Las Vegas Concert Review of Vivian Chow

November 29, 1997 - Las Vegas Concert at Caesars Palace, 9PM.
Over 3000+ people showed up for this concert!
Report written by Janice Lo; posted on December 1, 1997.

Hi Viv fans!

Well..some of you asked for a detailed report...so here goes...
What can I say?? ..The concert was GREAT!!!!!! Awesome!! *^_^* I won't forget this concert for quite some time. Unfortunately, the concert was kinda short....just around 1.5 - 2 hours long. I wish the concert lasted longer..it was so good!! Viv's voice sounded perfect, splendid, and beautiful!! I think she fully recovered from her cold that she got at New York. Out of all the live concerts I've seen her at (3), this time she sang the BEST!!! She sang better than her previous Las Vegas concert held at Bally's hotel back in '95. Here's the rundown of all the songs she sang this time:

1) "A long and Lasting Love"
2) "Lonely Heartache"

3) "Rumors" - She sang this song w/ 3 male audience members...and one of them happened to be Ben Liu! =) Hey Ben, see, I told you we would get you up on stage to sing w/ Vivian!..hehe. Luckily we had our lightsticks..that's how Viv could see us, and then she chose Ben to go up and sing. My friend Vivian Yeung and I were cheering Ben on, yelling and screaming Ben's name and Vivian Chow said in Cantonese, "Oh, you have fans? Your friends should cheer you on louder...okay...you (referring to us) know what to do..." and then both of us screamed again. Ben sounded great!! ..aren't you glad you went up there, Ben? =P ..your heart musta been beating like crazy. =P The audience was clapping for Ben and we cheered him on. The 2nd guy singing w/ Viv was actually the same guy who sang w/ her at the Atlantic City concert...I think the guy's name was Winston. Viv said to Winston something like, "I see you followed me here from the Atlantic City concert." Winston sang pretty well too. But now that I think about it, he seemed to be dressed too well to be an 'ordinary' audience member that Viv just happened to pick out of the audience to sing w/ her on stage...and he was wearing makeup, too. Now what kinda guy would be wearing makeup unless he knew he would be appearing on TV or on stage? I suspect Winston was actually a 'set-up'...meaning it was planned in advance (like even before the concert began) that he would be chosen to go on stage..and I later heard from a fan that she saw him go backstage after the concert and nobody even stopped him. And the biggest clue of all.... I heard from another fan that Viv had used the exact same joke when she talked to Winston during the AC concert.. she had said to Winston, "lei hau (ni hau)" ..Viv said it in Cantonese which made it sound like she said Winston was gayish/girlish but instead meant to say 'Nice to meet you' in Mandarin. How coincidental can it be that she would use the exact same joke on the same person at both concerts?... I mean, she could have said that joke to Ben since he spoke Mandarin, but she didn't. Anyway, the 3rd guy (I think his name was ah Hei) didn't sing much compared to Ben and Winston. I guess he forgot the lyrics or something and then Ben had to sort of "rescue" him by taking the mic and continuing on w/ the song. Hey Ben, I know someone in our group who got some good pix of you and Viv singing together. =P ..cross your fingers that they come out!

4) "Time"- she sang this song better than when she sang it in HK last December at the RTHK outdoor concert w/ the other singers.

5) Faye Wong's Mandarin song "I'm Willing" (Ngoh Yuen Yi) - Wow!! We all know how difficult it can be to sing Faye's songs, especially because of all those high notes in her songs, but Viv handled this song VERY WELL. Viv sang those high notes just fine!

6) The Carpenters song "Desperado"- WOW again!! Her English singing was GREAT!!

7) "I Want to See You"- Well, I don't know if her Japanese pronunciation was good, since I can't understand Japanese, but her pronunciation of the words sounded the same as her CD, so I guess that's good!

8) Medley - "Love Song Sha La La," "Automatic Actions," "Pretend" - Sadly she didn't dance much here, just did some dance moves that looked like the ones back in the Sancity times. I was surprised she didn't dance a little more, although she had a lot more slow songs this time. I guess she also forgot the dance steps to "Automatic Actions," because it was only the 2 guy dancers who were dancing to this.

9) Elope (Run Away) - Before she sang this song, she told the audience,"This is a new song which I wrote. It's called 'Si Ban,'" and then 2 guys in the audience were rude enough to say "We heard that song before." Viv then said, "well, but I haven't sung it live before." When she sang the beginning part, she didn't look too happy.

10) "When the Red Leaf Falls"
11) "If You Knew My Reason"
12) "Beloved"

Encore
13) "For you"
14) "C'est la Vie"

Now to talk about how she looked. She looked fabulous and beautiful in all of her dresses. She looked like a 'jade girl'...her hair was her real hair (no wigs), and whoever set her hair did a great job. I liked this hairstlye a lot more than in her '95 LV concert. Her face looked flawless. Last time I told you she had a couple of pimples on her face during her '95 LV concert, but this time her face looked absolutely perfect, no blemishes..looked just like an angel. My friend Viv Yeung said VC could easily win the Miss HK pageant and is prettier than any former/present Miss HKs. She wore a lot less makeup this time than last time at Las Vegas. This time she didn't have any blue eyeshadow on. Her face was so white and smoothlooking... she didn't seem to wear any blush. I guess she had to wear a lot of blush last time to cover up the pimples. =P

None of us were able to go up on stage to give her our gifts, so we couldn't give any hugs or kisses like the fans did at the Atlantic City concert. The stairs were located behind a curtain, so that made it rather inconvenient for someone to get up on stage. At first we were waiting in line to get up on stage to give her our gifts...the guy working there said they had to let the little kids go first (how unfair..it's not like the kids know what's going on and who VC is..unlike us!) ..so we waited and waited..standing on the side and the guy told us we would be able to go up on the last song. But you could say that things changed dramatically during her last song ("Beloved"). We decided not to wait because Viv said this was her last song ("Beloved") for the night and we were afraid we might not be able to give her our gifts. So we just handed our gifts to her from the bottom of the stage. Immediately after Viv left the stage, most of the audience got up and were heading for the door to leave! But wait, Viv didn't have her encore performance yet! So everyone was basically standing up and most people tried to rush up toward the stage when Viv reappeared to sing her encore songs.

Security at this concert was too loose! Other than the ushers who told us not to use flash w/ our cameras, there was basically no buff/strong security men there which I felt could protect Viv. Someone could have easily just pulled her down from the stage when they were shaking her hands. The few Chinese people working there wouldn't have any way of controlling a mob of people. If the ushers didn't put the ropes up to block the people from going down the center and left aisles, EVERYONE would have rushed up toward the stage. A big crowd of people gathered near the stage trying to get Viv's autograph and getting a handshake from her. People were pushing and shoving like crazy!! ..I had to push my way just to get back to my seat! A guy even got cut on the lip..I guess someone accidentally hit him w/ an elbow or something. Someone could have easily gotten trampled on or suffocated in that big mob of people..especially the small little children. Viv was holding a teddy bear up towards her chest to make sure she didn't 'jau gwong' (get exposed) when bending over to shake hands.

I don't know if I'm lucky or not lucky...here's how it is...after giving Viv my gift, I headed back toward my seat to get my camera and wanted to go back up near the stage to try to get an autograph and handshake. But to my disappointment, they closed off the section so I couldn't get back to the stage!...but then again, if I didn't leave, then I would have probably got caught in the mob of pushing and shoving people and wouldn't have gotten some CLOSE pictures of Viv (is row 2 close enough w/ a 160mm zoom? =P...I'm praying they come out!!.and Kwong's pix too!!!) near the end when I finally went to right-hand side and made my way toward the stage. (if I stayed up there w/ the mob of people, I wouldn't have been able to get back to my seat to get my camera.) Some people were using their camcorders and filming this crazy moment, while others (like me) were standing on chairs trying to get a good photo. Everyone was standing up somewhere..if they weren't, then they're not a fan of hers.

Now for what I thought was the funniest part of the concert. When Viv came out on stage in her 2nd outfit and was about to sing "Love Song Sha La La," she had forgotten to pull up the zipper on her pants!! ..hehe.. =P Luckily she spotted this before most of the audience noticed and before she started to dance. We didn't know her pants were unzipped until we saw her turn around all of a sudden and had her back facing toward the audience while she quickly zipped up her pants. Then she turned around, but she still had a smile on her face. =P ..some of us were laughing about this incident..the people WAY in the back of the ballroom saw the event all on a big screen =P

This time I was so "into" the concert that it was pretty hard for me to remember what Viv was talking about whenever she had something to say. Last time at her concert, all I did was just sit there w/ my parents watching the concert and absorbing almost everything that she was saying and singing. But this time I was sitting w/ my friends and e-mail pals and screaming and yelling and all Viv's speeches and songs seemed to 'go right over my head' not really getting absorbed into my memory. The concert was so great!!..the BEST I've ever seen and heard! (she looked so much more prettier and natural this time than in her HK '94 concert).

It was great meeting a few of my e-mail pals for the 1st time (Gil, my friend Vivian and I think you look a lot younger than 69 =) ..hope you had a great time! ). I just wished we had planned to all meet at the end for 1 group picture because my friend Viv and I made a banner saying "The Vivian Chow Internet Fan Club," and that would have been a great thing to use for the pix. We wanted to use the banner during the concert but sadly we didn't hold it up long enough for Viv to see it 'cuz we were afraid the people sitting behind us would be screaming at us since the entire seating is one level (flat) seating and we would be blocking their view badly. The seating wasn't like a regular auditorium or showroom..the concert was held in a flat ballroom w/ some cheap chairs. Luckily we were sitting in the 1st row of our section because it's very difficult to peep through cracks to see what's going on on stage...people's heads were blocking the view of others. Also, if we met after the concert, we might have gotten interviewed by "Focus on Focus" (Sing Si Jui Gik) because of our big group of fans! This HK TVB news/entertainment show (1 of the top 5 shows in HK) was at the concert and were interviewing a few of the fans, although I didn't get interviewed ..but I might have gotten on TV w/ my friend Viv. =P ..we kind of stood in the back of the person getting interviewed for a second, so we might have appeared in the background.

The most touching part...when my friend Viv was stuck in the mob of people, she was able to see that Viv C. was getting watery eyed and about to cry when she was singing her last song "C'est la Vie". Viv's voice didn't sound too clear for a few seconds (as stated by my mom..since I was too busy snapping away w/ my camera getting last minute shots and wasn't hearing how Viv was singing). Luckily no tears fell from Viv's face, otherwise, I think a lot of other people would have started crying too. I think Viv said at the end that she's probably not coming back to the US to perform ever again and told us to "take care".

Too bad Viv didn't have a question/answer part. Nobody in the audience asked any questions. I didn't really like the fact that Annie Wu got to sing 3 songs..she was eating up Viv's concert time! We could have used that time to stick in another 2 songs and a Q/A part.

Okay, according to Virgil's little LV vs AC contest, here are the points we have accumulated:

1) getting Viv 2 look at u straight in the eye:
15pts (4-7 of us..she saw us w/ the lightsticks and waved to us and also looked at us when giving her the gifts)

2) getting Vivian 2 call out your name:
25 pts (Vivian asked the 3 males to introduce themselves before singing "Rumors" and so Ben said "My name is Benjamin" and Viv said "Benjamin". )

3) getting Viv 2 call u out 2 sing w/ her:
50pts (we got Ben up there!..hehe)

4) getting an autograph after singing w/ her:
25 out of 50 pts...(Ben didn't get her signature, but Jennifer did!...she's so lucky!..and brave..security kept telling us not to ask Viv for an autograph but Jennifer did, and Viv was so nice to sign it right in the middle of her 'Beloved' song..Viv had to bend down and open up the folder to actually sign the photo.)

5) # of Viv fans attending concert:
20 pts ..we had 10+ fans there..(me, Vivian, Ben, Kwong, Vince, Sophie, Lily, Gil, Sandy, Jennifer, Ling-Ling, Andry, Sam, Victor, Judy, Vanessa, and more!)

6) I'd say 20 pts for shaking her hand..Ben and my friend Vivian both shook her hand.

7) oh, if we get on TV even for a few seconds, we ought to get some points too! =P...at least 50pts...we'll find out in about 1-2 weeks.

Well, I know there's still a lot of stuff I'm missing in this 'concert report', but I can't think of anything else right now. All I can say is this concert was the BEST that I've ever been to and also the CRAZIEST one (the rowdy crowd at the end). I've never seen a rowdy crowd at a HK concert before. It was pandemonium!

Janice =)
P.S. Pictures should be completely developed by the end of this week...stay tuned! (although finals start next week for me...so I really don't know if I can scan them this weekend).