Concert review: Kit Chan’s Spellbound

SINGAPORE — Spellbound was the title of Kit Chan’s latest concert and her fans certainly looked as if they were spellbound as they lapped up every note sung by the singer at the Star Theatre on Friday night.

Then again, it’s easy to fall in love with Chan’s voice. She is, arguably, one of the best — if not the best — technical singers from Singapore. “It sounds just like on the CD,” someone remarked during the concert. And he’s right. When Chan sings, each emotive note comes with the right amount of nuance and you find yourself luxuriating in herevery lilt.

Chan’s concerts tend to be intimate affairs no matter how big the venues are and this was no exception. The singer has that marvellous ability to always comes across as if she’s talking to you personally — certainly, the 5,000-seater venue didn’t feel as cavernous and the show had a club vibe as she opened the first section of her concert with a string of ballads in both Mandarin and Cantonese.

After an unplugged segment, in which she performed a medley of songs, Chan took a moment to thank her fans, adding how she always loves performing in Singapore. “I’m just so much more relaxed and I can eat what I like. That’s very important to me — food — as I’m sure it is for you,” she quipped.

“I’ve been doing this for 22 years. For all I know, you were probably kids when I first started singing. You guys who have followed me since, you amaze me. Thank you,” she added, before launching into one of the high points of the concert, a perky rework of her signature tune Home, which she performed in Mandarin and English.

For the second act, Chan opted to kick off with a jazzier vibe, including an almost bawdy version of My Heart Belongs To Daddy, complete with orchestral flourishes. “There’s a cabaret girl inside me,” she joked.

Other highlights included an almost torch-song take of Nothing Compares To You, which had enough angst to elicit comparisons with Sinead O’Connor’s version. There was also a duet with veteran musician-composer Jimmy Ye and a smashing rendition of Chase (made famous by Leslie Cheung and written by Dick Lee), which she sang to perfection in the encore. Chan’s band was also spot-on, with nary a fluffed note, and they were given a chance to shine early on with an instrumental piece.

Although Chan sounded a little pitchy on a couple of occasions, it’s difficult to fault any of her performances. If there was anything to gripe about, it would probably be the fact that, after all these years, Chan still relied on a tried-and-true performance style and didn’t opt to push the boundaries too much.

One would not venture to say Chan could do this show in her sleep because she is someone who will work herself to the bone to get the show running as smooth as silk. Nevertheless, it would have been fun to see her shake up the mix a little. Seeing as this show was called Spellbound, perhaps she could have played on the theme a little more and do a version of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ I Put A Spell On You (okay, the Nina Simone version would have worked just as well). Perhaps some bolder arrangements of her more familiar hits (an electro-pop mix of Dazzling?). It would have been fun to see a bit more stage production too.

At this point, fans will say a Kit Chan show doesn’t have to be like a Tanya Chua or Stefanie Sun show, and that she doesn’t need gimmicks to dazzle the crowd. I concede the point. Chan’s biggest asset is her voice and she really knows how to let it shine. Judging from the looks on the fans’ faces after the show, her voice was dazzling enough.