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POP STOP

Down, down A-mei goes. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

Taiwanese rocker Chang Chen-yue (張震嶽) departed Tuesday night for North America on a 10-city tour that will take in San Francisco, Vancouver, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Washington and other major cities.

As the first mainstream Taiwanese musician to venture Stateside for live gigs, anticipation and anxiety are high. At a pre-departure press conference on Tuesday he said that he'd heard of Chicago's notoriously tough crowds and said even if everyone boos he'll keep singing, and that, "If I have to fight I'm not afraid."

With that kind of fighting spirit he's sure to leave an impression. A good portent before the tour had even begun was ticket sales: Six hundred have already been sold for the New York stop alone.

Hopefully A-yue will avoid leaving the same impression that singer Van Fan (范逸臣) did last Saturday night when he was caught by Apple Daily (萍果日報) relieving himself against a wall in downtown Taipei after an evening of nightclub revelry in the company of a young lady other than his presumed girlfriend. The paper's full-page Monday report included pictures of the pair cavorting in a dark alley, an unappetizing shot of Van doing his business while facing the camera, with only the smallest of mosaics blurring where it counts. The side story accompanying the picture warns that peeing in public can earn you a NT$6,000 fine.

A-yue is ready to take on the US. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

On the same night in Taipei, Faye Wong (王菲) was in town on an unpublicized trip to shoot a cosmetics advertisement, but she didn't escape the notice of most local papers when she went to sing at the Songjiang Cashbox KTV and brought along Faith Yang (楊乃文) to join in. They also noticed that she finalized plans for a concert in Taipei set for Nov. 27 at Taipei Municipal Stadium, only a week after Jolin Tsai's (蔡依林) planned concert at the Chungshan Soccer Stadium. The two shows coming practically on top of each other will give a chance to see who's the real queen of Mando-pop.

Jolin was also spotted in the crowd at Jay Chou's (周杰倫) concert in Taipei over the weekend after rushing back from a show in Tianjin. Her general assessment of the performance, reported in The Liberty Times, gave Jay an A-minus. Points were taken off, she said, because he butchered her song Dao Dai (倒帶). Poor Jay probably thought he was being a charmer by covering her tune.

Concert schedules are obviously tight, which is why Chang Hui-mei (張惠妹) is struggling to find an auspicious spot on the calendar to perform the songs off her new album Maybe Tomorrow (也訏明天). So far, the stars aren't aligning well for her, with sales of the album lagging behind Jacky Cheung (張學友), Jasmine Leong (梁靜茹) and even 5566. The current edition of Next Magazine (壹週刊) provides a graphic that helps trace A-mei's 14 album sales, peaking in 1997 with Bad Boy with 1.4 million and then heading south toward 150,000 for the last album Courage (勇敢). The best spot she can come up with for a quick show is tomorrow at the Danshui MRT Station, 5pm. Could these be her first steps toward busking?

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