Queen of perfection

IT'S A CASE OF BETTER LATE than never for Japanese singing legend Yumi Matsutoya. Yuming, as she is known, has been an award-winning singer-songwriter in her homeland for 30 years - and now she's taking her show on the road.

'I always wanted to do concerts in Hong Kong and on the mainland, because I have been fascinated by Chinese culture since my childhood,' says the Tokyo-born 47-year-old. 'I first had this idea 20 years ago but there have been venue and time management problems ever since. I either could not book the venue I wanted or the dates clashed with other plans.

'A lot of J-pop and Canto-pop concerts you see nowadays are inspired by my past performances. Now I want to show Hong Kong the origin of these ideas.'

Yuming is known as the 'Queen Of New Music' in Japan where she has sold a remarkable 41 million records in her 30 years in the business. She was the pioneer of over-the-top J-pop concerts in the early 1980s - she once brought a real elephant onto the stage and entered the arena astride a flying dragon.

Mark Fisher, a British architect made famous by his work on Pink Floyd's The Wall tour, as well as the Rolling Stones' Bridges To Babylon concerts, is designing the set that will come from Japan.

The pair have been collaborating since 1997 and Yuming says the demands of elaborate set designs are one reason why overseas concerts are difficult to pull off.

'I'm a perfectionist,' she says. 'I would not have a concert anywhere else unless it can be exactly the same as the way it is in Japan. The stages are always enormous and it's difficult to transport the full set.'