Dubbed "the king of live music" by both the Asian music press and a multitude of fans scattered across the region, homegrown guitar hero, Wu Bai (伍佰), and his band, China Blue will be bringing their 2002 Ninth Heaven Tour to fans across Taiwan over the coming month.
The tour, which is the combo's first such large-scale venture in Taiwan for nearly two years, comes hot on the heels of the band's recent sell-out Pub High sojourn around the nation.
While the mini-tour saw Wu Bai and his hard-playing band -- bassist Ju Jian-hui (
PHOTO: MAGIC STONE RECORDS
Beginning at Taipei Municipal Stadium (
Since hitting the local music scene in the early 1990s with its self-titled debut album, Wu Bai and China Blue have appeared on top music charts across Asia with a string of hit albums. The most recent of which, Dream River (夢的河流), although released late last year, is still riding high on pop charts in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and China.
While the Asian music scene is hardly short of heroes, the meteoric way in which the local rocker and his combo made the big time differs radically from many of their peers.
The phenomena that has become Wu Bai and China Blue was not created by record company executives with an eye on a quick profit. In fact, with the exception of popular indie rockers, Quarter Back (
"We all played for different bands up until about 1991, after which [Ju Jian-hui] and I began jamming together with the eventual idea of forming a newer, fresher, and original rock band," Zavolta said. "Then one day, he called me up and asked me if I would mind filling in for a one-off gig with himself and a guitarist named Wu Bai."
According to Zavolta, the trio hit it off almost immediately and China Blue fell into place shortly thereafter.
"Something just clicked between us. Both the music and the mo chi (
By the mid-1990s, the band had conquered the hearts and minds of a Taiwanese audience sorely lacking guitar heroes. With its eclectic brand of very Taiwanese rock `n' roll enjoying an all-time high the length and breadth of the nation, the combo branched out and began replicating this success across Asia. The band's high-octane gigs in China, Hong Kong and Singapore are now guaranteed sellouts.
A major factor of the popularity of the bands' live performances is the ability of the four-piece combo to continue to create original and exciting material. Material that not only has the capability to appease fans with a hunger for guitar-laden rock, but also charm fans with an ear for less raucous vibes.
"Although our styles may vary, our sound remains the same. Our most recent album is a good example of this. [The album] is extremely versatile. If you are a rocker, Broken (
Although the back-clad, helmet hair-styled Wu Bai has become one of Asia's most instantly recognizable rock icons and has would-be rockers emulating his low-slung guitar playing stance from Beijing to Bangkok, China Blue is far more than a backing band. Wu Bai is as much a part of China Blue as are China Blue a part of Wu Bai.
"Wubai is part of China Blue. He is the lead singer and guitarist of China Blue. Just as Hsiao Ju is the bassist, [Yu Dai-ho] the keyboard player and I'm the drummer," Zavolta said. "Although he writes the music and lyrics, we arrange each song as a band. Wu Bai makes a rough version of a song he has written and then we collectively arrange it together. Which is the crux of our contrasting styles."
What: Wu Bai and China Blue: 2002 Ninth Heaven Tour (伍佰 and China Blue: 2002巡迴演唱會 -- 九重天)
Where & When: Saturday, May 11 Taipei Municipal Stadium (台北市立體育場) Saturday, May 18 Changhwa Municipal Stadium (彰化縣立體育場) and Saturday, May 25 Kaoshiung (高雄澄清湖棒球場). All shows begin at 7pm
Tickets: Cost NT$1,000 or NT$800 and are available from ERA ticket outlets nationwide
Towering high above Taiwan’s capital city at 508 meters, Taipei 101 dominates the skyline. The earthquake-proof skyscraper of steel and glass has captured the imagination of professional rock climber Alex Honnold for more than a decade. Tomorrow morning, he will climb it in his signature free solo style — without ropes or protective equipment. And Netflix will broadcast it — live. The event’s announcement has drawn both excitement and trepidation, as well as some concerns over the ethical implications of attempting such a high-risk endeavor on live broadcast. Many have questioned Honnold’s desire to continues his free-solo climbs now that he’s a
As Taiwan’s second most populous city, Taichung looms large in the electoral map. Taiwanese political commentators describe it — along with neighboring Changhua County — as Taiwan’s “swing states” (搖擺州), which is a curious direct borrowing from American election terminology. In the early post-Martial Law era, Taichung was referred to as a “desert of democracy” because while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was winning elections in the north and south, Taichung remained staunchly loyal to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). That changed over time, but in both Changhua and Taichung, the DPP still suffers from a “one-term curse,” with the
Jan. 26 to Feb. 1 Nearly 90 years after it was last recorded, the Basay language was taught in a classroom for the first time in September last year. Over the following three months, students learned its sounds along with the customs and folktales of the Ketagalan people, who once spoke it across northern Taiwan. Although each Ketagalan settlement had its own language, Basay functioned as a common trade language. By the late 19th century, it had largely fallen out of daily use as speakers shifted to Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), surviving only in fragments remembered by the elderly. In
Lines between cop and criminal get murky in Joe Carnahan’s The Rip, a crime thriller set across one foggy Miami night, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Damon and Affleck, of course, are so closely associated with Boston — most recently they produced the 2024 heist movie The Instigators there — that a detour to South Florida puts them, a little awkwardly, in an entirely different movie landscape. This is Miami Vice territory or Elmore Leonard Land, not Southie or The Town. In The Rip, they play Miami narcotics officers who come upon a cartel stash house that Lt. Dane Dumars (Damon)
RSS