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Whitney Houston

Convention and Exhibition Centre

Last night only

If it's been a bad year for Whitney Houston, it didn't show last night, when she gave a crowd-pleasing performance on the final stop of her Asian tour.

The singer, who earlier this year spent  time in a drug rehabilitation centre, put on a near-faultless, if perhaps a little self-indulgent, show for the crowd, running through all the big hits of her two-decade career, as well as some lesser known numbers.

She  worked hard to win over the audience, which was about half full and consisted mainly of middle-aged people in couples and groups.

'It's been a long time since I've been here,' Houston told the audience two songs in. 'It's a pleasure to be back in your beautiful city.'

Fans  expressed their admiration. 'You look gorgeous,' one  yelled, to which she replied: 'Thank you, I appreciate that.'

The high point  came about two-thirds of the way through the 90-minute concert, when Houston performed what is perhaps her most famous song, I Will Always Love You, from the soundtrack to the movie The Bodyguard.

Fans remained silent through the ballad, as the singer  hit every note perfectly. They cheered lustily at the end.

Immediately before that song, Houston got the crowd up and dancing by singing two of her other big hits, I Wanna Dance With Somebody and How Will I Know, which were both released in the mid-1980s.

Houston, 40, acknowledged that it had been a long time since her self-titled debut album, which came out in 1985 and went on to sell 33 million copies, the biggest selling debut ever.

'Boy, that was some 20 years ago,' she told the audience. 'I was much younger then.'

Houston admitted in 2002 on a US television show that she had abused drugs and  in March, she went into the rehab centre. She has also had trouble with her husband, R&B singer Bobby Brown.

But last night, none of that seemed to matter. In a  rambling interlude between the first and second half,  the singer even brought her husband and her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, 10, on stage.

Other hits  included an acappella version of Saving All My Love, as well as You Give Good Love, My Love Is Your Love, and I'm Every Woman.

It seems that someone also told her that red is considered a lucky colour in Hong Kong. She wore three outfits incorporating the colour, including a black dress with red flowers, a red high-necked gown and, for the encore, jeans, a white T-shirt and a jacket that appeared to be made entirely of red feathers.



HK crowd tells hard-working Whitney: we'll always love you