It was definitely a night full of joy and excitement as I finally got to see this diva performed live in person! Celine gave an energetic show filled with powerful vocals and brilliant choreography. I still cannot believe I was there to witness it!

Honestly, I am a fan of Celine Dion’s (considering I own many of her CDs) but didn’t plan to attend the concert at all (Yeah, shoot me). The ticket prices were way too expensive! I wouldn’t dig out RM1000 for a near 2-hour show as I rather get myself an 8GB Ipod Touch which will last for 2 years! :p Anyway, in my mind, I still have that urge to get myself a ticket to watch her show ‘cuz it’s CELINE DION after all! She only comes here, like, once in a century! Just two weeks before the concert, I came across an SMS contest to win a pair of tickets. So, I thought I could try it out since I have so much credit left in my cellphone. On the following week, I was driving to work and a call came in. The guy on the line said this, “Hello. I am calling in regard to the Celine Dion SMS contest and congratulation because you are one of the Top 10 fastest.” I was like, “Are you sure?? OMG! Thank you so much! OMG! I really won? OMG!” The RM30 credit that I dumped into the contest really paid off! Although the tickets worth RM288 each (ONLY!), it was better than not winning any. I decided to give one to my good friend, Melvin, as a gift because he will be moving to the island of Maldives to work in a luxurious resort soon, so I thought I should give him a chance to enjoy a rock concert before he starts isolating himself from the city, friends & family, and live in a secluded island, hehe, eating nothing but mostly tuna for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper every day! I am not joking… :p

We arrived at the entrance of Stadium Merdeka at approximately 3.00pm yesterday, hoping to be the first few to get good seats. An hour later, we realised that the weather turned against us as it started to pour rain real bad! Thank God, I brought along 2 mini packs of raincoat that we finally made full use of. The rain stopped, yay!, and more people arrived at the gate to queue up. At around 5.30pm, we heard live music being played from the stage and a very familiar voice started to join in. It was Celine singing! She was doing a soundcheck and some of us rushed to the gate to catch a glimpse of her. It lasted for 30 minutes and we got to hear (or rather, see from a far) her rehearsed some songs like “Taking Chances”, “Alone”, “The Show Must Go On”, “Shadow Of Love”, etc. She wore a light purple top with a black skirt and was moving around the stage with her usual singing hand gestures. We were kind of enjoying a free concert from outside the stadium, ha-ha. She sounded fabulous as usual.

When the gates opened, we ran towards the cemented seats (ie. cheap seats.) and looked for the perfect position to get the best view of the stage. Surprisingly, the stage wasn’t as far as I expected. Of course, we still had to rely on the giant screens to see Celine’s wrinkles on her face. While waiting, everyone in the crowd started to do Mexican waves just for self-entertaining, I guess. It was really fun though. I have never participated in one before this.

The concert began right after the arrival of the King and Queen (including Tun Dr Mahathir. And even our Deputy Prime Minister. *shocking*) at 8.45pm. The 3 giant screens played a beautiful fast-paced montage of Celine’s and the crowd started to cheer. The music to the track “I Drove All Night” came on and she appeared on stage to sing the song - we all went crazy and screamed! Right after that, she gave us “Power Of Love” which was, like, THE song that I’ve been wanting to see her perform live! She definitely gave me chills with that fabulous rendition.

Usually, I would not expect a first class artist like Celine Dion to talk for over a minute or so in a concert but she did it in her most sincere way. After singing the song “Power Of Love”, she took the time to welcome the King and Queen and apologised to all her fans for rescheduling the concert due to her recent lungs infection while performing in Australia. I managed to record the so-called speech with my cellphone and she said something like this :

“… hope that those of you enjoy the show tonight. What an honour to me and all of us here on stage to have your friends among us tonight.”
[This part was directed to the King and Queen.]

“We have started this tour a couple of months ago and it has been an amazing dream so far. And it is our very first time in Kuala Lumpur… and especially all of you people are extraordinary. You have been welcoming all of us here in a very very special way, we’re feeling very welcomed. And this afternoon, when we got here, and it started to rain so hard, I was like “Aww…” but I’ve been told that it rains a lot here in the afternoon and I look up in the sky tonight and we have a beautiful moon with us, and I am very thankful, not only to the moon [*the crowd giggled*], but I am very thankful to all of you. First of all, if I may, apologise to all you for having to reschedule the show. I know it is not always easy to postpone and to reschedule everyone’s schedule, everybody has work, everybody has family… and I wanna to be here and have fun, to be in top-shape and I wanna thank you for your patience and your understanding. Thank you for giving me another chance to perform here in Kuala Lumpur!“

Wow! That 3-minute moment was one of the best in my life, LOL!

Anyway, she continued the show with the title track of her new album, Taking Chances. And the rest of the songs were as follows :

• It’s All Coming Back To Me Now
• Because You Loved Me
• To Love You More
• Eyes On Me
• All By Myself
• I’m Alive (Remix version)
• Shadow Of Love
• I’m Your Angel
• Alone
• Por Que Tu M’aimes Encore
• Think Twice
• My Love
• We Will Rock You
• The Show Must Go On
• It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World
• That’s Just The Woman In Me
• Love Can Move Mountains
• River Deep, Mountain High

My favourite performances from the above setlist were “Because You Loved Me” and “All By Myself”. Celine Dion completely nailed the song “All By Myself”. I went nuts when the music paused and everyone could only hear her angelic voice belting the final chorus “All by myself… all by myself ” before reaching the climax which really blown the crowd away.

She made a tribute that night to the magnificent English rock band, Queen, with their hits “We Will Rock You” and “The Show Must Go On”. I personally never enjoy any of their hits but Celine really got the crowd singing along.

Of course, how could it be a Celine Dion concert without her biggest ballad ever, “My Heart Will Go On”. She ended the show with this heavenly performance and everyone was waving and singing to it word by word.

No doubt, Celine is still one of the greatest vocalists in the world and she proved it to us in this 105 minute concert. It was a night that I will remember as long as I could. “Thank you for giving us the show of a lifetime, Celine!“

I’ve won quite a number of contests in my life but none of them was ever as fantastic as one that gave me RM1000 cold hard cash by just calling up a radio station! It was from the LiteFM’s Top 500 Countdown Cash Song contest where the DJ gives out three clues pertaining to a particular song in the countdown and the 9th caller to guess the song correctly will win the money instantly! I’ve tried dialing for the past 2 days but never got through the line. This afternoon, around 1.15pm, Deejay Non gave out three clues and immediately, I knew it was for the song “Reflection” by Christina Aguilera. Surprisingly, I only dialed twice, I got through and he picked up! When he said my answer was correct, I was like “Oh my Godddddddd! Are you kidding me?”. I could not believe I actually won that money. I had to ask Non again if I really, really, really did win the cash. The conversation was played on air and I sounded like I got freaked out! But it was definitely one of the best prizes I’ve won in a contest. Thank you, LiteFM!

Touch My Body, that’s the title of Mariah Carey’s new single taken off her follow-up to the mega-selling album, “The Emancipation Of Mimi”. The forthcoming album is called “E=MC2” and is set to release on April 15th. I think the new single could easily earn her another #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 Single chart but would it remain there for weeks? Personally, it sounds to me like a fast version of her previous hit, Always Be My Baby, but of course, in a different style. After listening to it a few times, I find the midtempo melody quite repetitive and it might not appeal to many who expected something more upbeat.

With 17 No. 1. Billboard Hot 100 singles, Carey is currently tied with Elvis Presley. With “E=MC2“, she may top the Beatles’ record of 20.

You can listen to the full track of “Touch My Body” at : MariahCarey.com

What do you think of the song?

When my friends, Claudia & Catherine, visited me at home (to collect red packets and eat delicious home cooked food!) during the first day of Chinese New Year, they invited me to join them on a 1-day trip to Melaka on the third day which fell on Saturday. Since I hadn’t been there for the past 2 years, it would be nice to travel during the holiday.

We started our journey at seven in the morning and reached the Melaka town around 9.00am. The streets were pretty quiet and we managed to find a parking lot, nearest to the popular tourist spots, to park our car. By noon, there were already tourists everywhere, especially along the Jonker Walk where Claudia and I bought some craft items. The weather was so hot (thankfully, not a single drop of rain) but it did not deter us. We were just busy snapping photos and more photos under the hot sun! After we left Melaka, we went to Port Dickson along the way to have dinner and spent some time at the beach. It was definitely a tiring but enjoyable trip on this day of Chinese New Year. By the way, GONG XI FA CAI! :)

When I was busy doing some minor spring-cleaning for my bedroom before the Chinese New Year, I came across some old photos of myself and artists who were ONCE popular in the early 90s. It is funny to know that I was really a fanatic and would go anywhere (or do anything) just to get a close-up pictures with my favourite singers. I managed to scan some of the better ones for this blog although I don’t like how I looked in them - Nerdy!

First up, that’s a picture of me and ex-bubblegum-pop princess, Deborah (Debbie) Gibson. It was taken in a private meet-the-fan session in 1993 during her visit to promote her album, Body Mind Soul.

And then, at the same year, I got to have an opportunity to meet up with Cathy Dennis, thanks to a very kind friend who worked in Polygram Records. She was here to promote her album, Into The Skyline. The first photo was taken at her meet-the-fan session at Bukit Bintang Plaza. The second one was at the Hotel Istana where she stayed. And the third one was taken during her visit to the National Art Gallery. In this picture, she was getting a palm-reading from her hairstylist, haha!

Finally, these are photos of Tommy Page (Yeah, I USED to like his music! I admit!) when he was in Kuala Lumpur. The first one was when he had a press conference at Central Market in 1990 to promote his album, Paintings In My Mind. The second and third photos were taken during the meet-the-fan session at Subang Parade in 1992 to promote his album, A Friend To Rely On.

I wish I had taken photos of some other artists like Jordan Hill, Jon Secada, Richard Marx who were meeting fans in Kuala Lumpur during the 90s but I didn’t - couldn’t find a camera, haha!