics, along with two other awards. So actually, a decent night as awards nights go.

Speaking of Leehom – and I feel like we haven’t for a long, long time – he’s back to mainland touring this fall, playing Wuhan this last weekend. Sadly, I don’t think he’s going to accommodate my mom and play anywhere nearby while she’s visiting in two weeks, but perhaps he’ll be nice enough to plan to hang out somewhere on the Yangtze River in early April when my sister comes. Send warm, happy, river-related thoughts his way, would you?

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Cowboy Jay, Leehom Wang, Mayday, Sodagreen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.