Reviews on Mariah's concert in
Singapore
Mariah
Carey gets Singapore partying
By ARTI MULCHAND
FORGET polite clapping and waving.
The fans of Mariah Carey at her concert at the
National Stadium on Monday night were set for a party --
and party they did.
Perhaps it had to do with the long drought of stadium-sized
rock concerts by international artistes.
Or maybe it was just her ability to Carey those
impossible-sounding notes.
Whatever the case, the crowd of nearly 30,000 mostly
teens and those in their 20s clad in cargo pants and tank
tops stomped and sang the night away.
The rain which threatened to break lightning streaked
the sky, causing many anxious faces luckily never did.
The crowds started packing the stadium carpark from as
early as 4 pm.
The screaming, which began way before the concert, got
even louder when Carey finally appeared at 8.35 pm half
an hour late in a skin-tight green gown to deliver
Emotions, the title-track of her 1991 sophomore album.
So carried away was she that she later removed her
high heel shoes for a while.
From then, the concert was every bit the light-and-sound
spectacular that was expected, with a couple of dramatic
twists.
Weaved into the show were kicks, scratches and punches
thanks to "Bianca', a dancer acting as Carey's
"Siamese twin" and arch-enemy, from whom she
was separated at birth.
The Megadeth-loving Bianca, who appeared in between
Carey's pitch-perfect delivery of her hits, certainly
lent the vocal showcase the drama of a musical, with even
a ear-biting boxing match in the middle of the stage.
But what a pity it was that Carey left much of the
boogie-ing to her 10 incredibly flexible dancers -- the
fancy dance moves on her videos were absent.
But her fans hardly noticed. They danced through
Butterfly, cried to Petals and sang along to everything
else in between.
In between, Carey invited some thrilled fans up on
stage to savour favourite Singapore food like satay, and
she even sportingly gulped down a few mouthfuls of
homegrown Tiger Beer.
Her encore, a medley of Rainbow, Hero and Butterfly,
closed a rapturous night for her fans.
Carey, who has had chart toppers almost every year
since 1990, that fateful year she was signed by Sony
chief Tommy Mottola after he heard her demo tape, leaves
Singapore on Tuesday morning.
She leaves for Guam tonight, and then Honolulu
followed by Los Angeles, to begin the US leg of her
Rainbow world tour.
-The Straits Times-
I've got the Mariah fever
BY IAN TAN
Mar 14, 2000
 |
GO trail her and snap pictures, said my boss.
And off I went for the dream assignment to be
up close with pop star Mariah Carey.
There was a small problem though.
I am also a great fan of the woman with the
magical voice.
And that put me in a spot.
|
Get an autograph, said my heart.
Snap her pictures, said my brain.
At the airport there were hundreds of fans. And I
was told the many-octave singer preferred to be
photographed from the right.
I shoved to the right.
I was shoved to the left.
Yet, in the midst of all the high pitched screams,
Carey was cool.
It was the Mercedes from the Ritz Carlton Hotel
that suffered.
The driver, known only as Patrick, muttered later
that the car had been scratched during the crush.
As she went off to Sentosa, I did something that
would have made my boss proud of me. I asked the
driver of my company car to overtake her Mercedes on
the left lane.
Her window was down and I figured it would make a
great shot.
But when she saw my camera pointed at her left
profile, she looked away and raised the window.
"Uh-oh," I thought. "I pissed off
my idol." I later found out that it was during
the car ride that she had stripped down to her bikini.
We arrived at the Sentosa Dolphin Lagoon, and my
eyes nearly popped out when I saw her stepping out in
such scanty clothes.
My adventures continued after her short swim there.
Carey had a quick change and sped off to Chijmes
for dinner.
Other diners at the Lei Garden Restaurant seemed
to have no idea that one of the world's biggest
superstars was eating Cantonese food on the upper
level.
Meanwhile, I chomped on a burger and hung around
with the Ritz Carlton drivers at the Chijmes carpark.
They were having food from a hawker centre nearby.
And they were bored to death - this was obviously
not the first time they were taking megastars around.
In the end, no pub crawling for her.
No discos. Just back to the hotel.
I hid in a dark corner and snapped away as she
walked through Chijmes on her way out. One diner
squealed: "It's Mariah Carey!!"
Back at the Ritz, a dozen die-hard fans were still
hanging around.
One of them, 16-year-old Dawn, was there despite a
fever. "I was very sick in the afternoon, I even
threw up a few times," she said. She had also
made a trip to the stadium, hoping to see the star
rehearsing.
Carey was patient with her fans and spent time
signing autographs.
I cursed myself for leaving my Carey album covers
at home.
I loaded one last roll of film and snapped away as
Carey strutted through the hotel lobby back to her
room. She flashed a smile at me before she entered
the lift.
And this time, I remembered to shoot only her
right side.
I like her... I like her not
BY SETO NU-WEN
Mar 14, 2000
| IT'S so easy to hate a superstar like Mariah
Carey. She's got looks, she's got the body
And she's got talent.
And like any diva, she demands the best. Like
a swim with dolphins barely an hour after landing
at Changi Airport on Sunday.
|
WINNING POINT: Carey always
made time for her fans. Pictures/ IAN TAN |
Apparently, she refused to get off
her private jet until "everything had been fixed".
Doesn't that smack of true diva-ness?
Funny thing is, after spending a
whole weekend afternoon trailing her, I'm starting to
quite like her.
At the airport, she stopped for 15
minutes to shake hands with some 450 screaming fans,
though the airport police were frantically trying to
get her into a waiting Mercedes.
At the Ritz Carlton where she stayed,
she stopped to chat with fans who had trailed her
from the airport.
She smiles easily.
Singers streaming in and out of
Singapore to peddle their albums are a dime a dozen.
As an entertainment journalist who gets to interview
them, the novelty of meeting stars has slowly worn
off.
And I have learnt that there is a
fine line between being genuinely nice and being
media savvy.
So what is the real Miss Carey like?
It's hard to tell.
I didn't get an opportunity to
interview her. But even if I did, how much can you
find out in a seven-minute time-slot?
So I can only observe.
At the Dolphin Lagoon on Sunday, she
seemed like a little girl.
It even looked like she was in a
little world of her own, forgetting she was
surrounded by photographers waiting to snap her every
move.
She chatted and giggled with two
Singaporean photographers, but seemed to feel more
comfortable with an American photographer.
There's a girlish, starry-eyed
naivety about Carey.
This is the woman, who after being
told of the death of King Hussein of Jordan, told USA
Today: "I'm inconsolable. He was probably one of
the greatest basketball players in this country."
She thought it was Michael Jordan who had died.
Last week, she told The Straits Times:
"I'm very excited to be going to Singapore for
the first time and meeting the people. I never knew
about my Asian fanbase, because no one ever told me!
And I don't know geography... I'm a complete fool."
And she had worried about clothing
restrictions, asking if she would get arrested coming
to "conservative" Singapore in a tank top.
All of which probably betrays her
humble beginnings as a waitress in New York. Her
overnight step to international stardom is probably
still a blurry flash to her.
She probably still remembers what it's
like to be just Mariah, the person.
As she was at Sentosa. Till she
stepped out of the water into the midst of assistants
and bodyguards.
And she became Mariah Carey the award-winning
singer, the pop diva, the superstar.
-The New Paper-
The
Concert Review
I was seated at the $260
seating area. It was a front row seat. Everyone was
there early. The fans were all waiting
patiently for Mariah to come on stage.
While waiting for the concert to start,
the fans seated at the gallery seats
started to do the infamous Kallang Stadium
Wave in anticipation of Mariah's
appearance. Around 8.35pm, Mariah arrived
at the Stadium and walked
through the pitch. The fans went wild. All
of us went screaming with
excitement. The lights went off at 8.40pm
and they started playing the
Mariah vs Bianca video. That was a really
funny video and it had the
audience laughing away.
There was
then bright lights and thundering sound effects, after
which Mariah
then appeared on stage to the tune of
"Rainbow Interlude". Which went on to
"Emotions". I shall try not to
elaborate too much on the concert repertoire,
but i got one thing to say. Mariah is in
top vocal shape. Her rendition of
songs from "My All" to "Mariah's
Theme" were flawless. In my opinion, her
top 3 songs for the night were "Close
My Eyes", "Petals", and
"Mariah's Theme". Why? It was
because they were so personal, Mariah
started crying when she sang "Petals"
and "Close My Eyes". They were so
heart-wrenching. I could not help but tear
along with her.
I would also
like to state that Mariah Carey is very beautiful and she
is
not fat. The press is probably having a
field day again. Being awfully
inconsiderate, a local tabloid had the
gall to say that she had a
bit of flab, maybe the journalist had a
bit of an ego problem? Maybe he or
she had a really serious weight problem. I
don't even know why the
organisers even bother to give press
passes to these people for them
publish such trash.
She also had her hair curled and said that
the reason why she could
not do her hair straight is because of the
level of humidity in Singapore.
"If i were to do my hair straight, it
would end up like a frizzball". The other
thing is that the clothes she wore were
absolutely glamourous. I have never
seen her wear such nice outfits, even in
her earlier concert videos.
A couple of
friends also thought that Mariah's live rendition of
"Against All Odds" was even
better than the studio recording. As i said,
she did all her songs flawlessly. "Always
Be My Baby" was sung just
like the Madison Square Garden Video in
1995. "My All", "Dreamlover"
and "Thank God I Found You" were
terrific.
The two
encore songs were, "Vision Of Love" and "Hero".
I had always
thought that the best live renditions of
these songs were done in 1995 at
Madison Square Garden, until now. The two
songs were so emotionally
charged and really surpassed all her
previous live perfomance videos.
"Hero" was especially touching.
During the
concert, she got 5 fans to go up on stage and eat some
Singaporean food with her which included,
"Nasi Lemak"(Coconut Rice
with fried anchovies, fried eggs and lots
of chilli),
"Black Pepper Crabs", "Satay"(Local
version of beef kebabs with spicy
peanut sauce), "Chicken Rice",
"Singapore Sling"(Local cocktail
concoction) and "Tiger Beer"(Locally
brewed beer). She said she didn't
like drinking beer but she did it for all
the Singaporean fans.
During the
concert, she also said that she really liked Singapore
and wished
that she had more time to spend here. She
also said that she loves
Singapore's all year round sun and
humidity, swimming with the pink
dolphins, and thought that the fans were
really warm. She also said that
if she would like to come here again when
she had the time to tour.
The concert
lasted for 2 hours and it was definately a great one. I
felt so
close to her. After seeing her in real
life, and knowing how much she really
appreciates her Singapore fans, it gives
me the motivation to carry on with
this web site. It is very hard for me to
continue doing what may not be
appreciated.
I would
really like the opportunity to meet her and have time to
talk to her but
i guess it would be difficult. But it is
great to know that Mariah visits the web
nowadays and i am certain that someday,
she will chance upon my website.
Terence Lu (MariahCareyPages)
-See Mariah's
Pictures In Singapore-
|
Reviews