3-2-1 A-mei in Concert, Hong Kong Coliseum March 21 Sherry Cheng Huei-mei - or A-mei as she is professionally known - is a slip of a girl from a hill tribe in northern Taiwan. But, as she showed in her first solo concert in Hong Kong, packed into that petite frame is a dynamo of talent and energy.
It has been a long time since I have seen crowds at the Hong Kong Coliseum so engrossed and enthralled with a performance; and even longer since any Chinese performer had the crowd on its feet and boogie-ing.
All this, even though the Taiwanese superstar did not sing any Cantonese songs, sang quite a few English hits and had no expensive props or dance troupes to back her.
A-mei has always had a reputation as a 'live' performer and she had the 10,000-strong crowd stamping their feet for 'more, more, more' as she turned the stadium into a huge Taiwanese 'live house' from where she started her career.
From the first booming instrumental intro of Bad Boy, there was not a dull moment as A-mei belted - and 'belted' is the right word - out her hits such as When I Think of You, Bad Boy, Never Mind, Can't Cry, Dreamer on Air and Don't Want Anything. Between that, she also gave excellent renditions of Celine Dion's Power of Love; great rock numbers such as I Don't Want to Talk About It, Come Together and Addicted to Love; as well as Titanic's mega-selling love theme, My Heart Will Go On. All very impressive considering she speaks not a word of English.
Credit should also go to the slick musical and vocal arrangements, with Relief being particularly noteworthy. The merging of English, Mandarin and background harmony was excellent.