20090307: Sarah Brightman SYMPHONY concert review

So Sarah Brightman's concert came and went in a jiffy!
The concert was not cancelled! Thankfully. I guess it's due to the patronage of the Perak royalty, who, incidently strictly adhered to the highest Malaysian standards of punctuality, i.e. about 15 minutes late!
The concert finally then kicked off at 850pm, instead of the planned 830 pm. Not too bad, considering I waited in sweltering SWEAT in the previous Mariah Carey concert for 45 minutes, (waiting for another VIP) held in the atrocious STADIUM MERDEKA years back!
My standards for concert venues have since elevated, and I am glad that Sarah's venue is in the project which I was involved in, 5 years back with a previous contractor, at the KLCC Plenary hall. Even met some other friends who were fans of Sarah too!

Overall, the performance was spectacular, especially when it was professionally accompanied by a local repertoire of string instrument artistes and also vocals from half a dozen strong choir!

The entire performance lasted a paltry 70 minutes, with Sarah rendering only 14 tracks on her set list. Three of them were duets with Alessandro Safina! An excellent tenor from Siena, Italy, that easily rivals Andrea Bocelli! This repertoire is paltry, compared to her kick off tour in Mexico last year when she had a staggering 25 tracks! Now that's value for money!

The entire atmosphere was quite plain (to my standards). I was hoping for some gala theatherical stage setup, AS REPORTED HERE , citing "Concert-goers will get to witness enormous realistic ballrooms melding into fairytale gardens and then morphing into giant fish tanks, as a backdrop for Brightman’s performance" I didn't see an iota of such a setup, or was I truly blind? I just saw a PLAIN BLACK CURTAIN! Were we short changed again, being Malaysians? I may have to write in to Sarah Reynolds to get an explanation!

What we witnessed was just a blend of a mini orchestra on one side and a modern jazz band in the rear, with a couple of percussion sets featuring the latest Yamaha keyboard synthesizers!

The plenary hall was NOT crowded. The hall was roughly HALF full! Is this a sign of RECESSION or have the tickets been too overpriced?
I'm sure if the tickets started from RM 50, the hall would be full. However, I guess the marketing director didn't really fulfill his/her SAT score for Economics 101 on PRICE * QUANTITY!

Only regret was that I didn't bring a long my super Lumix FZ28 which would have faired SUPERBLY with it's 18x OPTICAL zoom on a LEICA lens.
Loads of other audience were happily snapping away with D-SLRs, compact cameras and the ever ubiquitous cameras! No bag inspections were carried out nor were there any announcements of any prohibition of photographic or recording devices! I guess they were already too dismayed by the paltry ticket sales, and thus, wouldn't be too "diplomatic" if such announcements were made, knowning that it's just a ONE NIGHT STAND!

Being the intelligent Malaysians, after the plane "took off", many from the cheaper seats (RM 250) managed to change to higher value seats FREE OF CHARGE!
Droves of viewers scrambled to nearer seats at the bottom tiers after the second track was rendered! This was in true MALAYSIA BOLEH spirit!

Sorry that no photos were taken, but Sarah's 4 gown changes were utterly gorgeous. Fortunately, my 10x optical BINOCULARS from 1986 was brought along and shared with 2 other friends and 4 other family members!

The entire concert ended with a small encore, "Deliver Me". I was hoping that she would have performed a duet entitled "You and Me" with a Chinese singer, the same one she did at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 with Liu Huan. Well, that didn't happen!

After the 70 minute repertoire, the crowd left the hall to adjourn down to the lobby where a few memorablia were sold. CD/DVD packs at RM 50 and the official tour T-shirt and a large colour TOUR PROGRAMME BOOK sold for RM 100 each (More expensive than Canada, which was only $30)! I guess this was the only way to recoup some of the "losses" from the lack of proceeds!

Now, any signs of Norah Jones coming over?

20090215: Sarah Brightman SYMPHONY concert details

For those who don't know who this diva is, please enlighten your knowledge here

Back on 28th October 2008, Sarah launched her latest Album "A WINTER SYMPHONY"

You can buy this at your favourite record store or sample it first on the iTunes Music Store.
Sarah kicked off her North American tour in Mexico last November until 21st December 2008.

After having a good Xmas rest after her 32 nights of concerts, she will be kicking off her Asian tour in Japan, come forth 23rd February 2009, and ending in Taiwan on 05th April, after performing in Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, China and Hong Kong.
Looks like the Singaporeans fans should be heading up here for the ONE NIGHT affair!
Strangely enough, the ticket prices in HK are cheaper than ours (ranging from about RM 250 to 700 as compare to ours which tops out at a staggering RM1203!) Even in Japan, rates range from 10 to 15k Yen (RM 392 to 587) and in Korea 77 to 220k won (RM 198 to 564)
Does this mean our economy is more ROBUST than Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, even though they earn MORE than us?

More info has been revealed today, upon an email prompt in my GMAIL account this morning.

If you didn't get retrenched and still have wads of moolah swirling in your account, and aim to spur our ailing Malaysian economy, do head over here to splurge more cash for the BACKSTAGE meeting! Get at least US$400 ready! (About RM 1,400 at current rates!)

After managing to secure the discounted tickets via VISA Platinum last week, everyone is waiting for her performance with unabated breath! The Axcess phone hotline was TOTALLY useless. Had to leg it to Mid Valley Rock Corner to sort out the tickets! I hope that Sarah's concert won't be postponed like Rihanna's or cancelled like Peter Cetera!

I doubt PAS would retort on the skimpy outfits of our 49 year old starlet (or would they?)

The costumes during her HAREM (which meant HARAM in Arabic) tour 5 years back would have made many "Nik Aziz's" have many sleepless nights, even though Harems evolved from the Arab folks! (There's no internet during those days in the cold dsesert nights, so what else would one do to pass the time, apart from gazing at stars and keep the camel herds at bay?)

Nevertheless, here's waiting for 07 March 2009 to arrive! And to savour the holographic stage effects in KLCC Plenary Hall which I assisted to build back in 2004 during my Sunway stint!

Somehow, organisers during the Canadian tour weren't too fussy about photography as can been seen here. I'm uncertain if our ocal organisers will share similar sentiments.

If are keen to check out what her previous concerts were like, get a copy of her Las Vegas Harem Tour 2004 DVD.
Info here, here and here with photos from the Amsterdam concert.