I LOOVVEEEEE!

What Do You Say To Taking Chancessss?

Visit this! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_Chances_Tour

Well most of you reading this would know me well enough that I’m a Celine Dion fan, and if you didn’t know, you know that now, but shame on you! :P

Celine released her new album called “Taking Chances” November last year, and of course I have the album, although I downloaded it, but that’s not the point! Haha. Sorry >.< I promise I’ll buy the whole collection when I start earning my own money!

So apparently Sally says she told me a long time ago that Celine was coming to Australia, but I think I misheard or forgot or whatever, I didn’t know it until I was watching tv on April Fool’s (miraculously because I don’t switch on the TV very often here) and the talk show hosts were talking about this Anthony Callea person joining a Celine Dion performance tomorrow night. Coming from Malaysia, where every show is sorta like never Live, I thought that show was shot a long time ago but it kinda reminded me to check celinedion.com cuz I haven’t done that since I settled down here.

Guess what. Taking Chances world tour. She touched down in Australia after her Korea concerts I guess around the 20^th of March? And was supposed to kick off the Australia portion with one concert in Brisbane but she came down with a throat infection and postponed all her shows in Australia. The only show in Melbourne was scheduled on the 29^th of March and postponed till 2^nd April so no points guessing my reaction, She’ll be singing tomorrow night!

Being realistic as I always am, I didn’t get all hyped up to search for tickets, probably because it’s on such short notice and it’s expensive and Wednesdays are long and full of lectures in Uni and ticketek is so far away on Exhibition street. Was more like, aiya cannot one la right.. and I pretty much didn’t need much convincing except telling xj got celine tmr!! Haha. Wednesday came, finished Biomols tutorial by 4.15pm, reached home 4.30pm, looked out into the rainy cold weather and sighed a bit, didn’t really expect much out of the day anyway. Realising that there wasn’t any way I could get any work done at that time, I was smart enough to make it a bit productive like making myself get up and go out for chores, which was to the atm. Towards lygon street, there was a sign waving an arrow to the Carlton NewsAgency, saying “Ticketek agent”. Felt like the “omg is this fate?” moment in the movies. Couldn’t hurt to check it out right? :P The guy in there checked for availability, it was a sold out show with few bad seats left and some decent ones were on hold, no way I could get the cheapest ticket, so he said I could wait and he would try again for the tickets on hold until 6pm, closing time. Then the adrenaline started pumping. Sms-ed daddy ‘dad can I go to a celine dion concert tonight it’s the only one in Melbourne?’

A part of me was telling me to convert convert 100aud! But a Bigger part was saying, how many times would you get in your whole life to be in the same town where she would be performing? And if you’re going to your first concert in your whole 19 years of life, why not let it be celine dion rather than pussycat dolls -.- or the kind of shit bands you only listen to their few songs? Haha. Sally said celine to me is like rammstein to her. Which was true. lol.

So what should have been 100aud from NAB turned out to 200aud cuz daddy said go ahead. The guy got hold of a seat which wasn’t rear nor side view so it was decent enough for such last minute action. Therefore got hold of the ticket at 6.10pm for a 8pm show.

The tram ride from Flinders to Rod Laver was hell! It was sooo packed everyone was claustrophobic and apparently 90% of the people on that tram was getting off at Rod Laver. The usual people who would take that route must have gone wtf?! But the Yarra Tram admin was stupid also la, should have known to add a few more for a sold out concert. Record sold out some more. I do wonder why wouldn’t she hold two concerts in Melbourne though :(

Rod Laver Arena had tennis idols small statues along the walkway. I think that’s where Grand Slams are held! Heeheehee. And it’s not even very far from the city. The stadium was alright, oval shaped and food stands and toilets all over. Bought a pack of Cadbury Chocettes for 5.50aud, and found my seat, it was quite high up, like 20+ rows away from the stage, but as long as my view’s not blocked it was decent enough. Took a few shots of the stadium and people started to flow in, by the time Anthony Callea came onto the stage for the opening act the place was almost full. He sang from 8.05pm till 8.45pm, he’s not bad, Australian Idol runner-up, but not really that good to attract my full attention. lol sorry bad comment. Why can’t it be Il Divo or something, il divo’s opening for Celine in Dublin! Grrr. That would be like two dreams come true. Two birds with one stone!

Celine came on at 9.00pm sharp, marking her appearance was an introduction video showing her driving a car at high speed, with intermingling images from her career. She came up an elevator in a black-silver short tube dress, and kicked it off with a bombastic ‘I Drove All Night’. Continued with I got the Music in Me, and talked for a bit, apologizing for postponing the show (it’s not always simple to hold a show, but trust me it’s harder to postpone or to cancel one – quote, but hey, if it wasn’t for your throat infection, Zowy wouldn’t have gotten the chance to see you live ever! :P) and sang the Power of Love.

Her first chat with the audience was nice and long.

She mentioned how she’s always talking about Australia to Rene-Charles and how he’s always wanted to come because of that. She mentioned how he wanted to jump like a Kangaroo, surf like a pro and golf like Tiger Woods. She also apologised for postponing the show and thanked everyone for being patient. She said that it was hard being sick and watching the world go by.. but said that if you ever get sick, then Australia is the place to do it. Then mentioned her birthday and the crowd again sang Happy Birthday to her. Apparently it was better than a birthday cake –quoting her. Haha.

It’s All Coming Back to Me Now/Because You Loved Me/To Love You More medley omg I love! It’s all THE songs. If you guys don’t know them you guys suck. :) She did the trick I saw on video once, when she was ending because you loved me she went “I want all of you to do this with me” so everyone sang the last “because you loved meeee” after her signature “meeee” she said “you all are coming on tour with me”. Well I guess all 15000 people wished they could.

Someone in the first row ran up and threw a Koala toy to her which she liked and replied aww this is the sweetest thing… then someone threw her a toy Frog, she missed and remarked ‘see this is what happens when you turn 40’… caught it, she replied “this isn’t from Australia !!”….”this is from Canada!” :P… she also got some flowers. The Koala and the Frog were given to the Keyboard player (in which before she was messing around to the crew asking who’s gonna be in charge who’s gonna be in charge? And chose the keyboard player saying “you’re close to 40 I can trust you!) to take care of during the show and he placed them on top of the keyboard. It was funny as when the camera showed him during the show, you see these cute toys just sitting there on top of the keyboard.

Change 1- into a white shirt top and red slacks. Time when she was changing her eight dancers would come out and dance some routine with the band crew as backup so it was okay. Came out with Eyes on Me, the flamenco bit before it was cool. Then came All By Myself, fuiyo. No doubt she’d really hit all those notes. Complete perfection! Let me try if I can upload my bootleg version of the end part onto youtube :) Although the security was damn strict I still wanted to take short 20sec vids of every song so I kinda like got told off twice but hehehe.

Change 2- into a “On wiki they put it as glittering fashion victim outfit”, okay then. Looked more like an elaborated long top and leggings to me. Haha. Remixed I’m Alive, went on to Shadow of Love, then Can’t fight the feelin’, I caaaaan’t fight the feelin’, a natural hiiiiiiigh

which really brought the house down. Talk about rock edge! Duet-ed I’m Your Angel with one of her backup Barney Valsaint, went on to Alone, someone caught a more than 2 min vid of that on youtube damn nice. I thought it was better than the album version too don’t know why. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kys1Wq6tt6c

Did Pour Que Tu M’aimes Encore, my favourite French solo song of hers. She said she can’t perform a show without singing at least One French song, (Canadian French ma) and the French song choice she brought with her on this tour was awww so right! :) Then came My Love, one of the best songs from Taking Chances, she was kneeling thru the first part, and I have the 1min vid of it, very emotional, very nice.

What she also brought along with her onto this world tour is a tribute to Freddie Mercury (or rather the whole Queen altogether), she did We Will Rock You and the Show Must Go On. Crowd went nuts and stomped and clapped.

Time for Change 3 – quote wiki a silver and gold ‘Tina Turner’ outfit, to me, very short silver glittery skimpy dress. Song, It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World. Then the one I like better “That’s just The Woman In Me” – jazzy portion in Taking Changes nicely done. After those it was Love Can Move Mountains! Asked everyone to stand up and naturally everyone’s spot became their dance floor. Lucky I didn’t have lazy asses old people asking me to sit down haha. After that I thought it was quite smart of her to say good night Melbourne! Just to give ppl the feeling that the show’s ending, cuz it hasn’t quite ended yet. She came back up in the same outfit and did River Deep, Mountain High, woot! And shouted good night once more. Haha. The crowd gave a standing ovation and nobody stopped clapping and cheering for like 3-4 minutes. I really thought it ended and was like awww. Then the titanic video played and the crowd went crazy again. She ended the show (this time for real) in a long yellow elegant dress singing My Heart Will Go On, in style. As always.

All through the concert I had the overwhelming feeling thinking “omg I can’t believe she’s just there!” that kinda thing. In flesh In person singing live sounding totally perfect. Honestly wished someone like Sien would be there as well so I wouldn’t have to digest everything alone. Haha. But mind you I didn’t regret going one bit. Like when would be the next time I get to see her live again? Would she even be touring when I’m earning? Even so the chances of her coming to the same town I would be in.. hmmm. Big Ifs. Oh well, the show went so quickly to me thought and there was so much to take in. I wish I could go to another show, vip tickets :P ok maybe not that, but everything just passes by so quickly and before you could digest it, you’re walking out of the stadium, hoping how nice it would be if it were to start all over again. The Whole celine and show thing was so breathtaking I forgot my chocettes altogether after Anthony Callea! Hahahaha. Oh well (again), at least it brought a handful of smiles thinking and recapping about it. So people, when your favourite artist Of All Time comes to the town you’re in, never let go of that once in a lifetime opportunity! You’d have to see them at least ONCE live!

Here goes my Saturday night again, drafting this post, looking back at my sad bootlegs, looking at some awesome ones as well on youtube. :P Let me end with the official commentary or whatever you call it :) :

“CELINE Dion fans had waited 10 years for the superstar to return to Australian stages. So, an extra 24-hour wait after Dion postponed her Rod Laver Arena show with serious voice issues was a minor inconvenience.

Dion hit the stage last night minus the surgical mask that’s been her constant companion in her quest to avoid germs while holed up in her Australian hotel rooms.

“If you have to get sick, let it be in Australia,” Dion said.

That million-dollar voice (her true believers paid between $300 and $400 for the best seats last night) of hers appeared match fit as she hit her trademark glass-shattering high note in All By Myself.

Her fans had their patience rewarded with a long set that mixed her anthems (It’s All Coming Back To Me Now, Because You Loved Me and, of course, the finale, My Heart Will Go On) with new songs, including Eyes on Me, penned by Delta Goodrem.

A rumoured powerhouse duet with support act Anthony Callea on The Prayer, a song they’ve both recorded, sadly didn’t eventuate, though Dion hailed him a great talent.

Dion, who turned 40 at the weekend, has no pretensions about being cool, pulls daggy faces and busts out cheesy air guitar and fist pumps.

While the Melbourne show lacked the spectacle of her Vegas residency, she belted out everything from covers of Heart’s Alone and Ike and River Deep Mountain High to a Queen tribute in which Dion channelled her inner rock star.”

Last but not least, my collection of curicuri Photos! <3 http://flickr.com/photos/huifern/tags/celinedion/

p.s. photos look really small though. :)