Cheer Chen in concert | 4/5

Songs of transcience indeed

SINGAPORE – For those who have grown up on a diet of slick Mandopop and Cantopop concerts filled with fast dance medleys, elaborate costumes and pyrotechnics, Cheer Chen’s concert on Saturday night would have been a little hard to swallow. This is because, even for an indie singer-songwriter, Chen is truly one whimsical performer.

At her concert at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, the Taiwanese singer took the stage in a red frilly dress, amid cheers from the 4,000-strong audience. Chen kept her eyes closed, focusing on her music as she sang a slew of contemplative ballads, ranging from songs from her latest album, Song Of Transience, to more familiar tracks, such as Sun and Fish. For almost 90 minutes, Chen seemed to pay almost no attention her indulgent audience, who cheerfully sang or hummed along and applauded after every song.

Even the concert’s most esoteric moments — during which the audience sat in awkward silence for a few seconds in between each song to allow Chen to change her instruments or props in pitch darkness — were quietly borne.

And then suddenly, as if the audience had finally earned her approval for proving its allegiance, the 38-year-old opened her eyes and said, in Mandarin: “Hello, I am Cheer Chen.”

What followed was a true surprise. The show became a mini-rock concert, when Chen introduced her band by playing the ukulele, bass guitar, electric guitar and drums with each individual musician. She even left the stage – twice – to shake hands and take selfies with her fans, and even engaged in a group hug with some of them. Chen also shared her inspiration behind some of the songs in her new album, and delighted fans when she joked that she was so comfortable in Singapore she no longer felt like returning to wintry Taipei.

By the end of the night, we were won over by her charm and ease, if not her enormous talent and poignant ballads. So she didn’t exactly follow the usual Mandopop concert formula we are so used to by now. But her quirkiness and originality is precisely why we love her so.