Tuesday, November 24, 2015

'G.E.M. - The XXX Tour' at the SSE Arena, 22nd November 2015


Going to an arena pop concert for someone you've never heard of is a surreal experience. After all, a good pop concert should present the performer as a kind of minor deity - descending from their digital Mount Olympus in a hazy cloud of dry ice. But when the performer is someone you don't know - it feels like you've wandered into an alternate reality.

Such was the experience of seeing G.E.M., one of China's biggest pop stars. G.E.M. (an acronym for 'Get Everybody Moving') is the stage name of Tang Tsz-kei, who is dubbed 巨肺小天后 (the Girl with the Giant Lungs) in her native land. After this gig I can see why. She can belt out a ballad like nobody's business, not to mention tightly choreographed dancing, playing the guitar, piano and drums and making soulful speeches to a rapt crowd.

The XXX Tour is a decently sized pop-production, boasting with gigantic video projections, glitter cannons, strobe lights, CO2 jets and a squadron of dancers who move in such perfect synchronisation you suspect they may be bionically enhanced. This is a slickly professional pop product where every glittery millimeter is honed to mass appeal.

Well, mass appeal to Chinese audiences at any rate. Perhaps understandably, G.E.M. makes little or no concession to English speaking audiences. When she's singing this isn't too much of a problem. Her songs are performed in a mixture of Mandarin and Cantonese (though I have no idea which is which), but while I can't understand the particulars of her lyrics, you can appreciate the sledgehammer emotions that power them. 


More vexing is her habit of launching into long spoken word segues between numbers. These speeches being greeted with rapturous applause and general merriment from an audience that was 99.9% of Chinese origin. My reaction was mild confusion, having no idea she's on about. Brief snatches of English punctuate the speeches, but a sudden garbled "Thank-you Jesus!" only added to the cryptic atmosphere. By the end of the gig G.E.M. was in floods of tears, engaged in an incomprehensible (to me) act of emotional self-flagellation.

That said, The XXX Tour was still an undeniably fun time. The language of pop transcends international and language barriers: who can resist a troupe of Backstreet Boys-a-like backing dancers strutting around in hot pursuit of the starlet, G.E.M.'s emerging in an impressive sequined catsuit with a big red cape on, or simply the moment where she emits a Whitney Houston-esque sustained bellow in the middle of some particularly baroque number?


Further highlights come in a lovely ballad accompanied by imagery of a red balloon rising up to the stars - I may not know the lyrical content but I can still appreciate a lovely piano melody. There's also the inevitable dubstep-tinged breakdown that feels ever-so-slightly naff in 2015 - but which I secretly still very much enjoy. She even throws in a couple of covers toward the closing moments of the gig; going hell for leather with a muscular rendition of Rolling in the Deep and an all-too-brief snatch of We Will Rock You.

After three encores and nearly three hours of pop-fun, G.E.M. leaves the stage. By this point I'd surrendered - gleefully participating in the ultra cheesy simple pleasure of "Gimme a G! Gimme an E! Gimme an M! - G.E.M.!". 

The XXX Tour is, perhaps, some undiluted essence of pop. Because I can't understand anything G.E.M. is saying I can only experience the broad swathes of her music - which is entirely clear as it commands the audience to wiggle their butts and wave their hands in the air (like they just don't care). 

It's a high-sugar / zero fibre kind of show: one that whistles through the muscles rather than the mind. G.E.M. is a pop star's pop star - and wears it well.

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