David's Concert

Corbett | January 25, 2006 3:31 AM

Saturday night I went to David Tao's concert. Irene had a few box seat tickets that the producer gave her (perks of being involved in the artist management business). This was the first time I'd stepped foot inside the "Dome," so I was really curious what it would look like. A staff member met us, and led us through a side door, to a private elevator, up to a nicely laid out floor which resembled an airport VIP lounge. We walked through a fancy banquet set up, down some long carpeted corridors, then through a numbered KTV style door into our box seats.

We were sharing the box with Harlem Yu, Jiao Jiao, and a few others. I felt kind of sad for Harlem as he must've been thinking, "Damn, I could've done that..." while watching the show, but his time is over now.

I was really impressed with the size of the arena. You don't sense how huge it is while passing down Nanjing E. Rd. But sitting there, mid level overlooking the entire stadium, you feel like Taipei finally has a real sports complex/arena/concert stage like a true international city.

David did a great job with his concert. It was definitely designed to work well in China, with the traditional music elements. I think the main focus was to highlight his voice and singing ability, and after the concert no one could leave thinking Tao Zi can't sing. His voice was compressed to the point that he could've whispered and it would have boomed out.

I especially like the fact that he didn't try to incorporate the elaborate feathered dancers or the silly hip hop troupe into his show. He stood there, with a guitar in his hand, and sang strong the entire evening. Pure music, with some saccharine elements where he talked to the audience and introduced the band.

The stage was set up to resemble a jungle, where apparently David crashes his helicopter (opening video sequence). He used mostly a Singaporean/Australian band, had a string section, and three very capable backup singers/additional instrumentalists.

The sound was way better than expected, considering how impossible it is to get it sounding right in a dome. I spoke with one of the producers after the show about the sound, and apparently David irritated the Dome management by bringing all the sound and lighting equipment from Hong Kong. The Dome wants groups to use the in-house equipment which apparently is not so great, and pretty expensive.

David's sound engineer from HK was excellent, able to go from delicate acoustic guitars to thrashing rock concert to solo piano. It was a good show, but my ears hurt a bit since it was pretty loud.

The next day, all the controversy hit the fan, about all the extortion going on behind the scenes. Apparently everyone got a piece of the pie, except the promoter, who ended up holding the bag. Such is the entertainment business. Where there is decent money to be made, there is always someone there to take it away.

Category: Ramble

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