*Leon shook hands w/ the audience.

Sorry this report is so late. I had several projects to do and needed to prepare for final exams right when I returned from my trip to HK. This time my trip to HK was quite short..4 days and 3 nights...I would have stayed longer, but Thanksgiving break was only 4 days long (plus I had to miss a day of school). On my 16 hour airplane trip from L.A. to HK, I was able to watch a short video clip of Leon on Cathay Pacific airlines..basically Leon asked for people to donate any spare foreign currency they may have to Unicef, and then the video showed some highlights of Leon's charity work for Unicef. 

OK, back to the main topic..Leon's concert. I won't be explaining in great detail what happened during the concert, since this concert will most likely come out on DVD/VCD/LD, and I think most of you have already read reports about the concert on newspapers/websites.

Before you read my report of the concert, I must warn you....if you don't like hearing any kind of criticism about Leon, then please EXIT this webpage now!! I'm only stating my point of view of this concert...most likely the majority of you won't agree w/ what I have to say, but so?..even Leon said that there will be people who don't enjoy this new style of his concert..and I fit into that category. Don't start saying things like "You're not a Leon fan!"..uhm...if I'm not a fan, then why am I spending all this time making a Leon webpage??..I see on messageboards how some of you people call other Leon fans an "Anti-Leon fan" whenever they say something negative about Leon...but have you ever thought that Leon isn't 100% perfect in everything he does?? Anyway... I liked his '97 concert A LOT more than his '99 concert.

I went to the November 26th and 27th concerts. I'm sure his International Fans day and the last day of his concert were much more exciting than what I saw, but I'm only reporting on the 2 shows that I saw. Well...where should I begin first?..what I liked about the concert or what I didn't like about the concert?... I guess I'll start w/ what I didn't like, since it's the biggest part. I didn't like Leon's 'casual' looking clothes...and especially those hats that were covering his eyes the majority of the time. HK concerts are known for artists dressing up in fancy looking clothes.. different than what you would see people wearing on the street.. that's one point which sets the HK concerts apart from the American concerts (which I have no interest for). During his '97 concert, Leon wore many different kinds of clothing..almost 11 to 12 different outfits that looked a bit out of the ordinary..but this time during his '99 concert, he only wore around 7 to 8 outfits that didn't look very special, other than maybe the "L" cap he wore. Second point which I didn't like...TOO many fast songs!!!..and songs that aren't very popular either. What was the most annoying part was during a few songs where the music was just WAY too loud..so loud that it covered up parts of when Leon was singing. Perhaps people in HK haven't really experienced such rock concerts before, but I like watching Chinese concerts instead of American rock concerts to get away from such loud music. I'm coming to a concert hoping to hear some of Leon's greatest hits from both Sony and PolyGram, but all I'm hearing are the songs from his Sony albums (except for "100 Possibilities" and the couple of PolyGram songs he sang during his encore). Yes, there were some great songs in his recent Sony albums, but I didn't see the point in singing such songs as "Crazy Female Lead Actress" and "Flying Period" other than the fact that they're both fast songs... I enjoy listening to some fast songs (only the fast songs that were previously plugged on the radio), but if Leon is going to jam-pack his concert w/ a ton of fast songs, then he should be prepared to do a choreographed dance to ALL of them! Either Leon was just too busy to learn the dance steps or he's lazy to learn it.. I don't consider unchoreographed dancing as really dancing... ..nor running around the stage or standing in one place and moving the arms just a little... now if he danced as much as his Korean dancers, then that would have been great. I was hoping to see a choreographed dance move to "Prima-Donna" and "Sugar in the Marmalade" and especially "Happy 2000", but nope... for "Prima Donna" he was just standing there like a piece of wood while the 2 Korean female dancers danced beside him. And for "Happy 2000", he just ran around the stage w/ his dancers..boring...I've only seen the choreographed dance steps to Happy 2000 once on TV, and that was on Jade Solid Gold, and Leon looked really cool dancing to that song, so I was really hoping to see him dance to this live at the concert.  Also, for the song "See Less Desire More", Leon had a choreographed dance step to this song when he sang it in L.A., but he didn't dance the same steps during his HK concert.

BTW, did I mention that I dozed off a few times during both shows??....well, I don't know if that really tells you how interesting or uninteresting the concert was...but then again, you have to remember, I arrived in HK at 6:30AM HK time on Friday.. then checked into the hotel...and immediately afterwards started visiting shops in MongKok to find pictures, cds, etc..all the way up until dinner time and then going to see Leon's concert on that same night. Basically the only time my feet could rest for more than 30 minutes that day was when I was watching the concert. Maybe you don't know, but it's VERY tiring walking the entire day.. walking up and down god knows how many stairs, and then going to watch a concert when it's supposingly around 4AM L.A. time. But then again, if something is REALLY interesting to me, I don't think I would fall asleep even if I didn't have sleep for 24 hours. The first concert I fell asleep for a few seconds during the part when the Japanese musician was playing on his piano while Leon was backstage changing..not very interesting to me, especially when he's playing music which I didn't recognize as being any of Leon's songs. The 2nd night I dozed off when the Japanese guitarist was playing a solo on his guitar..again when Leon went backstage to change. I also dozed off when Leon was singing a fast song (while he was just standing in one place only and not dancing)...quite uninteresting. I didn't find the rapper Thomas King that interesting either...I couldn't understand a thing he was saying when he was doing his solo rap. The breaks in between songs where Leon was changing clothes were the most uninteresting part of the entire show... but in the '97 concert, it was quite different...not as many 'solo' musicians doing there own stuff...I find it more interesting if the dancers were doing something on stage (such as in '97) than listening to someone do a solo on their instrument. 

Regarding the whole atmosphere of the concert...it definitely didn't compare to the '97 one. In the '97 concert, there were A LOT of fans who had light sticks and were doing their synchronized hand movements.. and there was a lot more applause during that concert than this one. The audience sounded kinda dead in this concert, up until the encore when Leon sang his more famous, older songs where the audience started to wake up and react (doesn't that tell you anything??..it shows the majority of people at the concert enjoy listening to his slower, more famous songs). Yeah, I know the International Fan Club Day probably had a lot of light stick action by the audience, but even in '97 when I went to 2 shows, it wasn't during the International Fan Club Day and yet there was still A LOT of enthusiastic and excited fans. On both nights Leon told a joke w/ Mark..both which weren't that funny. I don't remember exactly what Leon said on the first night I was there..the joke had something to do about food talking w/ other food. On the 2nd night Leon told a joke that went something like this... Leon says, "There's this guy who went home drunk...and then he went to the bathroom before going to sleep. When he was about to get into bed w/ his wife, he told his wife 'There's something strange with the light in the bathroom...it turns on when I open the door and then turns off when I close the door' and the wife asks, 'Did you feel a cold breeze when you went to the bathroom?', and the husband said 'yes'..and the wife slapped her husband on the cheek and said, 'You lousy man!..you went to pee in the refrigerator again!' "..and that was Leon's joke for the night... 

Ok, now to the parts of the concert which I thought were pretty cool. The first was when he sang "Sour"..there was a conveyor belt in the middle of the stage, and when Leon and the dancers were walking on it and then stopped walking, they would slide back, almost like they were gliding on the stage. Then the whole middle part of the stage would circulate w/ Leon and the dancers. I was able to see the conveyor belt on the 1st night when I was sitting near one of the side stages, but the 2nd night I was sitting on the floor, so I didn't see the conveyor belt on the stage...which made it look even more like Leon was just gliding on the stage. The next best part was when Leon sang "No One But Me"..he, Mark, and a Japanese guitarist went to the circular part of the 'catwalk' like stage, and when the music began, the circular platform started to go up in the air..Leon was up at least 2-3 stories high w/ the 2 guys, while the platform was circulating in the air. That was really interesting to watch. The slow songs were also great!..it's the only time you can clearly hear Leon's voice. I especially liked hearing his oldies "Sorry, I Love You" and "One Night of Love"...the new song "You Are My Friend" was very good too. It's too bad he didn't sing "Try to Remember" while playing a guitar...that would have really been great.

I'm sure most of you college students have filled out course evaluations before, right?..well instead of grading on the professor and the course, I'll evaluate Leon and the show itself... Leon gets above average marks...but the show only gets average.... if I were to compare this HK show w/ someone else's May '99 L.A. show (I'm not even talking HK show and I'm not even a huge fan of that other singer), I enjoyed this other guy's show more than Leon's HK show... cuz the main singer danced A LOT more than Leon and there were a lot more fancy costumes to see...hint hint. If Leon's main strength is singing slow songs, then he should stick w/ singing more slow songs rather than fast ones..and not go singing 20some fast songs during a concert when he doesn't dance (choreographed) to a majority of them.