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BUTTERFLY LOVERS MUSICAL IN LAS VEGAS: A FAN'S REVIEW Written by: Bobby Chan |
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Ivy's show at the Orleans Arena appeared to be a full house! The arena appeared to accomodate at least 6,000-8,000 people for such an event. However, I find it somewhat unfortunate that almost everyone there seemed to be in their 40's or older. "Yellow Plum Opera" is a cultural must for people of all ages, because it's just to cool and lovely for just the older generation to enjoy. Ivy's on stage entourage consisted of a bamboo flutist and a pipa player (both of whom, according to Xie Lei, played Ivy's gig for "free", as hardcore fans of Ivy, and they were good!), a drummer (who use a Roland synth-pad with his acoustic drum to get the "Chinese percussion" sounds, pretty neat!), a bassist, two keyboardists, and a vocal trio (2 females/1 male) to add some lush harmony and backup for all three singers that night. In addition, the performance-dance group included four guys and four girls; versatile in contemporary style as well as folk-traditional style. They were all from Taiwan, which I guess was a more practical thing to do than to instruct local performers and musicians. There were no conductor keeping the musicians together with the stage act. The band, and in particular, the drummer were very keen with keeping eyes and ears on Ivy's stage movements and singing. They too were versatile with playing contemporary stuff. A funny thing happened at the show - Ivy was compelled (probably by the show promoters) to sing a song in Taiwanese, not for any artistic reasons I don't think, but just to be socio-politically correct with the presence of a large Taiwan-based crowd. She giggled in middle of her Taiwanese song and admittedly explained afterwards that Taiwanese is obviously not the best vehicle to express her song in and that Chin Han looked a lot more nervous than she felt, because he knows her Taiwanese isn't too hot either. I'm not the older-generation Huanmeixi fan and being amongst the Ivy Ling Po crowd in Las Vegas, I felt like a kid! |