Wu Bai shows a fresh face for new Taiwan tour

Having had a rock career for 14 years and having performed with China Blue for 12 years, has Wu Bai (伍佰), "Taiwan's King of Live performance," changed throughout the years?

The answers will be revealed in the upcoming around-Taiwan tour: Love Power (愛力演唱會).

Starting from tomorrow in Taipei, Wu Bai and China Blue will give eight concerts in six Taiwan cities. It is the fifth Taiwan tour of this local guitar hero since 1998. The last tour was the Ninth Heaven Tour two years ago.

The Love Power concerts will be indoor gigs. Therefore there will be no scenes of Wu Bai and band members wearing spacemen outfits, or flying through the air with the help of wires. There will also be fewer fireworks and special visual effects.

In a way, the new tour offers a purer musical experience for Wu Bai's fans. In the concert, Wu Bai and China Blue will be performing more than 30 of their songs.

The concept behind Love Power, in Wu Bai's own words is: Love comes first, then comes power.

"Taiwan's society is sick and it needs to take medicine. For me the medicine is love. We need to give more love to others," Wu Bai said.

The sickness, according to Wu Bai, is the high suicide rate and the loss of balance in people's hearts.

The concert will therefore be divided into two parts. In the first half, the Love section, the band will be singing lyrical songs and love songs, including KTV hit songs like Norwegian Woods (挪威的森林), Love Song of the Wanderer (浪人情歌), and White Dove (白鴿), which was dedicated to victims of the 921 earthquake.

The second half of the concert, the Power section, will be rock-themed music.

TV celebrity Little S (小S) and female singer-songwriter Chen Chi-chen (陳綺貞) will appear as special guests singing duets with Wu Bai. Little S acted with Wu Bai in a popular TV drama Marriage Agency (求婚事務所) this year. At the concert Wu will also be singing, for the first time, Little S's pop song Love You 'til Death (愛你愛到死).

After the release of the album Bridge of Tears (淚橋), Wu Bai seems to be showing a more tender quality in his music and performances, singing more lyrical songs than his blues-based energetic rock tunes. Does that mean a change of style for Wu Bai?

"Not at all, I just feel that at different time periods I do different things. I actually have many fast-paced songs on that album. But they are not as popular in KTVs," he said.

"In fact, I will release a new album in the Taiwanese language. And in that album there will be lots of rock songs with very direct lyrics," he said.

Leaving Rock Records (滾石), which he worked with for the past 10 years, Wu Bai joined Avex Taiwan last year and set up his own label Cutting Edge, a sub-label under Avex.

Last month, Cutting Edge released its first record Dien-Bang-Tang (電棒燙), a compilation of underground rock music from around the world.

In the meantime, Wu Bai has been spending large amounts of time touring in China, giving concerts in Beijing, Tianjing, Xian, Guangzhou and Wenzhou. His agent is now pushing for a large Shanghai concert.

"Wu Bai established his charm and reputation from live gigs, so of course in the future, the concerts will keep going, non-stop, all year long," said A-pei, Wu's agent.